Embracing Brutality

Living in a civilized society, it's rather easy to forget that brutality is part of life.  We are sheltered from the constant conflict that exists in many places in the world.  There are places that haven't known a real peace in thousands of years and people that have lived their entire lives, however short, in the devastating wake of war and tyrannical oppression.

We get glimpses of it.

A man kidnaps a couple and forcibly cages a woman in his home, the authorities finding several dead bodies on his property. National news brings your attention to a woman who has drowned her own children in cold blood. Gunshots ring out in an historic church in a coastal city, leaving faithful attendees as casualties.  These events all happened in my own State of South Carolina.  Just think for a moment of the things you've heard of in your own towns and cities.

Riots. Police brutality. Gang violence. Rapes. Human trafficking. Terrorism.

These are the atrocities of human existence!  And, yet, how many of us have actually encountered these things face-to-face?  Some, to be sure, but the majority of people in civilized society have been spared (thank God) the horrors of which the human species is capable.  We are protected from them to the point that we turn a blind eye to even their possibility and, as such, fail to recognize when they are occurring or fail to guard ourselves against them being thrust upon us. You turn a corner and find yourself face-to-face, ready or not, with violence and death.

Violence comes whether you prepare or not.

But there are people whose memories are painted with blood and punctuated with tragedy. They understand something about life that most of you reading this will never truly understand (and if you do, I'm sorry):

Life is fucking brutal. 

Thomas Hobbes referred to this state of nature as being "nasty, brutish, and short."  Humanity, for all its structures of government, teachers of morality, and religious fervor, maintains its status as a species full of violent reprobates. It earns these accolades with flying colors.

In every place humanity has existed, we've enslaved our fellow humans; we've ignored the cries of the innocent; we've left the destruction of towns and cities and animal habitats and entire species as a monument to our depravity. No matter where you look, no matter where you go, no matter what you do-- danger is there. There are no safe spaces. 

What, then, do we do when faced with this truth of existence?

I propose that we accept it as a part of life. To deny it is naivety to the highest degree. Instead of ignoring or rejecting brutality, we ought to embrace the brutality of life as one of its primary features.

Embrace the brutality, you say?

Now, please understand that I am not saying that we ought to participate in the brutality that leaves such devastation upon the pages of our history. I'm saying that it would do us good to recognize that brutality is merely an ever-present, innate aspect of living in a world where creatures have to devour each other to survive, even down to the smallest single-cell organisms. Knowledge of this brutality is a weapon against it. To prepare for war is to preserve the peace.

Think about the movies you've seen where there's a town under the control of a despot and the hero (or heroes), after understanding the reality of the situation, fight back and unseat the tyrant from his high place and free the people. Without the acceptance that there are some people who do not care about the preservation of life or who they hurt, as long as their own passions are sated, we sit in weakness, hoping to reason with those we've already posited do not care about the same types of values we have.

In the movie, Enter the Dragon, the character Han speaks these words, which have always resounded within me:

"It is difficult to associate these horrors with the proud civilizations that created them: Sparta, Rome, The Knights of Europe, the Samurai... They worshiped strength, because it is strength that makes all other values possible. Nothing survives without it. Who knows what delicate wonders have died out of the world, for want of the strength to survive."

While spoken by the villain of the movie, Han understood that strength is the tool by which civilizations maintain order and promote the values of love, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, and equality.

If you'll remember, Frieza cares little for any of those values.

Once you've accepted that brutality is an inevitable part of life, you'll probably be affected by the weight of that realization. You might be terrified, which is reasonable in understanding that, as the Joker put it,

"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

Think about all the people in your life. Parents, siblings, friends, and lovers alike. They all have dream and aspirations, but they all have fears and that one thing that if someone said or did to them that they would be broken or snap. They don't always know what it is, but it's there. All it takes is that one thing to be laid, stinging-bare, open to the world and even the most civilized person will turn into as much of a savage as a human can be.

Let's review, shall we?

Life is fucking brutal and we're not that far away from that brutality. 

Alright. Now that we've covered the reality of living in our world, past all the sugar-coatedness that is Society, and our possible reaction to it, let's talk about what our reaction should be.

If you were terrified or if you weren't, that's fine. Your next step after understanding that brutality is just a part of being alive in a world with 7 billion other human beings is very simple. Go back and read the words of Han.

That's okay. I'll wait.

Those words may have awoken a fear in you, but the beauty of those words and the words of those who have shared the horrors of this world with us, is that the answer lies in the same place as the problem. Theodore Roosevelt said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

Carry the stick or become the stick.

Live in society. Build it up. Maintain the positive values of love, peace, charity, tolerance and every other good and pure thing you can think of. Eschew the expression of brutality on a grand scale.

Heal the sick. Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Protect the weak. Avoid war, if possible.

BUT, on a personal level-- EMBRACE BRUTALITY!

Subject yourself to the things that will create the type of strength that the wicked would use to kill and destroy and subjugate. Move your body. Lift things. Gain combat and survival skills.  Crush your comfort zone and burn the safe spaces.  Shape your body into a weapon for your own protection and the defense of others. If you never have to use that power, society has done its job and we can all live another day, thankful we live in the time and geographical location that we do.

But, understand something, please:  If there comes a day that calls for power that you could have provided, you'll curse the weakness in your bones and will wish that you'd reached out of the glorious lie we get to live every single day and embraced the truth of brutality. You can't bank on anyone else coming to save you or to stand in between you and the ever-present, faceless Enemy.

SGT Rory Miller said, "The only defense against violent, evil people are good people who are more skilled at violence."

Be more skilled at violence. Know your enemy by embracing the brutality that they will force upon you. As Jesus put it, "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

It is only the strong person that has the privilege of giving mercy to an enemy, for the weak will be overcome and his mercy will die with him.

Now that you've read this, you can either go back to what you were doing or you can go embrace brutality. I'll leave you with one last thing:

Good luck and train hard.

Articles and Writings Master Post

1. Martial Arts and Fighting
2. The Limit
3. 10,000 Hours to Mastery
4. Can You (At Least) Save Your Own Life
5. Can You (At Least) Save Your Own Life: Part 2
6. On Strength
7. Training to Go Super Saiyan
8. The Daily Grind: Why You Don't Need a Rest Day

Posts will be added to this list as they are completed.

Call to Arms: The Prologue to the Fictional Fitness Revolution

Since 2007, the purpose of Real Anime Training has been to bring fitness knowledge and inspiration to anime and manga fans worldwide. And, either directly or indirectly, it has been fairly successful in doing so. We are the Original Anime Fitness Website. 

The first post on Real Anime Training ("Call to Arms") was posted May 9th, 2007.  It was me yelling out into the unknown, calling to those who would stand with me and shatter the stereotype of fat, weak nerds. It took some time, but people responded, little by little. 

Many people have gotten in shape while training like Goku, Ippo, Saitama, Rock Lee, or any number of other characters on this blog. Some of them have gone along to create their own Anime Training or Fictional Fitness content (JaxBlade and Blackeroni, for instance).  Some have used Real Anime Training as a resource in writing and for training motivation and inspiration. 

We've made workouts based on anime, cartoons, and video games, built to mimic the training of individual characters or inspired by those characters' personalities. These workouts include various types of weight training, martial arts, calisthenics and running, swimming, climbing, and cycling. There are hundreds of workouts with more being added all the time. 

This is a new call to arms to anime fans, gamers, and nerds of all types. When I started this in 2007, I was all by myself.  NerdFitness didn't exist. JaxBlade hadn't yet become a Super Saiyan. Be A Game Character wasn't a player. DareBee wasn't even a thing. I know for a fact that some of the people who are in the Fictional Fitness world are here in some way because of Real Anime Training and perhaps more are, but that's not important. What is important is that there are many more people out there being nerdy as hell and in-shape and that is super freaking awesome!

There is a revolution coming and I'm happy to have been here since the beginning. More is coming, so you'd better be prepared. 

 

The Daily Grind: Why You Don't Need a Rest Day

Do you need rest days?  Do you need days where you do absolutely nothing?  We've been told that rest days are necessary, and your body certainly does need to recover, but I think we've been going about this entirely the wrong way.

What images pop into your head when you think about a rest day?  Is it going for a nice walk in the park or the beach or is it you laying on the couch with dried cheese snack powder (you know the one) and a soda the color of radioactive sludge?  Whatever the case is, it's probably not what you should be thinking.

You've got this perfectly good day and you're not training?

(*too)  That's a damn shame.

At this point, I've probably got you wanting to comment or write me a nasty e-mail telling me about Overtraining Syndrome, DOMS, lactic acid, and micro-tears in the muscles.  That's fine. Write the e-mail if you need to: I'll be here when you get back.  However, wait to push send until you hear me out okay?

Recovery is Important

I'm not saying that recovery is not important. Of course recovery is important. We eat the right amounts of good, nutritious foods and drink a river of water to recover properly, relax when it's time to relax during the day, and sleep like a baby for 8-10 hours a night (if you're not sleeping, you're not recovering).  That's not even counting things like massage, ice baths, supplements, PEDs, compression, foam rolling, and however many additional things people do to speed recovery on a daily basis.  You have all of those things and you're telling me that I need to skip a day where I could be training?

I'mma go ahead and say, "No."



If you are doing all of those things, there should be no reason for you to take a day off from training, as long as you are doing the appropriate amount of work at the appropriate intensity. Obviously, if you train to the point that you can't even move the following day, you're going to have to take a day off. However, if you've pushed your body to such a point, you're no longer training effectively.  The purpose of training is to stimulate growth, not annihilate your body to the point that you can no longer use it. Acute overtraining keeps you from being able to continue your training and improving.
And the entire point is to continue improving.

One time, in middle school, I remember that I did legs so hard that I literally couldn't walk the next day. It was some stupid amount of volume like 6 sets of Squats, 8 sets of Leg Press, 4 Super-sets of Leg Extensions and Leg Curls, 4 sets of Calf Raises, 4 Sets of Weighted Bench Step-ups, and all of these were like 10-12 reps sets. I wasn't prepared for the volume by any means, but more must be better in a single training session, right?

Not at all. Unfortunately, because of that training session, I couldn't train at all for two or three days.  How much of a set back is that?!  I want to have the opportunity to improve something every single day.

Always Be Improving

There is always something that you can be working on. Think about all of the things you can improve during your training: strength, endurance, flexibility, mobility, technical skills, agility, balance, stamina, accuracy, coordination, and power.  You don't need a rest day, you need to work on something else. It really depends one what type of athlete you are or what your goals are that will determine how you change up your routine.  The times when you feel as though you've done too much of one thing, you need to work on other aspects of your fitness that falls into line with your goals.  Having an easy day of working on something is not the same thing as a "rest day," in my opinion, because you're still drilling motor patterns and working out the stiffness in the muscles and joints.  You don't need rest, you need to stop skipping important training days.

Athletes have been doing this for decades.  Training splits where an athlete trains different body parts is something that is seen in bodybuilding and various strength sports.  In team sports, athletes split up speed work, agility training, strength training, and skill work to develop every aspect of whatever game they are playing. With the every day athlete, however, you have so many more options, because you're not limited to improving performance for a game. If you find that a training session leaves you incapable of working on some aspect of your fitness, either by accident or design, merely switch to a different component of your fitness and train that.

Splitting up body parts and changing up the components of fitness are two ways that you can continue to improve while pushing your limits on a daily basis, but they are not the only ways. And that's where the next part comes in:

The Daily Grind

If you are specializing in something to any degree, be it strength, skill, or whatever, you would do well to adopt the concept of "The Daily Grind."  You see it in the training methodology of the Shaolin Temple and martial arts around the world and in various strength training camps from powerlifting to Olympic lifting. The concept of day-in day-out physical exertion bringing about an increase physical abilities is not a new concept.

I remember working on construction sites during summer and winter breaks throughout high school and college.  Even though I stayed in shape during the school year, the first week back doing hard framing or roofing was always hell.  Everything hurt and you just felt beat up.  Two weeks into it, though, you didn't even notice anymore and you're already back to doing your normal workouts on top of hard 10 hour days in the hot sun.  Your body is enormously adaptive and capable of so much more than we give it credit for, as long as we give it the tools and the time necessary to improve.

There are things that you could do every day that seem hard right now, but in a few weeks will just become another routine part of your life. In order to push yourself in your training, think about what things you could do. I'll give you some examples of training programs and workouts:

1. Cory Gregory's Squat Every Day- At first glance, this sounds insane. Squatting heavy, in some form or another, every day of the week. And, yet, there are athletes around the world who do just that and make monumental gains in strength, size, and mobility from doing just that.  The argument is that the squat is a primal human movement and we were made to do it, just like walking. It follows a plan of using 11 variations of the barbell squat in a relatively short session every day. It really is quite amazing how your legs feel. Cory Gregory did not invent the idea of squatting heavy every day, but he's certainly spreading the news about it. If you're a strength athlete, I recommend you look into it.  I've recently begun adapting it to the Gravity Room Method, myself. 
2. Narushimo Ryo's Basic Training- If you are a martial artist and not practicing your techniques every day, you are doing yourself a disservice. That doesn't mean that you have to practice them all or that you have to be beat up all the time, but it does mean that you should be training them. Starting off with a smaller number every day and then gradually adding volume to your skill work is a great way to improve without overdoing it by trying to jam 100,000 reps into two hours.  Life is not a montage.  These things take time. 
3. Kamishiro Yuu's Basic Training- Drilling your techniques will make you better. Drilling them tens of thousands of times will make you a master. You will have to start slowly, but you'll be able to do more and more over weeks and months of training. 
4. Saitama's Training- There are some basic movement patterns that we just do all the time. Push-ing yourself off the ground, sitting up from laying down, squatting down, and running are some of the most basic things that we can do.  As a beginner, those things can be a little daunting, but in just a few months, those movement become as natural as breathing and you wonder how you ever lived your life so sedentary. Here's a video to show you options to increase the variety of your training. 
5. The 72 Arts of Shaolin- (Look under "Retsu Kaioh") These specialized exercises are the pinnacle of the Daily Grind. Taking a very simple exercise and using it to gradually turn your body into a weapon is trademark of the Shaolin Temple, kung fu, and martial arts in general. The author of the "72 Arts" recommends that you do not try to do them all, but instead commit yourself fully to two or three training methods to achieve greatness. (I've not yet posted all of the parts to this.)
6. The Self-Imposed Rule- Pushing yourself in your daily training comes in many forms.  The Self-Imposed Rule is a way to push yourself when you aren't meeting your own standards of performance. Your mental and physical prowess can become much greater when you set your mind to the idea that you can always train yourself beyond your failings and limitations. 

Using these methods directly or as an example, you can take your normal program and push it into the realm of extraordinary.  Starting gradually and adding volume and intensity over time will allow you to take simple movements and techniques and absorb them into your very being. Bruce Lee said, "If you always put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

You don't need a rest day: You need consistency, proper nutrition and sleep, and the drive to always be improving, even if it's just by one more rep. If you push yourself a little too hard in a training session, remember that you can always train another aspect of your fitness. 

That's all for today! Until next time, good luck and train hard!

My Current Training Library

1. Underground BODYOPUS by Daniel Duchaine
2. Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee
3. The Art of Expressing the Human Body by Bruce Lee and John Little
4. Fighter’s Fact Book by Loren W. Christensen
5. The Fighter’s Body by Loren W. Christensen and Wim Demeere
6. Kung Fu Elements by Shou-Yu Liang
7. Ultimate Fighting Techniques Volume 1: The Top Game by Royce Gracie
8. NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training
9. ACE Personal Trainer Manual, 4th Edition
10. Jiu-jitsu University by Saulo Ribeiro
11. Complete Triathlon Book by Matt Fitzgerald
12. Running Tough by Michael Sandrock
13. Combat Conditioning by Matt Furey
14. Combat Abs by Matt Furey
15. The Centurion Method (Idk if it’s even in print anymore)
16. Special Ops Fitness Training by Mark DeLisle
17. The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Soho
18. The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
19. Zen and Swordsmanship from the Yamaoka Tesshu Archives
20. Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima

This is every training resource that is on my shelf currently. I’ve got a few things loaned out and a few things I sold at some point. I did find out that my “Zen and Swordsmanship” book is worth about $300, though. That’s pretty crazy since I bought it for 6 bucks. Cool to find out that I have a rare book. 

Just thought I would share these books with you guys in case you were looking for any additional training info or inspiration.   

Who is the "Strongest in the World?"

What does it mean to be "the strongest?"  It's question posed in one form or another in many anime and it's definitely not an easy one to answer. There are many people to whom you can point and go "That guy. That guy right there. He's the strongest."   But even in those cases, there will be disagreements on the terms by which that person was determined to be the strongest in the world. I doubt anyone could ever reach a consensus.

"You're the strongest? Dr. Wheelo will see you now."

But that's not going to stop us from arguing about it. This article is an attempt to compare all those we would call the "Strongest in the World" and perhaps get a little closer to an answer... or at least something else we can argue about.


Let's start with...

1. Olympic Lifters

Olympic lifting is the combination of super strength and super technique. The clean and jerk and the snatch are the two lifts scored in the Olympics and getting a gold medal in weightlifting during the Olympics certainly should entitle you to being the strongest in the world, right?

I mean, it's the friggin' Olympics!

Look at him. He looks like he's about to break that bar in half.

But this is not so cut and dry. Even though the men and women of the Olympics can put massive amounts of weight overhead, there is another class of athlete that moves weight equal to or greater than the Olympic lifters (although in different lifts).


2. Powerlifters

These men and women are capable of moving ridiculous amounts of weight. Even at the lowest weight classes, they move 3-4 times their own weight in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. The percentage of their bodyweight decreases as the weight classes get higher, but the records for the heaviest lifts of all time are over 1,000 pounds in each lift.  The heaviest total weight of all three lifts was 3,005 pounds (Dave Hoff, 2013)!  These guys are strong, no doubt.

Most non-powerlifting people don't do that many plates in all of their lifts combined.

But does three lifts really make you the strongest in the world? Would more variables help determine what it means to be the strongest?

3. Strongmen/Strongwomen

Strongman and strongwoman competitions are full of heavy lifting of various types. Increasingly heavier squats, massive deadlifts, truck pulls, super heavy carries with awkward weights, cleaning and pressing logs, throwing kegs high into the air-- these are all frequent feats completed by strongman competitors. It's high level strength and technique combined with vicious relatively short periods of all-out conditioning effort.


4. CrossFitters

Crossfitters are frequently looked down upon as being weak, but there are some seriously strong guys and gals who compete in the CrossFit Games every year.  And it's not just strength, because there is so much versatility present in these athletes.  While they can lift heavy, they can also run fast or far, or crank out hundreds of reps of a huge list of exercises.

CrossFit prides itself on producing "generalists."  This term means that a CrossFitter should be able to meet and perform on any general number of tasks. They may not be the fastest runner or be able to do ultra-marathons or deadlift world-record weight or compete on the level of the elite "specialist," but they have proven it is possible to produce an athlete that is capable of being above-average (many times, highly above average) in a wide range of physical fitness applications.  And this means that, on any given day, that a good Crossfitter would be able to beat most people in most activities. Therefore, the winner of the CrossFit Games would (theoretically) be able to beat the majority of athletes in a majority of things. And that's pretty cool.


5. MMA Fighters

Fighters are a special breed. You step into a cage or a ring with another guy or girl who wants to hurt you and you punch, kick, and grapple until someone wins by knockout, submission, or decision. It's tough and anyone who even gets in there to compete deserves immediate respect.

You might find it odd that I would include MMA fighters in the list of the "Strongest in the World;" however, consider what it means to be the strongest for just a moment. Hanma Baki said (paraphrasing) that the strongest is the one who is standing over someone else. In short, the strongest one is the victor in combat. Squatting 1,100 pounds and tearing a phone book in half means you have ridiculous strength, but if you are beaten into submission by another person, who is stronger?  If it is this kind of strength, then it's either the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world or the top guy of the highest weight class who's the strongest.

Training to Go Super Saiyan

(Disclaimer: You can't actually turn into a Super Saiyan. :P) 

Training like a Saiyan is hard.  The Saiyans lived lives to non-stop combat and brutal conflict, even before the rule of Frieza. Each of these warriors was driven by the impulse to become stronger, to fight, become the greatest. Many times, this manifested itself into cruelty and hatred toward other species and themselves. This, I believe, was the downfall of the Saiyans as a whole.  Because they were so quick to throw themselves into battle, they certainly evolved quickly, but I imagine most of them died early on in life, never really being able to tap into their full potentials. 

This is not the case with the group of Super Saiyans that we know. Goku, Vegeta (later on), Gohan, Goten, and Trunks pushed themselves less on the battlefield and more in the practice room. To be sure, they fought their hardest when it was required of them, but they did their best to not go into battle ill-prepared. The fruits of this process were the various stages of Super Saiyan. 

So the question is this, "How do you train to go Super Saiyan?"

This is how:

1. Never Stop Pushing, Never Give Up

Always be progressing. There is no limit. 

Is a 500 pound squat good?  Hell, yeah, it is!   Let's put five more pounds on there. 

Can you do a 100 push-ups?  Awesome!  Try it on the gymnastic rings this time. 

Learning how to box?  I love it!  Now, go train with those wrestlers. 

The key is this:  If you can do something, do it better.  If you can't do something, keep trying. Goku couldn't catch Korin on his first try and he damn sure couldn't catch Bubbles or hit Gregory on the first try, either. Fall down seven, stand up eight. There is no "maintenance" in becoming a Super Saiyan. You can see the downfall of not training with Gohan.  When the world needed him to be as strong as he could be, he had only grown weaker. If you let yourself become complacent, you'll soon find that "good enough" is the enemy of great. 

If you are failing somehow (losing in a competition), learn from it. Learn why it's not working. Don't make excuses!!  If there's a reason that you failed, accept it and move on with your training and your life. Living in the past will not push you into the future. 

400 times gravity is for weaklings! Give me 401!

2.  Don't Rush

This is a process. You will not get there over night. It will be in tiny little increments over weeks and months and years, but it will be worth it. Every rep, every mile, every practice session, every step will accumulate until one day-- BOOM!!  You've arrived.  You've become a Super Saiyan. You've conquered your fears and your goals alike. You're standing at the precipice of what it means to be you, looking off at the next level you're pushing to achieve. 

But you won't get there in one day, so don't rush. 

One punch at a time.

3. Listen to Sage Advice

Goku had mentors his entire life: Grandpa Gohan, Master Roshi, Korin, Kami, King Kai... even his opponents were his mentors, in a way.  He learned from every available resource to help him become stronger. In the same way, listen to those who have the knowledge and skills.  Listen to those who have gone on before you. 

Your coaches, your teachers, your instructors, your opponents and your friends (who are knowledgeable) are your help in becoming the person you want to be. You may eventually outgrow them and that's okay, but use them while you have them and let them help you become what you're trying to become.  Don't assume that you know more than the black belts, the Olympians, the Doctors, the Coaches, and the Trainers, for they've walked paths you haven't. Instead, rely on them. You'll thank yourself later.

Power comes to those who train and listen to their coaches.

4. Study on Your Own

It's not enough to just do absolutely everything that someone else tells you, however. You need to learn your own body and your own mind.  You need to absorb as much information about your topics of study (and even outside) as possible. The more you know, the more you can make informed decisions about how you want to grow as an athlete, a martial artist, and a person. Seek knowledge from a variety of sources and don't be afraid to try some things that people think are stupid.  There is not only one way to accomplish things.

That's why there are various stages of Super Saiyan 1.

5. Train Your Ass Off!! (But Be Safe)

Nobody ever became great by accident. It was through hard work, dedication, practice, and so much training. Get in the gym. Get on the mat. Get on the road. 

And. Go. Do. Work.

You'll be sore and you'll be tired.  Eat well and sleep a bunch and get out there and do it again tomorrow. Implement a gameplan so that you can always train.  Your body needs rest, but there's nothing wrong with letting it rest in stages. Arms are destroyed today-- good, because my legs needed work anyway. 

Use proper safety equipment in your training. You can't get stronger if you're dead. Headgear and gloves in sparring is for everyone's safety and help you be able to train longer and harder. It's hard to train with a busted knuckle, rib, or nose. Be safe, be strong.

Training to become a Super Saiyan is hard, but being some guy in the crowd sucks pretty bad, too.

So, how do you train to become a Super Saiyan?  Start here:

1. The Gravity Room Method
2. The Turtle Hermit's Training
3. Find the Dragonballs: Run, Swim, Climb (Remix)
4. Korin-sama's Training
5. Kami-sama's Training
6. Kaio-sama's Training
7. Goku's Gravity Room Workout
8. Goku's Gravity Room Workout: 100Gs Add-on
9. Vegeta's Gravity Room Workout
10. The Super Saiyan Workout

This is the type of training that took Goku and Vegeta to higher and higher levels of power until they broke through the barrier of becoming a Super Saiyan. 

That's all for today! Until next time, good luck and train hard!

On Strength

If there is anything that I will impress upon my children, it will be the value of strength. Of course, they will be well-educated and morally instructed (for, in my opinion, those are kinds of strength); however, what I am referring to here is pure, unadulterated physical ability.

Run faster, jump higher, hit harder, lift more and do more for longer.

Without strength, the virtues of mercy and kindness and forgiveness are merely wishes. If no man or woman is strong enough to stand and defend those ideals, they will pass away at the hand of someone who wields his might to conquer and destroy.

If you lack the strength, there are those who will take that as an invitation to make theirs whatever it is you hold dear, be it territory, possession, or even your loved ones.

Frieza doesn't want to hear about "being reasonable."

Can You (At Least) Save Your Own Life?-- Part II

In the first part of this series I laid out some of the dangers you may pose to yourself, such as risky behaviors or obesity. This next part, however, will take a step out from ourselves and look at the world around us. The world that we live in can be a dangerous place and, while some things like natural disasters are not so commonplace, there are some everyday dangers such as slipping and falling, drowning, fires, and various on-the-job accidents that all require some level of fitness in order to escape. This level of fitness is the topic of this second part. It's You vs. The Natural World... and it's got a hell of size advantage.

So, what is the level of fitness necessary to save your own life in a dangerous situation? What skills are necessary?

Earle Liederman, in a 1926 book called Endurance, mapped out five basic skills necessary for someone to save his or her own life.

1. Swim at least half a mile
2. Sprint for 200 Meters
3. Hurdle an object at waist height
4. Complete at least 15-20 pull-ups or chin-ups, with chin over the bar
5. Dip between two bars or chairs for at least 25 reps

You should probably listen to this guy.

These basic skills are what is necessary to keep you from drowning, what will allow you to escape a burning building or run from a dangerous area, while clearing obstacles in your path, and what will allow you to pull yourself to safety, if you are in danger of falling. These skills are your basic survival tools. The goal is to get out of harms way and to do it as quickly as possible.

These are obviously not beginner-level in terms of difficulty, but they are by no means on the world-class level. These are skills attainable by the average human being and it is only once your are capable of securing your own safety that you can effectively consider saving anyone else's life, which is the topic of Part III.

Can You (At Least) Save Your Own Life?-- Part I

Life can be dangerous. Little, seemingly harmless everyday things and situations can, with great speed and ease, be transformed into something life-threatening. The ability to save your own life is enormously important. Once you're dead, everything is done. You don't get any re-dos.

Unfortunately, the average man or woman does not possess the necessary tools to save his or her own life. In fact, some people are doing the opposite on a daily basis. The following are some things that you should know about saving your own life.

Part I: Save Yourself From Yourself

Before you can save your own life from accidents, random acts of violence, or natural disasters, it's best to look a little closer to home and see what things you might be doing to harm yourself. Things like smoking or drug use or excessive consumption of alcohol are some pretty common things we humans do to hurt ourselves; however, there is a rising issue in the United States and the world as a whole. Obesity in the United States affects approximately 1/3 of the population and an increasing number of children. Worldwide, over 1 billion people are overweight or obese. This is fast becoming one of the largest health concerns in the entire world, as heart disease and diabetes are more prevalent than ever, millions of man-hours are lost on the job every year, and the medical costs of obesity push into the hundreds of billions per year.

First things first, if you are obese, the first person from who you need to save yourself... is yourself. If you're happy being extremely overweight and nothing is going to make you change, then I wish you the best. However, modern science is revealing more and more detrimental effects caused by being overweight and obese. How do you fix this?

The simple answer is "Eat better, move more."  In the end, that's really all boils down to. Eat more fruits and veggies, choose lean meats and fish more often, add nuts and seeds into your diet, and if you eat grains, choose darker whole grains over bleached refined carbohydrates.

As far as movement goes, just do more of it. Walk. Take the stairs, when you can. Park further away from where you need to go. Play an active game, either outside or using a video game. If you need help, get active with friends or perhaps get a personal trainer, if you need one.

Or you can start here.

I'm not going to harp on this one for too long. After you've improved your health, you can then focus on your level of fitness, and move onto the next part.

10,000 Hours to Mastery

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book (that I have yet to read... -_-) called "Outliers: The Story of Success" that shares a very interesting idea: with 10,000 hours of practice, it is possible to become an expert at something. He goes on to expound examples of prominent figures in different areas who achieved greatness and explained just how much time they put into their work. Obviously, some of this depends of genetic predisposition and social upbringing, but those merely serve as potential head starts for people's abilities. It's quite an interesting idea. Just so you have an idea of how much time that is, that is 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 5 years. That's a lot of time.

When applied to the concept of martial arts, we find some truth to ideas of the weak beating the strong or, as Rock Lee puts it, that "with hard work, even a dropout can defeat a genius." That doesn't necessarily mean that 10,000 hours of mindless practice will get you anywhere. You need mindful practice. You need to make adjustments to form and correct yourself when you make mistakes (e.g.- getting hit while sparring). But, just because you put the time in, doesn't mean you'll be unbeatable. You can be limited by your strength or speed or even your style. If you haven't trained to deal with a particular scenario, it might well be impossible for you to handle it, should you be confronted with it. However, training all aspects of your art and focusing on quick-thinking will definitely be helpful to your adaptation to new situations.

Anyway-- The point is this! If you're upset because you aren't good at something, go practice!  Work individual techniques, shadowbox, spar, grapple, hit various bags and mitts, and improve your conditioning. If you put the time in and allow yourself the necessary time to recover, you will get better and that's all there is to it!

But it wouldn't be Real Anime Training if we didn't try to take it a step further. We can see various anime characters each logging the necessary time for mastery. Even fictional characters (well, most of them) know that you can't just automatically become an expert at something. If they are going to accomplish something quickly, they tend to "cheat" the system a little. For example:

• The Room of Spirit and Time (The Hyperbolic Time Chamber) in Dragonball Z shrinks a year into a day, allowing the people inside to walk in normal one day and walk out badass the next, as long as they put in the time. 
• Naruto used kagebunshin to divide the amount of time it took him to master certain skills and develop new techniques. (Side note: This was brilliant, but so cheap and broken.)
• Ichigo stayed in the little world between Soul Society and the Real World before fighting Aizen so his dad could teach him the final Getsuga Tenshou.

It's not really fair. At some point, your body is not going to be able to train. You can only put in so many hours in a day without overtraining or injuring yourself. There has to be a way to cheat the system. Especially if you're going to school or working or anything else. How can you put more time into it?  I think a good answer for this question actually comes from Grappler Baki. 

Hanma Baki utilizes immense, immense powers of imagination to practice fighting against all manner of martial artists and creatures. In a sense, this is just really detail shadowboxing, but what we're after is the concept, not necessarily the exact method (although I urge you to really use good imagery while shadowboxing).  Actually, studies have shown that imagining an activity with as much detail as possible (that means, as much sensory data as you can manage: the feel of your muscles, skin and what not; the smell of the air; the color of the sky; etc) actually trains the brain to do those activities. Your brain doesn't realize that what you're imagining isn't real and the same parts of the brain that light up when you actually do those motions light up when you imagine doing them.  So, when our body is too damn tired to train anymore, or when we are recovering for a day or so, you can still log the time in your mind. 4 hours of week of this, 50 weeks out of the year, shaves 25 weeks off the 5 years it would take to get to 10,000 hours at 40 hours a week. This is a way, you can do a little bit more. You can practice to your heart's content or until you pass out into a coma of sleep and probably continue to dream about training!

10,000 hours to become an expert. How many hours have you put in? 

That's all for today, guys! Until next time, good luck and train hard!

The Limit

I want to take a moment to reflect on something:  What is the limit of human capability? What is the limit of one, single human's ability?  How far can we take it?  

When humans devote themselves fully to something, it is absolutely astounding the feats of which we are capable: speed, strength, endurance, skill, etc. We've been lucky to witness the rise of sports medicine and the science of performance, which has allowed the creation of the modern athlete, a marvel of physical ability.

For the most part, if you took any modern-day athlete and stuck him with his counterparts from a previous era, it is more than likely the case that he would completely dominate his opponents. This is for numerous reasons and the level of training we currently possess is more informed and the technical prowess exhibited by each of these athletes is generally on a much higher level than their predecessor are two of the majors ones. However, what we have done with the modern athlete, especially the modern combat athlete, is just a portion of what I would like to consider. We'll dub this portion: Athletic Ability

Next, I think it's important to take a look at how much has changed with the advent of the information age. The communication of ideas and concepts takes things that were secret or unknown for perhaps hundreds of years and throws them right out there for everyone to see. Imagine being a kung fu practitioner or a wandering samurai back in the Golden Age of ass-kicking. You carefully guarded your skills, honed them in secret, and every new discovery was like finding a precious gem. If you lost a fight, it could mean the loss of your personal reputation, your schools name, or your own life. It doesn't get much more serious than that. However, due to the nature of the combat of this era, martial ability was in the hands of a select few individuals, who only showed their skills when it was time to fight and, sometimes, because people seriously could die in these matches, another Master or fighter could just be wiped off the map, all of his experience and knowledge just gone, leaving nothing but a memory for his opponent to dwell upon. On top of this, sometimes fighters would only master a single skill, because you would rarely meet the same opponent twice, so the need for diversifying your skill-set was almost non-existent. If you met someone who you matched badly against, oh well!

Counter to this, you can find Karate kata, kung fu forms, kickboxing matches, and instructional videos on just about anything you could want from Judo to BJJ to Silat to Sanda to fictional martial arts from Star Trek (yes, that shit is real!). It is an information overload. And that is fan-freaking-tastic, because it allows for the free-flow of ideas, the transmission of skills to many, and the evolution of particular arts and techniques to new heights. There exist, today, things that, in my opinion, never existed before in combat. This evolution is very important, because it helps us to weed out things that are not as useful to us in our training and help us to more quickly achieve our goals. This is a living evolution of combat theory and is practical application and it is how we find the next game-changer. So, we'll call this portion: Immersive Education.

But there is one more thing that stretches back far into human history. These are secret things that are transmitted only through countless hours of training. They are things we may write off as worthless or fiction, at least as Westerners. I am not so quick to discard ideas that seem outside the scope of our current understanding. There are people who exhibit incredible abilities with things such as internal martial arts, mediation, and even willpower. Some may be tricks and some not, but to toss them aside without properly trying to understand them does ourselves a disservice and the practitioners of those skills a dishonor. The burden of proof lies with them, no doubt, but at least let them attempt provide the evidence. In seeking these things out, cataloguing them, and understanding them, we can understand more about the human body and its limits, even if those limits initially seem outside the bounds of our current understanding. Eventually, perhaps we will be more open-minded about what is possible. We can call this: Hidden Abilities.

If we hold each of these things to be important and seek the limit of human ability without unfounded bias of training methodology, I am confident that something magnificent is possible. The combination of science, art, and history; body, mind and spirit; and intelligence, emotion, and intuition can shine a little more light on the Super, the Ultimate, the Limit. In short, what it means to be strong.

I didn't mean for this to come off so grandiose, but it just makes such sense to me. Let me know what you guys think.

Martial Arts and Fighting

What is the purpose of the martial arts? What do the parents who sign their bullied 11-year old up for Tae Kwon Do want to gain from the training? What is sold, day in and day out, across the country as the purpose of the martial arts?

Discipline? Confidence? The instilling of virtue in the next generation? Health and fitness? Art, maybe? Sure. I'll allow all those things to be listed as the purpose of a martial art. However, all (and I do mean all) of these things take a back seat to the granddaddy purpose of them all:

Fighting.

Yes, fighting. Fighting is what martial arts is, for God's sake. Think about it for a moment: Self defense without fighting is learning to stay indoors and praying no one breaks in. All real martial arts have their roots in fighting. This may seem like a truism, but with the way many martial artists treat their training, you might be surprised.

I'm not here to tell you what style you should practice. I don't care what style you practice or if you practice one at all. What I am here to tell you is that if you are a martial artist and are not sparring or competing in some type of fighting event, you are missing a vital part of your training. There are valuable tools that are built in sparring, such as timing, distance, and the ability to not curl into a ball when someone attempts to rearrange your face.

A martial arts master who has never fought another human being (even in sparring) is NOT a martial arts master, regardless of the level of skill he or she possesses in breaking boards, doing kata, or what-have-you. How can I say that? Because in fighting another human being, you gain real world experience about combat that you can't gain through other means. You may have gained immense power/speed/technique from your martial arts training, but until you spar/fight with another person, there is no application to what you are doing. Sure, you may be able to drop a guy in one shot with your amazing, super special punching technique, but you don't really know that until you fight someone. You also don't know what will happen if that person just so happens to dodge.

I'm sure there are many who will disagree with me. "Oh, no! My master has been training for 30 years and has never fought with anyone!" --- Then, how do you know if anything he's teaching you works? Because that's what's important. If your style fails you when you need it the most, you might not be able to correct your mistake. You might be dead.

Whatever style you practice-- you need to spar. That means you need to spar using safety gear, so you and your partner aren't seriously injured. Minimum is gloves, mouthpiece and a cup. If you're just grappling or doing a Kyokushin spar, you can drop the gloves. You should also spar against different styles. If you are a stand up fighter, spar with grapplers. It'll let you know the limits of both your styles when matched against one another. If you're a Judo player, try a wrestler. Spar against anyone you can from any style you can. You and your partner will learn a lot.

If you want to say that sparring isn't realistic, I have two retorts. 1st- It's really the best you've got unless you want to go out picking real fights or venturing into very dangerous areas hoping to get mugged. (Shouldn't have to say this, but DO NOT DO THIS!) 2nd- Self-defense techniques where you defend a single lunge punch you know is coming and then hit your immobile opponent three times or just wailing on your Body Opponent Bag doesn't really rank up there in terms of realism, either.

Of course, if you've been reading Real Anime Training, I've always been a proponent of sparring. And how could I not be with the countless number of fights that happen in the anime that we cover. Goku spars, Kenichi spars, Ippo spars, Baki spars, and a lot of guys just pick fights, but the point is the same. If you are practicing a martial art and you are not fighting-- start now.

That's all for today guys. Until next time, good luck and train hard!