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#128: The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts [Podcast]

#128: The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts [Podcast]

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 Welcome to Episode #128 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts.” Will your martial arts techniques hold up under pressure… or will your skills break apart and leave you lying in a pool of tears? Here’s the thing—it’s easy to get the BIG things right in the martial arts, but what about the SMALL things? You know…those little details that actually make or break your success? (Is it possible that you don’t even know some of those small things exist?) The devil is in the details, my friend. If you want to be effective on offense or defense, you have to look deeper and deeper into the mechanics of your art. Figuring out how all the nuts and bolts are put together takes time. It also requires asking questions, observing others, practicing, and experimenting. The good news is that if you keep an open mind and stay curious, you will slowly collect the subtleties and nuances that will lead you to your best chance at success. Join me for a discussion on how to solidify your martial arts training. To LISTEN to “The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts,” just hit play below. Play the audio podcast below… or download to your device.Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Spotify. To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below. If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you! Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released. Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life! The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts Here’s a video of the podcast. If the player doesn’t work, you can click this direct link. As always, if you’d like to comment (or complain!), feel free to leave a message here or through my Contact Page. TRANSCRIPT Today on Fight for a Happy Life, The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts. Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode number 128 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. It’s been a little while, it’s great to see you again. Today, I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of martial arts, the nuts and bolts of self-defense. And, no, I’m not talking about kicking someone in the nuts and bolts. I’m talking about your training, your techniques, your habits. Are the components of your training, the assembly of what you do, strong and solid, will they hold up under pressure, offensively, defensively, or will it all break apart? The reason I want to talk about this is because of an incident that occurred to me a few years ago now. You might notice that in the background of some of my older videos, there’s a big red wall and four black heavy bags hanging up. Now I will tell you that that project made me very proud of myself. I’m not a mechanical guy, but I figured out how to get those bags put up on that wall, so it was a big deal. With the help of another Sensei, we drilled those boards into the brick wall. I found some wall mounts. We installed those. I had custom bags made, black leather, specific weight, and they came out great. They looked wonderful. And we hung them up. Kids of all ages loved hitting them. I loved hitting them. Other teachers loved hitting them. Adult students loved hitting them. It was a big success. That is until a couple of weeks went by. In the middle of a class, I’ve got some kids running a relay race, and a precious little girl went running down one of the rows, and she kicked the bag, she turns around, she starts leaving, and to my horror, the bag detached and just fell. BOOM! Thankfully, she was not hit, but I was in shock. Shut down the drill, got the kids away from the bags, finished the class, and then afterward, had to come over and face my failure, grabbed a step stool, and got up and took a look at the mechanism. Just like most heavy bags, the bag had a carabiner on it, the carabiner attached to a metal ring, the ring was attached to the wall mount with a bolt and a nut. Somehow, the nut had worked its way to the end of the threading and fallen off and let the whole bag go. So I figured, being not a super mechanical guy, Oh, I just didn’t tighten them enough when I first installed them. So cranked, cranked, cranked as much as I could, made them as tight as I possibly could, and thought, there, done deal, we’re okay now. Nope, nope. Couple weeks later, the same thing happened. A bag fell off. Again, thankfully, no one got hurt. But this time, I was really upset because I couldn’t figure out the problem. I hate that. So this time, I figured, well, it’s taken about two weeks for this to happen. This just needs to be a regular maintenance task. When you come in for the day, check the bags and see where the nuts are and tighten them up every day. I guess it’s just a design flaw in the wall mounts. That’s what I thought. But of course,...
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