Well that was easily the coolest thing I've seen all day.
I advocate for everybody to study martial arts. Learning to fight is a process that teaches you to synchronize your mind and body out of sheer necessity: if you don't practice your technique, strengthen your entire body, or take care of your diet, you're gonna get punched in the teeth.
Most of my youth was spent playing video games, and sports were boring exercises that my parents dragged me to. If anyone else can relate to my experience, take my advice and try a martial art.
Yup, as a kid I was even told by doctors to avoid strenuous exercise because of a minor heart condition.
These days I do good old english boxing four times a week. It's an amazing workout and you will never achieve so much focus and flow as quickly as you will in a sparring session. For those three minutes, you are there, you are fighting, there is no room to think about anything else, or to stress about anything else.
Nothing like the immediacy of a potential punch to the face to make all other stress in your life melt away and become meaningless.
Nothing like the immediacy of a potential punch to the face to make all other stress in your life melt away and become meaningless.
The necessity of focus and putting everything else out of your mind is similar in motorcycling, FWIW.
Bikes are probably more likely to kill you though. But not as likely as horse riding - that's a seriously dangerous sport.
I think the effect is pretty much the same in all adrenaline sports and adrenaline seeking behaviors. Which one you pick is a combination of convenience, enjoyment, money, and risk tolerance.
I love downhill longboarding for instance. But it's extremely inconvenient. Especially the part about walking back up the damn hill.
Breathing exercises are under appreciated by almost everyone. Breathing dictates everything that you do. Not learning how to control it is essentially crippling yourself through opportunity cost.
I started northern-style shaolin Kung Fu at 20 when I was in college. It was a great program. Very disciplined (scratch your nose without turning around first results in push-ups), very thorough. The warm ups and breathing exercises I learned are my gold standard for a full body workout that doesn't require any more equipment than the floor.
Nowadays the gym I go to specializes in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I haven't gotten into BJJ but I really enjoy Thai boxing.
Something us hackers can appreciate is that learning the difference in styles between Kung Fu and Muay Thai is like learning different programming languages: you learn to do more things, or learn how to accomplish the same but in different ways.
For example, every move in Kung Fu has a discrete set of states and is meant to be highly controlled. Your feet are almost always flat on the ground and you move by sliding them across the floor so you can always be sure you're on stable ground and your weight is appropriately centered.
Muay Thai, on the other hand, is always in a state of flow. You rock back and forth between your forward foot and the balls of your back foot so that you're lighter on your feet and more able to react to various attacks. If you ever watch boxers/Thai boxers warming up, you'll notice that jump ropes are a common sight.
I advocate for everybody to study martial arts. Learning to fight is a process that teaches you to synchronize your mind and body out of sheer necessity: if you don't practice your technique, strengthen your entire body, or take care of your diet, you're gonna get punched in the teeth.
Most of my youth was spent playing video games, and sports were boring exercises that my parents dragged me to. If anyone else can relate to my experience, take my advice and try a martial art.