Today, Michael Cook over at the Bloodhound Blog wrote an excellent article about the similarities between his weight loss and the current real estate market. It’s truly a must read. I don’t possess Michael’s writing talent, but I certainly recognize it when I see it.

Like Michael, and most of us in the US, given that we are the most obese society on the planet, I struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. Even cycling (road and mountain) as many as 150 miles a week, I haven’t seen under 200 lbs since I was in my mid-20’s. Fortunately, cycling has kept me from exceeding 220 lbs. Still I’d really love to see a 1 as the leading digit in my weight.

A few months back, in a multi-faceted decision, I took up Karate as a mid-week cross-training activity. I realized I was now mostly cycling on the weekends, due to time constraints, and wanted something scheduled during the week. Well, actually not Karate but Ninjitsu, a martial art from Japan. The art is being taught by Master Maui Saito at his dojo in North Scottsdale. I’ll be frank and admit that before I started I knew very, very little about any martial arts. Although I guess you could say I was already curious and interested in learning a martial art, I hadn’t previously researched the various arts in any way, but simply took the referral and recommendation from my primary care physician, and the next day I signed up.

After I signed up, I did do some research and learned a few things that are different about what Master Maui is offering.

First, his students do not spar. That is, they don’t “fight” each other to hit each other, or see who can hit whom first. The art that Master Maui is teaching is intended for self defense, and in his opinion sparring teaches bad habits and limits your attacks to attacks which are considered “legal” in a sparring match. If we are training for self defense, then our training needs to include those things which the sport karate arts would consider illegal. Although the majority of Master Maui’s students are male, I think the lack of sparring in class should appeal strongly to women. And since the majority of REALTORs are women, this would appear to be a good fit for REALTORs in general.

Second, with nearly every practice we do, we prepare for the case that we are attacked by multiple attackers. With training, it will eventually be relatively easy to defeat one attacker. But being ready to defend against a dozen is another story. This is another reason why sparring isn’t used, since that is a 1 on 1 fight.

Third, Master Maui believes in doing things 1 time right, rather than 100 times wrong. He will do his best to teach us to do everything that we are doing as right as possible from the very beginning. Hopefully this means we don’t learn bad habits, which we would later have to unlearn. I really wish my golf game had undergone this kind of instruction.

Finally, at least for now, Master Maui is doing all of the instruction. His dojo in Scottsdale is new. The highest belt ranking for any of his students is yellow belt, which is just above the starting white belt. As such, all of his students are getting very personalized attention. This will be true for years to come, as it will take that long before any student has a high enough ranking to be considered a sensei.

So, will taking up a cross-training activity like Ninjitsu get me below 200 lbs? It can’t hurt. Will I ever use my Ninjitsu skills in the real world? I sure hope not, although a recent run-in with a hot-headed contractor had me wishing I had more skills. Most importantly, will I feel better? Right now, that’s a definite yes.

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