Fringe Benefits

I suppose this is a thread more for the part-timers than the hard-core careerist fighters out there, but I'd be interested to hear what everyone has to say on the subject.

I'd like to know how people feel their lives outside of fighting have benefited from the training they do.

Personally, I work in a job where people think it's pretty strange to spend my free time getting hit, but I think my work has benefited enormously from the discipline of combat training.

I could write a long list of ways it's helped me, but I'm more interested to hear about other people's experiences. Any examples; mental, physical, emotional; would be great.

 

No dude. You go first.

 

I am a doorman. Enough said.

 

I was on the bus the other day and this guy got up from his seat and bumped into me. He was all "sorry dude" and I was like "yeah you will be" and he was like "what? I'm just trying to get off the bus" and I was all like BOOM! left hook, right uppercut. While he was dazed I shoved him off the bus and was all like "heh, no ticket.".

Anyway, now I'm getting free wi-fi in the holding cell while I wait for my fiance to post bail. Muay Thai got me free wi-fi.

*some or all of this story may or may not be true

 

Are you a salty 60 year old?

 

Okay.

I'm a TV Producer. The job can, believe it or not, be stressful. Lots of balls in the air, lots of people wanting contradictory things and wanting them now.

Practicing a martial art has made me much better at prioritising instantly, doing what I can in the situation I'm in.

Quite often a network executive will ask for something that, on the face it, seems impossible but saying 'no' isn't an option.

Trying things I didn't think I'd be able to do comes a lot more easily than it used to, because I've grown accustomed to pushing myself in a training environment. In any martial art you have to lose the fear of trying difficult things.

I'm just not as afraid of failure as I was. Consistent training, with progression, makes it much easier to view failure as a temporary setback rather than an irrevocable disaster.

Anyway. That's enough from me.

 

No I'm a bit younger than that...

 

How does your martial arts training benefit you doing this?

 

The other day I locked my keys in the car, and I was able to use my chi to unlock the doors.

 

Look! The CN-tower!

 

As a geologist, I no longer have to break off rock samples with a rock hammer or pick. I just smash 'em with a sweet side kick or my hammer fists from hell. Scares the shit out of my colleagues, too.

 

You mean we don't get French benefits?

 

I fry chicken at my job. I've noticed that being a fighter has made lifting a 20 pound box of chicken go from "easy" to "very slightly easier."

 

My grip training turned out to be more of a hindrance than a blessing at my last job. Needless to say, I am no longer a milk maid.

 

Alright should have been more specific.

Doorman/bouncer at a very busy strip club.

 

Ahh, been there, done that some years back.

We used the more PC term of Staff Security. Has a little less hardened connotation than bouncer.

Anyway, I knew what you meant, just jerking your chain a little.

 

You're a porn producer? Sweet. It sounds like you're producing some kind of porn reality show.

 

No, can't you read. He's job is hardest one in universum.

I now know what's the deal, so I simply make things right without a fight. Earlier i was for a fight, strictly.

 

the most common answer is going to involve stress.....

when i was training 6 days a week, i was in such a state of serenity all the time....nothing got to me, i never got worked up, never stressed the small stuff....

even at the time, i realized, spending that much time hitting shit as hard as i could; it wasn't that i "worked off stress", it was that the stress never even had a CHANCE to build up in the first place....

fuck, i need to go punch something right now...

 

Much longer fuse and a lot more self confidence. Not only from being in far better shape but also knowing I can handle things. Not just in a fight either but knowing that I react well under pressure.