I've participated in a handful of martial arts over the years; in grad school I acquired an acute case of black belt fever and worked like a Turk for three years so I could earn the coveted degree before graduation.  Thereafter I studied Enshin Karate with a guy named Vernon Owens in Seattle, boxing with Steve Petramale, who also trained Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s (upon meeting me, Gooding said I looked like Oscar De La Hoya; I told him he looked like Cuba Gooding, Jr.); and finally, Jeet Kune Do with a guy named Ed Monoghan in LA.

For a few months, I even taught karate to kids, until the studio started insisting that every kid test for a belt promotion every three months--and pay the 40-dollar 'testing fee'--and that every kid pass said belt test to boot, even the most disruptive, undisciplined, pain-in-the-ass kids who only punched and kicked correctly when bullying fellow students outside of class.  This resulted in swarms of eleven-year old kids roaming the streets of Santa Monica trying to stir up trouble because they had 'black belts.'

So I'm kind of a martial arts dilettante.  

Chuck Norris:  The pinnacle of manhood?

My friend Stephen, however, is the real deal.  He has two black belts.  He's trained in the martial arts for going on twenty years, and not just in the 'class twice a week' way either.  You know in the movies how you see the disciples of the fighting arts toughening their bodies by walking barefoot over volcanic rock, punching stones till their knuckles bleed, performing a thousand repetitions of one kick?  Stephen's the real-life version of that.  In close, he can elbow you in the head five times before you have time to react.  He can put you in joint-locks, snap your elbow, twist your head till you either tap out or he decides to kill you.  He's fast, he's foxy, he's a serious badass.

A couple of weeks ago, though, Stephen did something that few fighters of his caliber would dare undertake:  wearing his gi and black belt, he got up in front of a group of strangers and read a personal essay about how un-tough he felt in spite of all his evident physical powers.  He alluded to a childhood of abuse at the hands of a volitile father.  A moment years ago when he came within a hairsbreadth of punching a girlfriend (he chose to punch a table instead, shattering his hand).  A profound, ongoing sense of vulnerability and fear that he or his wife would be attacked and hurt and, in spite of all his training and expertise, he would be unable to prevent it.  

As a friend of Stephen's, I knew some of the details of his back story already, but I was floored at his willingness get up in front of strangers to state this fundamental contradiction:  that although he knew intellectually that he was extrordinarily tough and strong, as prepared as one can be for nearly any exegency, he still felt like a scared little boy. 

Stephen was swamped with well-wishers after his talk--mostly men--who, I imagine, felt a certain identification with his story.  It certainly resonated with me.  Indeed, I suspect that if you do an informal poll of some of the more focused and driven guys at your average gym, you're not going to find too many former jocks and successful athletes; you're going to find a lot of guys who used to get stuffed in lockers. 

A few years ago I read a fascinating book called In Search of the Warrior Spirit by an aikidoist named Richard Strozzi Heckler.  In it, Heckler talks about his experience working with a group of elite special-forces soldiers, trying to take these already-highly trained young men to yet another level of mastery.  None of them had any apparent physical weaknesses:  they could run for hours, endure all kinds of brutally painful and difficult circumstances, perform remarkable feats of athleticism at a moments' notice. 

Their one 'weakness', Heckler discovered, was their inability to acknowledge that, like everyone else, they were possessed of doubts, fears, blind spots, vulnerabilities, and that in fact, to a man, they lived in mortal terror that they would be 'found out' for being human.

The key, for these soldiers, Heckler discovered, and I believe for Stephen, and maybe for a lot of us guys who spend a bit too much time trying to make ourselves bigger, stronger, and tougher than everyone else, is to accept that it's a mug's game:  you can't actually make yourself totally invulnerable.  Try as you might, you can't turn your body into steel.  You can't be totally safe.  It's an itch that can never be scratched.

To continue to lift, run, swim, cycle, practice the martial arts, do yoga, pursue physical excellence in any form, and at the same time to know and accept the inevitability of your own demise, the presence of fears and doubts, the certainty that there's will always be an adversary who's stronger and tougher and better, is perhaps the final step to promotion into the coveted ranks of what Stephen referred to in his talk as the 'black belt in life.'

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Here's a trailer for an interesting and undoubtedly controversial upcoming new movie:  Tapped, about the bottled-water industry.  I live in California, which, I'm starting to sense after nine years of residence, is sliiiiiiightly leftward leaning in its politics, but my sniffer tells me that the bottled water industry's days are numbered.  If I had the spare beans, I think I'd invest in companies like this.