March 2026 – The Fighter
Here’s the plan as it stands:
I intend to engage in martial arts training every day of the month of March. When I say martial arts, what I mean is mainly kickboxing, general striking, and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. However, if Tai Chi presents itself, I say yes. As I’m learning, the process offers unexpected jewels. I want to walk in and present myself as a day 1 student, focus on the lessons and document my experience in good clean numbers and record my emotional awarenesses.
I am placing some limits. I am not in a stage of my life where I want to get rocked hard in the head. As I get a little older, I’m really enjoying the process of pushing my mind. I feel I am entering an intellectual chapter of my life. I’ve been so busy trying to force the world to be something, that I often don’t pull back and reflect on what I’ve learned. I plan to honor my instructors, partners and fellow students. I’m not trying to hurt anybody. I plan to spend much effort on being someone who can hold pads, be cautious of my health and the health of others and support the people around me.
Also, in the Ju-Jitsu, I’m not going to scramble in uncontrolled ways. I’m not going to work in ankle and leg locks. To honor my classmates who may be going through this material, I will quietly do calisthenics in a way that does not draw attention to myself. I have a lot of walking planned for April. I will be tapping early on things where joints are involved.
I will allow myself 1 day a week to not train physically. This is to respect my body and avoid injury. I will, however, actively heal and rest. This may include yoga, meditation, watching videos, light cardio, and perhaps a short interview with a true-blue champion. These will be active events, and time will be allocated to them.
My body has been better to me than I have to it. I want to be very conscious of what I am doing.
What am I setting out to do:
I want to learn how to slow the world down. An experienced fighter sees things coming before the untrained novice. I am that untrained novice. My goal is to get 1% better than I currently am at moving my hands fast, utilizing a proper kick, and most important, learning to get out of the way. I’ve done a little jitsu and this time I want to truly focus on technique and not trying to muscle my ways out of situations where a little well-placed leverage would have worked so much better. Not just in the gym but also in my thinking and my approach to life.
I’ve sometimes wondered what a prize fighter feels when they are going through a training camp. They are studying and pushing their limits for months for it all to come down to a few minutes. Their opponent in the ring has every reason to incapacitate them. That’s a wild interaction. What is it like for a guy or a girl when their training weeks before hand knowing that across town, there is someone training to meet you, match you and defeat you? What honesty and sincerity can only be found in that place?
I’m not training for a fight in an octagon or in a boxing ring. But God damn, I want to taste a drop of that commitment. I can only imagine the perspective available in that space. It must be primal, yet it must also make some serious demands on your intellect.
The Journalist:
I am always operating, in part, as a journalist. I’m affording myself a 31-day taste test of what some people do, diligently and without complaint, for years. I’m interested in that mentality. These folks are competing in octagons and instructing students. Maybe some of these check-ins I’m doing could show a guy or a girl who’s currently training for a fight.
I plan on going hard, especially in the way of tapping into my intellect. I want to just a tiny bit of the quiet resolve a true fighter has when they show up to the heavy bag and engage in their lonely work. I once read a passage by Norman Mailer, and I can’t recall it exactly right now. It was a few beautifully written paragraphs about an ascending George Foreman hitting the bag alone in a stadium before the famous rumble in the jungle. Mailer, with his normal elegance, described the immense power in just one of Foreman’s jabs. Imagine that guy’s mental space.
I want to know what a fighter feels when they’re by themselves and working on skills and drilling them into muscle memory. I want to know what a fighter knows about rhythm and how to move within it.
What do I hope to gain?
I’d love to be more present when things start moving fast. I want to be kinder to people and examine the knee-jerk reactions I experience in normal life. Maybe I hunker into defense when it’s not necessary. My hypothesis is that engaging in the rudiments of these disciplines might buy me some time to think in life. I think I could make better decisions. Anytime I’ve ever pushed myself physically, it has ALWAYS benefited me as a guitarist, songwriter and artist in general. I can’t wait to dip into this style of exercise.
I spoke with Edward “Scissorhands” Anthony about some limited and respectful filming in the gym. He’s been wicked helpful and very supportive in the planning of this. Atlas is a great gym lined with trophies and awards with good clean mats and thoughtful instructors.
I want to do some mean conditioning training on the side. A good mean cardio workout ALWAYS helps me access the best version of myself. I will include supplemental exercise into the daily post.
Diet:
I’m staying on the diet and may modify certain things to make sure my body has adequate resources to train. There are a few folks who reached out to help and I plan on taking them up on their expertise. The diet I am on right now is great. I’m never really all that hungry and I feel like I have a lot of power to push on things, physically and emotionally. I think it would behoove me to be more consistent with the times I eat and the balance of fat, carbs, protein and vitamins. I’m going to try some things. I will be extremely specific about the diet. And will hammer out the details by Sunday March 1st. But for now, let’s just assume Doritos and lemonade aren’t on the menu. I call this current framework “Kim’s Diet” If I don’t get anything else hammered out by Sunday, “Kim’s Diet” will be the baseline.
However, if a seasoned trainer/fighter tells me that an orange, right after training, helps the body’s healing process, I will try it. I would like to be more thoughtful of giving my body what it needs, when it needs it. Maybe insisting on a lunch and possibly forgoing the 4 apples at the end of the night. I don’t know. I’m an open book and wanting to learn about diet too.
(BTW, Kim never told me to eat 4 apples a day. I added that part.)
Documentation:
Let’s talk documentation. I want to make it easy for me. Daily posting on Instagram is easy. Those videos are all available and at the end of the month, I can edit together a 15 min “Sum it Up” video just to mark this time in my life. For the interviews, I’m thinking an Iphone. Just make it easy. I know it can be done better than that and perhaps this is an area where I can ask for some help. Even with a little forethought, I could engineer a decent video/audio edit. Let’s push in a little more on the recording of it and let’s have some fucking fun with the soundtracking of it.
Maybe the move is to save all video to a folder. Get it all in one place. The daily check ins could be for social media. The longform youtube vids could sit there like a library.
Ideas present themselves in process art. I’m an artist but really, I’m the student of the process. My job is to keep my eyes open and learn. How am I changing? What can only be learned by feel?
I have 24/7 access to a heavy bag. I need to buy 14 oz gloves, shin guards, some fluorescent tape, and headgear. I’m assuming pads might come in handy. I have a cup and a mouthguard. I just need to find them. I have two gis and can probably fit into at least one.
Day 1 Sunday, and the gym is not open. This is this week’s rest day. I will be checking in and considering what rest is and what I can do on this day to set myself up for success.