“Give Me Your Broken”

“Give Me Your Broken,
Give Me Your Beaten,
I Will Buld Them Up,
I Will Lead Them,
To The Threshold”

-From “To The Threshold” by Hatebreed

Kinda makes me think of the Statue of Liberty quote: “Give me your tired, your poor….”.

Great, so what?

I bring this up because I had another conversation about getting started yesterday with a person who was coming from the “I don’t know if I’m tough enough” perspective.

I know some of that is because some people doubt themselves. Literally. They’ve never tried to see what they’re capable of, so they are unsure. That’s ok. No, that’s not just ok, that’s awesome. It’s awesome cause you’re considering trying! Just the thinking about starting takes courage for most.

The problem is, that the sport of martial arts has gotten so big that everyone sees these high level monsters fighting. And they think, “I don’t think I can do that”. You know what, you probably can’t. And that’s ok. Those guys are the top 1%. They are genetic freaks, with SOLID training, who have literally sold themselves and their entire futures to that sport.

But just because you can’t win the Boston Marathon doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enter any marathons. Or even more to the point, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run recreational, for fun and health, because you can’t win a marathon!

See, this gym isn’t about sport. Never has been. It’s about about using martial arts to improve yourself. To get stronger, and less afraid. To stop living your life based on fears, and doubts. To learn to fight your fight, whatever that may be! Can you achieve this goal without competing? ABSOLUTELY! A lot of people do. Once, they do get a little stronger, though, a lot of people use competitions to challenge themselves more. Some just grappling, some MMA. And that’s cool. But don’t think you have to fight professionally, or compete all the time, to belong here!

See, I’m NOT inspired by a big confident, athletic dude, that wants to steamroll this sport like he’s steamrolled all of his sports.

I mean, I’ll help him. It’s fun. It’s glamorous. And yeah, it gets attention. And that’s good for the gym, kinda. It lets the world see we have monsters! Sweet.

Until, Joe Public starts thinking about finding a way to improve themselves and flat removes us from consideration because “[t]hat is way over my head”. That leads to a crazy phenomenon I’ve started seeing where people pick a junk school just because they think that’s all they can do. They don’t think they can hack a “real” school, so they settle.

NONSENSE!!!!!

Give me the scared. The weak. The ones that get turned away from the “Badass” places. I will make them monsters!

I’ve made my life taking people that were destined to be anything other than tough, and help them find that monster that is in everyone. That’s rewarding. That’s motivating. That’s what keeps me in the game.

Johnny Football is gonna be tough, and good no matter who he trains with. All you have to do is get out of his way, and he’ll make you a name. Get you attention. Go ahead. Ride those coat tails. It’s what most coaches look for.

Not interested.

I want the person that is almost sure they can’t. There’s just this faint glimmer of “maybe” buried in there. I want the not athletic. The not strong. The people who aren’t sure if they “can” but can’t stop daydreaming about it!

Because I can take them to their potential. I can make them stronger and less afraid.

I don’t care if you compete, or just do it for yourself. All I care about is that this place makes you more than you were before. More than you realized you could be.

Yeah, we’ve got some scary looking, tattooed, mangled eared, monsters who fight in cages.

But we also have, a guy that did his first BJJ tourny on his 52nd birthday. And a 46 year old lady who just started even though she’s NEVER done ANYTHING athletic before, and everyone told her there was NO WAY she could do it!

We’ve got troubled kids, and doctors. We’ve got people using our training to “rebuild” their lives, and accomplished people having their “crowning achievement” moments here.

Yes, there are people just like you here.

Don’t care how out of shape, or nervous you are.

Don’t care how many other sports or workout methods you’ve failed at.

Don’t care how many other schools you’ve been macho’d out of.

You can do it.

Just sign up and try, and you’ll see.

Trust me.