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Good Lord.
With all due humility, I have a pretty impressive martial arts lineage. Among other things, in Japan I trained under both Grandmasters Fusei Kise of the Kenshin Kan of Shorin-ryu Karatedo and Kobudo, and Shimabukuro Eizo of the Shobayashi school of Shorin-ryu Karatejutsu and kobujutsu. In the U.S., I trained in Hwarang Do under the late Franklin Fowlkes, who later founded the Five Elements Martial Arts System–Grandmaster Fowlkes being not only an ex-Army Ranger, but also a student of Michael Echanis, who is a legend in Special Operations community. He is also the basis for the book “The Men Who Stared at Goats” (No, I have not read the book nor seen the movie. I find it very likely that they would make me very, very angry.) In every case, I quickly became one of the top students at every school I trained in.
That being said, my military and law enforcement careers have made it very difficult during my adult life to continue any sort of serious martial arts training. I am just getting serious about it now, and at the age of 43, here is what constitutes serious: Yesterday, I attended what was essentially a children’s Taekwondo class.
Today, I am wearing Ben-Gay. *sigh* My body remembers everything it is supposed to do; but over the last two decades my balance, flexibility, and anaerobic conditioning have dropped to nil. I suppose it will be interesting to see how much can be regained during the latter half of my life.