Watch the Fight
15 April 2007 -- No Excuses
A couple of years ago I saw this young guy wrestling on Trans World Sport. Now the thing that made this particular guy different to any other wrestler who had ever appeared on this TV program was that (due, I believe to a genetic disorder) his arms and legs were stumps.
And the other thing that made him different was that he wasn't wrestling others who were 'physically challenged' (for lack of a better term). He was wrestling able-bodied young men. You'd expect that anybody having to fight a guy with stumps for limbs would have a psychological problem. But these guys were having a serious physical problem as well. This guy wasn't accepting any favours and he sure wasn't giving any.
I recently found out that the young man's name was Kyle Maynard. When I first saw him I was overwhelmed by the experience, and every time I watch his clips on You Tube since then, I feel the same thing all over again. Maynard is not only an inspiration as a martial artist, but as a human being.
Watching Maynard wrestle freestyle or submission made me seriously question what I had formerly believed was possible. And my self-image took a serious beating. What I believed to have been a mountain that I'd scaled in terms of the psychological and physiological challenges I had set myself as a martial artist, turned out to be a mole hill compared to what Kyle Maynard has achieved in far less time.
Though I've been humbled by my exposure to Maynard, the good thing is that I've also been inspired by him. I'll need to significantly raise the bar with regards to the psychological and physical challenges I set myself. Equally, I feel even more committed to helping others to set and achieve goals that they previously had believed were impossible.
Of course, when you significantly raise the bar you're going to experience psychological and physical difficulties. The challenge is to persist in spite of adversity, and overcome the many problems you encounter along the way. You mustn't get diverted from achieving your goals, whether they are small or big ones, by self-loathing, self-pity, looking for sympathy or searching for excuses. When you feel that coming on, think of Kyle Maynard.
Just think of the daily challenges Maynard had to overcome! And he is still setting new goals. He now wants to become a submission wrestling champion, and you know what? Provided that officialdom doesn't get in the way over discrepancies in his weight class or problems with political correctness, with his level of determination I think he'll make it.
I've seen a lot of martial artists, and everybody knows my opinion with regard to most of them. There are only a few people whom I hold in the highest regard, and they're in MMA, Muay Thai, boxing, and submission wrestling at the highest level. But Kyle Maynard has got my vote for the greatest martial artist of our age. He exemplifies every virtue of a martial artist that is held in high esteem. Many contemporary martial artists talk about courage, determination, self-reliance, persistence in the face of adversity, commitment to training, and that shu ha ri priniciple of adapting of your personal attributes to combat. But those are only words. Maynard is a living example of all of them, and more. And he puts everybody else to shame.
And here's the other thing. Maynard is a living example of the power of letting the problem dictate the solution and not the other way round. His problem as a fighter is a huge one, and there are no references in any tradition of the East or West that could possibly help him. He exemplifies the power of being goal-oriented and purpose driven, and in him you can see in action the creative process innate within the human species that has enabled us to adapt to the challenges of the environment.
There are a lot of things to be learned from watching Kyle Maynard, but one of the biggest insights for me was about the power of belief. When you look at Maynard how can you believe your eyes? When I see him, there's a conflict between what I believed was possible, and what I'm seeing him do. It's a bit like Roger Bannister; before he ran the 4 minute mile, everybody thought he was crazy. After he did it, everybody started being able to do it! Now they knew it was possible. And I think if you're a martial artist and you watch Kyle Maynard, something inside you has got to change.
That's why questioning our beliefs is so important. Our beliefs about the world colour everything that we do. Our perceptions, our thoughts, and our psychological and physical capacities. And there are a couple of great articles about this which you should read to get the full impact of the power of belief.
1) http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/essays/scotoma.html
2) http://www.witnit.org/archives/mind_soul/
And belief can work two ways. Through the reticular activating system, it can help you to focus on what you need to do, excluding everything that's irrelevant. But on the down side, it can also lock out important information that might not fit in with what you want to see or believe. That's why a healthy dose of doubt is essential. For me personally, I've long been in the habit of deliberately questioning my beliefs, and sometimes radically changing direction when I learned something that contradicted what I had previously believed. Maynard has made me question my beliefs even more! He's a young guy and I'm 63, but I've really learned something from him.
Kyle Maynard, for what it's worth, I applaud you. You're the greatest martial artist I've ever seen.
