I'm Rationally Mean

Last night, I saw this video where my lovely daughter, Ronda, told the media that I made her get on the mat and do push-ups 6 days after her knee surgery, which is true. She said that after her last fight, she had both knee surgery and stitches in her hand, so I came over to her house, told her that her stomach was fine and made her do her ab workout in front of me. That is also true. In fact, I came over a few days and did that and did the workout with her. Days when I was out of town or too busy, I got her two older sisters go over and do her ab workout with her.

You might think I'm irrationally mean to have no sympathy for someone who has stitches in TWO parts of her body, who just had surgery and just won a fight in 16 seconds.

Well, I might be mean but I'm not irrationally mean.

Here are a few things I've noticed over the years:

• Elite athletes get accustomed to physical training and when they can't train, they get depressed. Being able to do even part of their regular workout, to break a sweat, makes them feel a little more their normal selves. I can guarantee you that Ronda felt better after she got out of bed and did her normal ab work out. I, on the other hand, did not, because I am old and my normal ab workout consists of sitting up and getting out of bed.
• If you are not planning on retiring after an injury, then you need to get back in shape. The fewer muscles you let atrophy, the easier getting back into shape will be. If you exercise any muscles that are not injured, you may even gain strength in those areas. At worst, you will have less of a hole to climb out of than if you had spent your recovery period sitting on the couch eating ice cream. The sooner you start working out, the better off you will be. If you have a body part that is injured, it only makes sense to work on that during physical therapy and work whatever else you can the rest of the time.
• Athletes who are in a sport that requires weight cutting never like cutting weight because no sane person likes cutting weight. When they are injured, it is very tempting to use that as an excuse to eat bon bons and sit on the couch, because everyone would like that lifestyle if it had no consequences, and hey, I'm injured. But guess what, it does have consequences because now you have 10 pounds more to cut and you are recovering from a knee injury so you shouldn't be running it off. 
• Injuries can lead to a vicious circle where the athlete does not train, is depressed, overeats, is depressed about being overweight and out-of-shape, so lays in bed and overeats more. 
• Sometimes, athletes get so frustrated that they are losing muscle mass and gaining weight that they start working out too soon, causing re-injury and the whole cycle starts over.
• An injury can be an excuse, "I can't work out because my knee is hurt."

Just in life in general, I've noticed people are often looking for an excuse not to win. It's hard to train. It's hard to run a business. It's hard to write a book. It's hard to raise a family. I can't because --

Just stop it!

I think it's best to live life without excuses, to focus on what you can do instead of what you can't. I apply that to everything. I was writing a paper for a software conference and there was an update to the software. When I looked in the documentation for my problem it said, "see usage guide" and when I looked at the link for usage guide it said, "coming soon". Now, if I could see into the future, I don't know what I'd be doing but I wouldn't be writing programs for statistical analysis, I'm pretty sure.

I pouted for about two seconds, and then I decided to write this post instead. You're welcome.

Speaking of books, Jim Pedro, Sr. & I wrote one on Winning on the Ground. You should buy it because it has good stuff in it about winning. On the ground.

Or, you can get our game, Spirit Lake, which teaches math and lets you shoot buffalo that go "Moo" (maturity is overrated).

We've had our next game, Fish Lake, in beta for a while. It should be ready for commercial release in a few weeks. I knew you were just dying to know what was going on in my life and why I haven't been blogging so much. Now you know.

P. S.  I have also noticed that the more successful people get, the more everyone else around them is inclined to tell them what they want to hear, "You're injured. You don't need to work out. You deserve to sit on the couch eating chocolate covered strawberries and playing Pokemon all day."

I have tried telling Ronda that those people are NOT her friends, that at best they are polite stalkers, but she will find out I'm right. Just like that one time I told her that she would be better off if she traded in that boyfriend for a monkey. She ended up wishing she had a monkey.