The State of My Life

Beginnings and Background

The State of My Life - Beginnings and Background by Vincent Cooper

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This particular series of blog entries mark a departure from what I normally post on this site. The State of My Life is much more personal and far more up-to-date. I had been keeping this diary of my life, goals, successes and observations on a public message board but now feel the time is right to transfer this information to Martial Arts Insight.

The principle purpose of this journal is to publicly record my goals and aspirations and to hold myself publicly accountable for their completion. While some people prefer to seek the completion of their goals in private, I personally have far more success when I am constantly writing about my life and focusing on it, particularly when done publicly.

A second reason is that this site is concerned with the application of martial principles to building a successful life (and not just the application of martial concepts to gaining victory in a fight). I very much endorse the notion that a martial art is to be pursued as a holistic way of life. I have commented on the limited application a martial art has as a method of combat and want to re-emphasize this important point here. Training over a period of years on a regular basis for a fight that will probably never happen strikes me as being, in itself, a bit of a wasted effort. If you have trained in a martial art for five years or ten years or twenty years and the only thing you have learned is how to fight then, unless you are a pro fighter or work as a doorman or in some other combative arena, you have probably wasted your time, money and energy. If, on the other hand, you have studied a martial art and learned about concepts like efficiency and timing then, whether you have applied those concepts in a fight or not, I would say you have spent your time wisely. So what I am also hoping to do with these particular blog entries is encourage you (if you need some encouragement) to apply your martial skills to improve all the areas of your life.

Time allowing, I would be very happy to engage in conversation on any and all of the topics I cover via Facebook, so if you haven't already, please take the time to follow this link and send a friend request to me.

The Story So Far...

Before commencing with this public journal properly I need to fill you in on a few details (more will be forthcoming as my diary unfolds).

First of all, I have been somewhat neglectful of this site recently. The reason for this is that I submitted an entry for an open call for fantasy writers to a publishing company. This involved a fair amount of work and it had been a long time since I had done any creative writing. The final proposal that I sent was over 16,500 words and was supplemented with a 1,000 word synopsis and a 5-page chapter by chapter breakdown of the story. Completing this was my main goal throughout July and I sent the submission in on 31st July.

As I said, it is a long time since I had done any creative writing (I was active in the role playing games industry several years ago) and I don't have any high expectations for my entry. What I would like is to get some positive feedback from the publishing company and make a better submission next year. To this end I have already started planning out a new story (details will follow).

Second, I have two children, Naomi (6) and Leon (just turned 4). For the last few years raising them has been my overriding priority and has taken a lot of time and energy. However, around Christmas 2009 Leon finally reached a point where he became far more independent and in less need of attention (Naomi had been self-sufficient in most areas for some time previously). What this meant for me and my wife is that suddenly we had a lot more free time available to us. This happened to coincide with me learning that teh former NFL star Herschel Walker was going to fight a pro MMA fight at the age of 48. Although I have always continued to train and work out I had kind of resigned myself to accepting that my 'glory days' were over. These two events changed all of that. Up until Christmas 2009 my emphasis in training had been on building up my strength. I weighed around 88kgs (at around 5' 11") most of which (but not all...) was muscle. As powerful as I felt I realized that my endurance had suffered and I simply wasn't able to perform martial arts to the kind of standard I wanted to at that weight. Another factor was my slowing metabolism. I am now 38 years old and for most of my life could eat and drink whatever I had wanted without gaining weight. This changed in my mid-30s, hence me gaining an element of fat despite training fairly hard. I decided 8 months ago that I was going to spend this year getting back into shape with a view to learning a new martial art at some point in the future (I have studied various martial arts, but karate is my base).

Since the new year, I have experimented with all kinds of things and approaches but have currently and primarily settled on this:

I began to drink protein shakes to give me what I needed in the way of nutrients given that I was finding it harder and harder to digest solid food and, rather than feeling energized after eating, I often didn't want to train at all

I have been following a personal variation of the Atkins Diet for the last few weeks after restricting my carbohydrate intake progressively throughout the year. What the Atkins diet taught me is that while I had limited my consumption of rice and bread and so on (the obvious carbs, also described as complex carbohydrates) I had continued to eat a lot of fruit and vegetables (which are also carbs and described as simple carbohydrates). So while I was working out seriously, my weight loss had been slow.

As of today I am 69.0kgs and one of my goals through July to the end of August is to drop to 68kgs. I have not experienced any decline in energy (quite the opposite in fact) and I am currently training around 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. I should also note here that I am effectively retired (through the application of martial principles to day trading and investing) and sleep for four hours in every 24 hours (usually from 5am to 7am then again from noon to 2am). I appreciate you may possibly be dubious, but I would just ask that you give me a chance to maintain this journal, keep reading for a while and then make up your mind in the future.

Third, a key component of this blog is my interest in a scientific explanation of 'enlightenment'. This has been a passion of mine since my days at university and I am dedicating more and more time to my research. After reading that Bill Gates gets through 5 books a week (compared to the average American CEO who reads one book a week) another goal that I am currently pursuing is to up my reading rate to two books a week. I intend for this to be a mix of fiction and non-fiction and will be reporting on my progress here. Today I have finished my first week seeking this goal and have successfully read two books.

Another area of interest to me, partly martial and partly because of my interest in ascetic disciplines is the Knights Templar. I have spent a great deal of time this year researching the Templar heresy (covered in Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, though I should point out that I don't agree with his conclusions).

I think this is enough information for today and I will in any case be filling in more details with future posts. I welcome you into my private world and I hope we can both benefit from this public journal.

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