So this was just an idea given to me from the class on monday. My group was talking about all of our ideas and i was glad that no one had an idea of what they wanted to talk about other than Dylan. So im just going to write what I had told my group.
What I told them was that I have been into combat sports for most of my life. I had actually had dreams of going to the big stage (as many others do) but that dream quickly died when I realized that there is an ungodly amount of work that has to be put into it. Other than me wanting to live my life and actually be able to eat pizza, its also a dangerous sport. The dangerous where you can become brain damaged or even die. So ill keep going for a 9-5. That doesn’t mean that I do not love all combat sports, I still practice them, my favorite of them all is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You just learn alot about yourself when you are getting thrown around by a dude significantly smaller than you, its crazy but it also teaches you how to fight ( not promoting violence btw) and it teaches you to be more confident in yourself ( in the sense of fighting… I still very much get stage fright ). So you could say fighting is one of my hobbies ( again, not promoting random violence, but seeing 2 people battling it out is kinda awesome. You can really see who would survive in the gladiator days).
So I wanted to write an opinion piece about this, but I had no where to really start and I was just like… ” ” yea. So Dylan had told me an idea. Performance enhancing drugs… should they be allowed in fighting sports? Maybe, people love to see people push the limit.. obviously with notifying the ref that these men are juiced so the ref knows that they can kill each other a little easier. Or should they not be allowed because its.. wrong.. and dangerous, unethical to the fighting community bc maybe not everyone wants to be juiced… Great idea..
Another one that came to me was “Should head gear be required in the big stage”.. Some might say yes! It will protect our fighters from things like brain damage and getting killed. Some might say no.. that for wimps and that they want to see 2 people knock each other out cold. 2 different opinions both of them very valid. I am open to new ideas though.
My late father always used to talk to me about Jiu Jitsu when I was a kid. He was really enamored of it. He explained how it teaches you about life. I’ve always had respect for martial arts, and took them myself, fairly extensively, when I was a teen — only not Jiu Jitsu.
I often use JJ as an example when talking about situations in other areas of life. I remember him telling me that your opponent basically does themselves in with their own energy and how you channel it to make them fall.
I don’t think that you need to “reach” to far to write an opinion piece, Jason. I think your own energy and instinct is pretty good. Sure, you could get literal, and write about performance-enhancing drugs, but I wonder if your own experience of having to choose a path of least resistance for yourself, in your life, isn’t in some way a lesson you learned from Jiu Jitsu’s discipline. Why fight what you need to do in your life to survive? Follow a path that will find you “career” success, and do the martial art on the “side.” After a while, in life, you will find that side and center aren’t really that far off.
Just talk about your own experiences, and what your martial art has taught you, and maybe talk about difficult decisions (career? study?) are like opponents you face in life, and how you faced them.
P.S. People talk a lot about “violence” these days (video games, yadda yadda), and I think it would help them to hear how seemingly “violent” sports/disciplines teach you how to be confident and face the really important stuff in life.