It’s the end of the year, and I think it’s worth reflecting on my year. I’ve written my thoughts on the major activities of my year in Sections 1 and 2. In Section 3, are the important lessons I’ve learned this year.
1. Martial Arts
I was inspired to do martial arts again after attending this cultural exchange demonstration held in Kuala Lumpur which had representatives from the Nippon Sport Science University (students mostly). There were various art on display: Judo, Karate, Aikido, Shorinji Kempo and even Sumo. The Sumo guys in particular were very impressive. These sumo wrestlers were BIG, surprisingly flexible and athletic too.
It made me miss training a lot. I just had to get back to training.
It started with Shorinji Kempo, a well-rounded Japanese martial art that involves striking and grappling techniques. I’ve spent a better part of the past decade studying its techniques and philosophy. I’ve sunk so much time and effort into this that the practice and its principles are foundational to my daily life.
I joined back with my old dojo. The group I trained with were mostly older folks looking for a pastime to stay physically active. I was there collecting wisdom from folks who have lived-in experiences as much as I am training techniques.
There is a benefit to that, but the problem is I was out of shape, I wanted a physically demanding activity where aggression is warranted but only if tempered with discipline, and I also needed to train with people who were within my age group. Those desires were met with Brazilian Jiujitsu.
Brazilian JiuJitsu is a grappling martial art fought almost completely on the ground. The aim of BJJ is to wrestle and gain control over the opponent’s body through sequences of techniques that ends up in a submission (i.e. a chokehold or a joint lock position).
I was inspired to try BJJ after watching the show Billions, wherein Paul Giamatti’s character spent a whole season learning BJJ with real life BJJ legend John Danaher. A friend who trains BJJ invited me to his gym’s trial classes. I signed up after that first week.
It’s been a blast ever since. I’m not good at the sport, I lost count how many times someone weighing 80-100kg has me completely pinned on the ground. Even after almost a year’s training, I still get smashed, choked out or submitted. But I’ve enjoyed every loss and lessons.
In the second half of the year, I took up Judo, partly influenced by Cedric Chin’s experiences on his Judo Experiment. Judo was the progenitor of BJJ, and fights begin standing up until someone get off-balanced and thrown onto the ground. There is some ground fighting aspect to it, but its minimal compared to BJJ.
I enjoy training martial arts a whole lot. Through training, I get physical and psychological benefits, and I get friends and a community too.
2. Meditation
Around September, I picked up an interest in chess and playing poker.
Poker and chess are strategy games, they require thoughtfulness and making predictions of possible outcomes. Chess is a ‘known’ problem, there is no luck element to it, just the skill of players on the board. Poker, has uncertainty. You can win OR lose with any hand you’re dealt with.
In my case, I’ve been using chess puzzles and poker games as meditative tools, like that Sting song. Not competitive play of either game, but no-stakes games or against bots. I use these games to assess my state of mind. I don’t need the pressure of actual money on the table and real reputation on the line.
I use chess and poker to reflect and assess how am I thinking in the moment: Am I rushing and being reckless? Am I taking to long to think and end up making the wrong decisions? Am I focused in maintaining discipline? Or am just being nihilistic.
Often, I catch myself feeling the pull of cognitive biases like the sunk-cost fallacy, endowment effect. Even knowing that I am playing with in-game currency, these biases are insidious. They affect my thoughts and action on a subconscious level. I don’t feel them in the moment, but I can feel the consequences of the being caught in cognitive traps set out by my own brain.
Of course, I don’t expect nor assume these games have any transferable improvements to my life. These games are played for fun. It ain’t that deep.
3. Lessons
I feel this year imparted these two critical lessons.
taking the shot creates the opportunity
In sparring, it is often taught that attacks have to be set up with feints or fake attacks that leads to the real attack. Your first ‘attack’ almost never lands. Moreover, you do not wait for the opportunity to attack, instead, you attack to create opportunities.
A senior told me that I should not wait for the window and then only move for the attack. I have to move first and then look for the window.
Those opportunities rarely arise on their own, the opportunity really only comes with the shot. Even if the original attempt does not come to fruition, it opens up the real possibilities. You miss all the shots not taken. So what's it gonna be? A guaranteed zero, or a chance at something, maybe something amazing.
defense means not losing but also not winning
I had way too many things going on in my life and I made the decision to conserve and guard my energy until things have cooled down. I took the path of least resistance, I did not want to spend too much energy on one particular activity over another. I just kept walking and complete tasks as they come.
The problem was, that I was playing defense so much that I got myself into a habit of being too passive. I got stuck in this position where I was not moving backward and not moving forward either. I was not losing, I was not winning too.
It got to the point where I find myself being on the defense during sparring sessions and just, well, staying there. I was comfortable going on defense. Too comfortable that I did not even bother to try to attack.
In competition, going on the defense and taking a conservative approach is fine. But disengagement can lead to penalty. Getting stuck in one position is bad, even if you have great defense. Because you do not score on defense, you are scored for your attacks. Stay in one place for too long, losing becomes a real risk if not inevitable.
There’s a similar concept in poker known as Game Theory Optimal or GTO. It’s a strategy based on mathematically sound decisions that incorporates mixed strategy of playing strong hands, when to bluff or semi-bluff. GTO ensures that your plays are not exploitable, you don’t give away tells from the way you play your hand or bet. It is defensive. You can win, particularly against expert players. However, to win in general and maximize profit, you have to go on the attack. You have to risk and exploit other player’s tells and strategy.
To win involves making judgement calls of when to maintain defense, and when to go on the attack. One cannot wait too long for opportunities to attack while in defense, because opportunities only come with the attack. It took some reading and reflecting for me to be aware of my own passivity before I can take steps to overcome it.
In Closing
There were plenty of lessons I have to learn from this year, to list some of the others:
priorities and intentionality: it is okay to treat some things as pure recreation, so I can focus on meaningful pursuits. It is okay, to just be okay at some things, so I can be good at the more important things.
taking Ls is fine if I am learning: being on the bottom and getting tapped out by more experienced BJJ or Judo players do suck. But training sessions are only lost if I am not learning a thing.
will > skill (both important): having the will and some measure of courage to act, is how you get things done and be one step closer to a desired outcome. Heck, you only develop skill if you have the will to act.
The major theme of the lessons seems to be taking action. To do more, to be more bold in doing things too.
It’s going to take a lot of work to engrain those lessons so I don’t repeat mistakes, and I should be more receptive to others and learn from them too.
I agree with being on the defensive, not just with martial arts but even with life being on the defensive means the inertia of life controls you rather than you taking life by the neck and shaking it. I've been thinking and talking to friends about it especially in connection with intentionality