New perspective as a martial artist after having a family(and a writer)

First the martial arts:

So whether it’s karate or MMA, I never understood for a long time why people with disposable income and a car never cross trained outside the gyms they were a part of.

Shit I had no consistent income or a car and I still tried to cross train! My parents helped me train with my teacher Rick, giving me rides there, but they didn’t support cross training, I had to handle that.

Most people around me other than professional fighters didn’t like to cross train at other places. And even those professional fighters did it mostly for different partners to roll and spar with, not to expand their skillsets.

It always baffled me. If your school is weak at ground fighting, why not cross train at a BJJ place? If your take downs suck, why not visit the university for wrestling or Judo? If your striking is weak why not do Kyokushin or muay thai?

If you’re working as a security guard, why not do some RBSD to gain tactics and awareness which won’t come from MMA?

Well I was stupid. I didn’t understand why.

Now to be fair, alot of these people were like me, independent with no responsibilites, with more money than I had, lacking mental health issues I had, and were able to drive around, yet they still didn’t cross train or expand, didn’t supplement training their schools lacked, and they had no reason not to other than comfort level.

And despite being mostly broke, kind of crazy and retarded, and having no car, I still tried to expand my skillets, and many years later I have more knowledge and even performance surpassing them.


But even more people were married with kids. They really didn’t have the time or energy to do more than one school, and a specific schedule at that. And while intellectually I got they were busy, I never emotionally understood, never had the full depth of empathy for it.

Getting married was the first time I realized training at two or three different things is hard. BUt I still managed to train regularly.

Then having a baby, I can only train to make money, and that’s the only reason I can justify even doing martial arts without causing problems at home.

I have a young friend who says I should drop in and do BJJ with him, at one of the best schools in western Canada, since my current gym lacks hardcore competitive grapplers and is more self-defense and hobby oriented. Ten years ago I would have jumped to train at such a place so often.

But I literally can’t. I have to spend time with my wife and daughter, and the free time I do have, I need to fill with clients to teach MMA and Karate(Hopefully soon RBSD and security once that is formalized for me)

I can’t do it. I want to. But I can’t.

And again I think he and others intellectually get it, but the reality of it really isn’t there until it happens to you.


So I want to apologize to everyone I might have judged or was frustrated with for not constantly going places to supplement holes in their game or their schools. I never realized how much babies and wives can really take up time.

The writing and other stuff:

Even now with a wife and kid, writers block isn’t much of a problem for me, rather being meticlous in editing and having to spend time doing heavy rewrites is my problem, even now. Though rewriting and writing was waaaaay easier before having a family.

Thing is though, I can’t help people or be collaborative like I used to. There was a friend who wrote beautifully but wrote slowly, had a hard time getting going writing her scenes. I would sometimes start a scene or write a whole scene and then she would edit it or polish it until it worked for her story. She was supposed to help me with my writing, but clearly didn’t want to put the work in. I didn’t mind, because I was gladly able to help, freely.

Fast forward with wife and kids, and I can’t help like I used to. For a while I still helped consult, edit and write scenes for the girl, I did so by justifying to my wife that she would help me get my book off the ground quicker. But she basically felt reading my stuff or even offering ideas was too much work, all she can do it help polish the style after it’s done. But I am not done rewrites or editing, not going to be for a while.

As a result, I essentially just couldn’t justfify helping her to my family anymore, as clearly I couldn’t use the excuse that there is a back and forth where there was none. I can help her, but only after my book is done and she starts polishing it, then I can justify to my family that I can work on someone else’s project.

Thing is, she asked me many times to just put my daughter in a play pen and give her toys. If you’ve ever had kids, it doesn’t work like that. They demand attention and can freak out if not regularly engaged with a mother or father. She really didn’t understand why I couldn’t just put the baby aside and work, it’s not that wasy.

There was another friend who liked to talk about Islamic myticism from a Shiite perspective. Smart guy, but kind of crazy like most genius’s are.

Thing is he wonders why I don’t spend hours on the phone with him anymore, and once when talking I said I had to go because my daughter needed me, but he said just hold your daughter ant talk.

Again….doesn’t work like that. Babies want to get up and down, want attention. They cry, grab things, smash things. It’s not easy at all.

Plus those little fuckers are pretty heavy. Nine or ten pounds but just holding them so carefully so they don’t get hurt starts to wear on you. Not easy to do that talking and babysitting.



I was the worst offender of them all. I never used to understand why people couldn’t even talk on the phone with a wife and kid. They could never explain other than they are busy, but to me they are at home hanging out. Are they busy?

Well yes. Yes they are. They very much are.