You Can't Teach Heart

 I have been very fortunate throughout my martial arts career. I have not only been lucky, but I have been very truly blessed for many reasons, but mostly because I have been able to interact as peers to some of the greatest warriors in the world. One of my highlight moments, if not highlights, definitely unforgettable. I had the opportunity to coach the ultimate fighter, not only one season, but two. One of the seasons I had the pleasure of working with my errors greatest amateur boxer, 1976 Olympic gold medal winner, Howard Davis. Howard Davis and I spent hours not only training and strategizing our team, but we also spend a lot of time talking about martial arts.  One of our conversations we were talking about some of the members on our team and how one in particular seemed to give up a little quicker. During training. didn't seem to push himself like the other members of the team, and when he was sparring, he gave up a quicker than most of the other fighters. We both agreed that he had plenty of skill, conditioning seem to be just as good as anyone's, but he still seem to quit quicker than they did. Howard said something stuck with me till this day. "You can't teach heart”. You can teach techniques, you can teach conditioning, you can teach strategies, but you can't teach heart.  We talked about that for the next hour or so.  Here are some things that we decided.

Heart is a lot like chin for a fighter. You either have it or you don't. The biggest similarity is, it's not something you train. You either have it or you don't. That goes for a chin and heart. No matter how much hard you have, if you don't have a good chin you'll get knocked out, pretty easily, in fact, sometimes a fighter can have too much heart, because then he won't rely as much on skill so he'll leave himself open to get hit more and without a good chin that will mean he'll get knocked out much easier on the other side of that, maybe a fighter has a great chin, but he doesn't have much heart. That fighter might not get physically knocked out, but he'll quit when the going gets tough. Both of the above don't usually make it very far in the martial arts world. They'll usually get exposed pretty quickly.  The reason being on the lower level of fighting you can make up for a lot of weaknesses. Like for instance, if you don't have a great chin, you might have enough speed and movement to not get hit on the chin on the lower level, you might not have much heart. but you might have enough skill to compensate for that, in the lower level. Once someone hits the higher level, like the UFC in sport, or getting jumped by a very skilled street fighter in the street, That's when his weakness can be exposed. Having too much heart could mean that you take unnecessary risks, so the downside of that is a lot of times you just don't know when to quit, and that could not be very good for your long-term health.  Since that is the downside of having too much heart, what is the downside of not having enough heart?

Let me start this off in the most evident display of not having enough heart. First of all most people that lack heart are not gonna go into fighting as a profession, thank God, for that we'd have some terrible fights if we had a lack of heart in our sport, fighting world, which we do not by the way. The downside of not having enough heart in the sport world is pretty easily fixed, the fighter with the lack of heart won't go very far, so they'll just quit to pursue less painful and dangerous endeavors. But the real danger is a man who lacks heart, but has a family. He'll quit just like the sport fighter, but when he does, while he's protecting his family, they will pay the price for his lack of heart, or courage, as it's also known as.  Men who lack heart, also known as beta males, aren't cut out to be family men, they aren't cut out to be protectors at all, and it is a shame, when they want to have the pluses of having a family, but don't have the heart to protect them if need be. It's true as that is, unfortunately, many men have grown up in such a soft environment, the heart has never been tested, so they have talked themselves into thinking that they actually have one, but then when it's put to the test they realize quickly that they don't. That is terrible for them, yet even worse for their family. Why don't they just train hard and maybe they will get a heart. Hell, they can train hard and build endurance, muscle, and even speed, can't they just train hard and gain a heart?

Unfortunately, it's not that easy.  Martial arts is great for everyone, and even someone who doesn't have "heart" will be better off if they train then, if they don't, granted, they won't be able to make it to the high levels, but they'll still be better off with training, then they would be without. a martial artist who is completely blind, is a lot like a martial artist who has no heart. They will be better off with martial arts, but they will be very limited in their effectiveness when having to protect themselves or their families. But at least a blind fighter with a big heart will probably be more effective in protecting his family than a completely cited fighter without a heart. And just like the completely blind martial artist, who will never see, the beta male will never have a heart, no matter how hard he trains. As world champion Boxer, Howard Davis, God bless your soul in heaven, says, “you can't teach heart”. But with that said, to all of the martial arts instructors out there, don't ever stop trying to teach your beta male students to be alphas.  Whether you'll be able to correct their course or not, as an instructor, it is the right thing to do.