Written by Justin Governale, Friday 4th Nov 2011
I guess things happen for a reason

So all veterans get in free at Knotts Berry Farm Amusement park the whole month of November…I guess there was a reason for me to go to war after all LOL. One military ID=2 free passes this month!

On the real though, I went to watch my buddies spar at Lighting MMA this morning and I learned a lot. I can’t spar because I am competing tomorrow however, one of my coaches has been telling me that there is a true body, mind, spirit aspect in martial arts. I have been getting to this but the way it was explained it made a lot of sense to me.

Art is a form of expression so how you carry yourself in life transfers over to how you act and react emotionally as well as phisically in the cage/ring. He said imagine having a life bar in video games like street fighter (as an example of course). You have three bars, one for the body (gas tank), one for the mind (how you think under pressure), and the spirit (which is interchangable with the word emotions). He explained it whereas everything needs to work in unison or one bar depletes the other when used incorrectly. For instance, if a fighter is in the best shape imaginable yet gets mad when he gets hit hard and doesn’t channel that energy correctly, he will swing like crazy and be inaccurate and consequently gassing himself out. He has now depleted part of his emotion as well as his body “life bar”. If he were a more humble individual and learned to relax not only as he fights but in life, he would perform much better. Conserving the mind in a match depends on how calm you remain under fast paced pressure. Maintain the body and emotion and conserving the mind will come easy…He told me you see a bunch of fighters do this but the better fighters have more control over this and although they may seem cocky, they know exactly what they are doing and how to handle situations. The more you study this, the more you will understand how it works is what he told me. Considering I could only watch, I started observing today and caught on to what he has trying to get me to see. For those who train, take it for what it’s worth but it made a lot of sense to me!

Another thing I noticed today is the gym we all showed up to is only 2 blocks away from our gym. There is another gym maybe two blocks away from that one as well. All good gyms, we kind of train toghether or know eachother somehow. I once again creeped out everyone with my gay jokes but as we joked more we brought up the subject of how training takes over your life. You eventually will adapt your lifestyle to training and that goes for money, having materialistic objects, party life etc. As long as we get to train we are happy. That also ties into the whole body, mind, spirit thing as cheesy as it may seem…

Anyways I am off to Long Beach to catch up with some of my Laredo Paragon Teammates and compete in the World’s tomorrow…Stalk me later for results :)