Ready for Anything.

I met someone today who altered their practice to fit a lifestyle. My philosophy is to alter my lifestyle to fit my practice. I don’t mean to disparage this person, but they choose to train wearing blue jeans because they said “if I were going to need to use these skills I would most likely be wearing jeans.” I used to take this same approach to most of my training. I would wear a backpack with all my books in it, wear clothes like jeans or even skip a warm-up. I did things like this to simulate some sort of “chase.” I wanted to be ready for a sudden un-planned need to take off and go.

Now, I have adjusted aspects of my lifestyle so that I don’t need to train in this semi-reckless way. I take very deliberate steps in how I approach everything from my wardrobe to the way I carry myself. I wear golf pants to school, they look like any pair of black dress pants, but they are made of a polyester that has as much give as any sweats. I have shoes that are essentially black leather sneakers that look much dressier than they feel. Though I wear a shirt and tie to class everyday, I have shirts that are loose enough to allow maximum range of motion. Through out my day I strive to do small exercises in hopes that I will be more ready to go if need be. Obviously I am not “warmed-up” for a training session all the time, if that were true I would be sweaty and exhausted constantly. I like to think that if I did need to use my training, adrenalin would quickly get me the rest of the way to "warm."

My goal isn’t that the way I train will make me ready for anything. My training gives me the mindset to change how I live my life. These changes are what make me ready for anything.