This New Year, Try the Original Fitness Fad—Martial Arts for Fitness

Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions to get back in shape, and gyms will be crammed with the seasonal rush.  Not too long ago, the local paper ran a series of articles on the pros and cons of various exercise programs.  Not surprisingly, group activities based on developing skill such as dance, sports, or martial arts seems to be omitted as an option.  Admittedly, the fitness aspect of martial arts classes can vary significantly from school to school, and possibly from program to program, but we have had some pretty nice success stories when it comes to the typical benefits of an exercise routine:  weight loss, more energy, improved mobility and function, stress relief, etc.    But as usual I am biased and martial arts offers much more.   So I thought I would make the case for some of the finer points as to why martial arts should be considered as part of anyone’s fitness regimen.

The most obvious benefits in this conversation are physical.  There are lots of ways to build endurance and strength, and martial arts can do that as well, although I would assert in some cases martial arts helps make sure these aspects are more functional than some other modalities.  But martial arts can help develop attributes that are more commonly neglected as well.

Back in the day, I was also a personal trainer, and the most underappreciated component of fitness in my clients was flexibility—not just for its own sake, but how it also helps improve other areas of performance, including strength.  I wish I could say things have gotten better, but they have not.   When I was young in the martial arts, it was a given that half the other kids walking in the door could pretty much do the splits because, well, they were kids.  No joke; it was not uncommon.  In our classes today, I watch kids sitting on the ground, not even close to touching their toes, with slumped backs because they don’t know how to sit up straight.   Slouching over phones and videogames has become a scapegoat for a lot of things these days, but I certainly see the decline in flexibility.

Proprioception is a fancy term for knowing where your body is in space, a part of body control.   The precision movement of martial arts and analyzing efficiency in technique, makes us much more self-aware of our body position and movement.  I took this for granted until I started teaching other people and realized just how much of a disconnect exists between what people think they are doing and really are doing.  A simple example is a high block over your head, versus being up and to the side of it.   It certainly gets a lot more nuanced than that.  Before I did tai chi I would get out of my car to find my knee hurt—which was weird because it didn’t hurt when I got in the car.   Now, I intuitively feel when my knee and foot are out of alignment and correct it before it gets to the pain stage.    As I watch other group exercise classes, I see plenty of people enjoying the activity and working hard—perhaps too hard as their movement is jerky and inefficient, and they place their body and joints in awkward angles and positions unnecessarily.  I wonder how many of them are sore not because of the workout but because of the unintended stress they put on their body for lack of self-awareness.

While many people like solo exercise, another neglected component of fitness or performance is reaction time, speed, and agility.   Many bootcamp type classes focus on the physical ability of speed or agility, but a cone drill doesn’t create an urgency to move like getting punched, kicked, or thrown does.  There is physical reaction time, and there is also mental reaction time.   Martial arts makes you get faster at both.

Indeed, the mental engagement of the martial arts is still one of the biggest draws for me.  Whether doing solo work, and developing the attentive, meditative focus of a form, or working with a partner representing danger, requiring you to stay mentally engaged and alert, martial arts trains the mind, body, and spirit together.   In sport psychology the distraction hypothesis simply states that one of the reasons we feel better after exercise is that it requires us to live in the now and forget about daily stressors for a while.   Again, I might be biased, but from the minute you bow onto the mats in different attire—signifying you are leaving the outside world behind for a while and entering a different, special place—no other activity (when done properly) requires the constant engagement that martial arts does.    As I walk to some of my college classes I pass by people on treadmills or ellipticals, reading textbooks while “working out”.   I often joke that I would never choose an activity that is so boring that I have to bring homework to pass the time.

There are a few of the added benefits from doing martial arts, but that still doesn’t include the benefit OF doing martial arts.  Even if the self-defense component is a secondary motivation, I still consider it to be a pretty big perk.  While I enjoy other sports, learning how to possibly defend yourself and your loved ones may someday have a much better return on investment of time and energy than getting good at putting a ball through a hoop, in a net, or in a small hole in the ground.

Those other sports have a teamwork element, but despite being an individual sport, martial arts still have a strong team building component as well.  As I have mentioned before, it is hard to routinely trust your physical wellbeing to other people in mimicked fighting and not develop a pretty good sense of camaraderie.  We push each other to get better and improve as we are all on the martial path together.   Rather than most gyms where they hope to sign up more people than could possibly use the facility if they all showed up, we want our students to stay on track and progress.   Some people would come closer to achieving their fitness goals if instead of joining an impersonal gym, they joined a team who cared.

The fitness industry is quick to create, or recreate, fitness trends.  Some of these are martial arts inspired.  Tai Chi permutations abound, especially for the aging population, including infomercials.  MMA style fitness routines have become popular, just as cardio kickboxing did in the 90’s.  Martial arts should be used to it.   Some credit NASA with developing isometric exercises for zero gravity, but you see isometric exercises in various katas or even some TKD forms.   NFL teams are sometimes given credit for being the first to incorporate weight training as a means to improve sports performance, but this was not news to martial artists—from Karateka to Indian Wrestlers.   Every major league and most college teams have massage therapists on staff to aid in recovery, again not a new concept to martial arts across the globe.  All these practices martial arts have had for centuries.    People were fascinated watching the last Olympics as all the swimmers with perfectly round hickeys from cupping—the newest sports performance rage—which is another ancient technique from Eastern medicine. I just read an article on the newest fitness class involving swinging a sword.   Martial arts, Yoga, Tai Chi.   I wish people would just try to the original version instead of the latest fad version—often a shell of the original.

In fact, one could argue that the original purpose of all fitness was in no small part martially inspired and still innate in us.  Why do we hold the person who can run the fastest in high esteem?   Probably because a long time ago it was important to be able to run away from or run something down. Why do we prize being the strongest?   Because we take comfort in the idea of being able to dominate, or at least not be dominated by others.  The original all star athletes were the ones who could throw a rock or spear the best. All other ball sports are just pacified versions.  You might find this a stretch, but there is a reason none of the actors in 300 had dad bods.

Fortunately we don’t have to look like that to be able to enjoy the physical fitness benefits of martial arts.  And those benefits are many and often underappreciated.   Perhaps that is why in the world of ever changing fitness trends, one of the original purposes of physical prowess still has staying power in today’s more civilized society.  Perhaps this New Year, you should try a centuries old fitness fad.

Celebrating 20 years—Another Classic About Misfits

Now is the time of year where I usually write a yearly review, hopefully that illustrates a larger theme.  As we celebrate our 20 year anniversary of GMA, I get a chance to reflect and review on a much grander scale.  On Dec 7^th, 1997, GM Choi gave me a set of flags to recognize my school as we promoted our first handful of yellow belts.  Those flags still hang on the wall at DePauw, but a lot has changed in Martinsville. We have certainly had memorable moments and milestones, and I would be remiss not to point some of those out for nostalgia, posterity, and to educate our newer members.

In that span, we have moved three times.  We started in much humbler beginnings on the square, in what is now the Veteran’s memorial, teaching on a wooden floor smaller than our secondary classroom.  The floor had water damage and had warped, and I literally taught class with a hammer in my hand in order to nail down finishing nails that popped up as we moved position on the floor.  It was like whack a mole however, because it usually just meant another nail would pop up somewhere else.  Our “changing room” was a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory, where I was scared to sit down because I was afraid I would go through the soft floor.    Still, it allowed us to start to get a following on just a couple of nights a week, and we moved as soon as we could, along with Martinsville Academy to the location on W Washington.   That is where we were able to have a full time schedule, offer all the arts we wanted, and additional programs and events.  Eventually, we and MAGS outgrew that shared space and we were blessed to be able to move to our current location 7 years ago.

In twenty years, our school has grown and matured.  We now have students who are more advanced in rank than I was when we started GMA.   The current career tally is 49 Hapkido black belts (9 became e-dans, 3 became sam-dans, and 1 became 4^th dan).   We have had 136 Taekwondo black belts (37 became edan, 10 sam-dan, and 3 sa-dans).  Our BJJ program has produced 2 brown belts and 3 additional purple belts to date.   We even have produced one certified tai chi instructor as well. This depth obviously has many advantages for our school as a whole in terms of flexibility, leadership, etc.

In addition to providing the best instruction we are capable of, we have also striven to grow and inspire our students by exposing them to special opportunities.   We have hosted 1 Olympic Gold Medalist and 6 different world champions.   We have also hosted 2 different world renowned experts and best-selling authors in the world of self-defense and 3 different Grandmaster ranks.  These distinguished guests have come from Korea, China, England, Brazil by way of San Diego and all over the US.   And then there was our trip to Korea, where we were able to be inspired by famous masters and the surroundings.

Throughout our history, we have always tried to be involved and an asset to the community.   This goes beyond parades, festivals, and even contributing to sweat angels.  We have had charity benefits for autism awareness and raised enough money to dig a well in Africa.  We have walked barefoot in the parade as part of a shoe campaign and done food drives, sponsored families at Xmas, etc.  We have raised money for one of our own students with cancer and continually kept our own scholarship program going.   We have volunteered our building for other charity events. We have volunteered our expertise for school safety days, PE classes, and field days, for girl scout troops, Chamber meetings, benefits for the Y, at the senior center and nursing homes, for at risk youth, law enforcement and SWAT training, National Guard training, and domestic violence groups, offered free active shooter classes, and more.  We have collectively done tens of thousands of Random Acts of Kindness during September.  I believe these things are important to model and motivate people to give back and support the community.  But this is all secondary to our primary impact:  changing people’s lives and helping them BE MORE through martial arts training, so that they are better students, more responsible and respectful persons, healthier and more empowered adults, etc

There have also been a few unintended impacts of our longevity.  We have had 6 pairs of students get married, with another pair engaged.   5 of those couples are both black belts.  Since starting training as a child, I have always appreciated the camaraderie of the martial arts, but even I did not anticipate the importance of the relationships I would have at GMA.

We have garnered our share of trophies and accolades.   Perhaps the most noteworthy is having our Movie Camp be featured in a national martial arts magazine.  But while I wanted to take a moment to appreciate how far we have come, we also need to appreciate one more aspect of GMA.

This past Halloween, our group costume theme as the Rudolph and the Isle of Misfit Toys.   We sometimes joke that I often feel like King Moonracer, the monarch of the island.  In the Xmas special, he is described as going out every night and looking for misfit toys and when he finds them, he brings them back to the Isle.   Only in my case, when I find them (or they find us), we give them two weeks free.  Joking aside, I am proud that we are a place that “misfits” call home.   We are the place that the wall flower can find confidence and their voice to stand up for themselves.   For the timid to find courage and fighting spirit.   For those that have tried other sports but rode the bench to find their niche and succeed on their own.  For the kid with ADHD to find more focus.  For those with rough upbringing to find role models and teaching for success.  For our homeschool kids to find a larger community.  For all our students on the spectrum or with other challenges to grow in the arts.  For those who need more support than just showing up at the gym to lose weight or get back into shape.  A place for the kid who is afraid of public speaking to become a leader.  A place where those with bad experiences can regain some ownership of their safety.  A place the family can grow together.

I have often said that martial arts studios should not be viewed as reform schools but more like success academies.  And we have had lots of great people come through our doors.  It seems like my misfit analogy is contrary to that statement, but even the best of us have at least one area in our life where we are more of a misfit or nitwit (as the Rudolph song goes.)     GMA’s mission statement reads as “taking people where they are and helping them get to where they want to be through the best martial arts training.”    The part of Gentry that gives me the most pride is that most of the time, we do just that.  We meet and accept people where they are, with their struggles and baggage, but we don’t allow them to remain there.  We help them to BE MORE through the unique and multifaceted, life lessons, benefits, and empowerment that martial arts provide.  We have over 20 pages of testimonials to support that.  And if that was just lip service or empty promises, I don’t believe we would have lasted for 20 years.   I am grateful, blessed, and honored, for all of our past and current instructors, staff, and students that have made GMA that special home for the misfit in all of us.  That is what makes us a classic.