I was lamenting in a recent post about how much my old Martial Arts school had changed into something I no longer like.
It got me thinking and I said, "Why come I gots to go there?"
OK, I didn't really say that, but I realized that there are other schools I could go to for what I want.
I enjoyed learning a style of martial arts in a conservatively sized class.
My old school may have become a huge training ground for thick necked, bald killing machines, but there are other schools.
I looked around and found that just two minutes away is a nice little school that teaches all the various forms of Kung Fu.
And a little further up the road is another nice little school that teaches strict Karate.
How perfect is that? The two sides of the coin.
Karate is the hard, straight forward, Japanese style, and Kung Fu is the soft, circular motion, Chinese style.
I'd like to take both classes.

I started out wanting to go to art school after graduation, but when I realized I couldn't afford it I started taking pride in being able to tell people I was self taught, and never took a lesson.
After many years of not breaking into the industry I began to think I should find a way to go to school after all.
I enrolled and took a semester of online classes at a major art institute and found that I learn and practice much more efficiently on my own than in the classroom curriculum setting. That, and I still couldn't afford it.
I joined large online art groups and found the experience to be horrible.
The instructors/forum moderators/contest judges were just disgruntled, self-absorbed, failed artists that never made it in the industry.
The students/forum members/contest participants seemed to form cliques and follow random art trends and flavors of the month.
Many more years went by and I began to feel I missed out on what would have been a really great experience, had I gone off to an art school at 18.
Well, I just watched a movie called Art School Confidential, about a kid that goes off to art school.
It was just like all of my online experiences exactly, except he was on campus.
The behind the scenes interviews reveal that the movie was written and made by people that went to art school, had these experiences and learned very little about art.
Though I still think it would have been quite an experience that would probably give me many stories to tell, I just don't feel like I missed out on something all that great anymore.

Saturday afternoon, Summer of 1992: Kung Fu Theater.
I'm sitting on the couch watching an afternoon marathon of some chop-sockey films on TV and I realized something.
I have a job that gives me some disposable income, a car that can take me anywhere I please, anytime I want, and martial arts look extremely fun and cool.
Why not take some classes and have some fun?
I pick up the phone and call Shawn to pass it by him.
He's excited. He's on his way over.
We drive around to some different schools, watch some classes in progress, compare prices and join.
Pretty soon we are in a room full of guys just like us. Not very athletic, but generally nice and having fun learning how to do something cool.
On weekends, Shawn and I are practicing in his backyard and even making some funny home movies.
Six months later, life gets in the way and we stop attending.

Next year I will be twice the age I was back then.
How great would it be to go back and do it again?
I could even earn a blackbelt while still in my 30's.
Well it's a different world now.
I checked out the class and had an eye opener.
I didn't see guys like me there.
Everyone was half my age, very athletic, and it didn't look fun.
It was ugly violence. Cage fighting. Sweaty guys laying on each other in thongs.
Same school, same instructor, different era.
Even when you are still alive and still active, you really only have finite windows of time to do things, and then the opportunity is gone forever.