Mr. Miyagi points to his head. “Karate heah.” He taps his heart. “Karate heah.” He grabs his belt. “Karate nevah heah.”

I was reading an article in one of those karate or kung fu magazines. It was written by a practitioner. He was discussing how spirituality was missing from MMA, specifically targetting UFC fighters. That all fighters wanted was to be champions, to have fame, fortune, and busty ladies swarming around them.

Hell…what man wouldn’t want that?

It’s obvious there’s a huge misunderstanding of how spirituality should be practiced, or that MMA fighters don’t practice it. And it was also obvious this practitioner didn’t watch MMA, read the forums, interviews, and watch post fight conferences like I do.

It’s one of my many vices.

The wise practitioner, the writer of this wise article, full of wisdom, full of research, and full of shit harped on the lack of inner peace. Through his wise words I knew this person never fought, or if he did, then he approached it without inner peace. As wise and full of wisdom as he ascertained.

I’m a huge MMA fan. Watched hundreds of hours of interviews. And one thing that all fighters strain to get is inner peace. One of the most popular UFC fighters is former light heavy weight champion Chuck “The Iceman” Lidell. His monicker indicates that his nerves are as cold as ice before, during and after a fight. Every fighter praises him for that. Because if a fighter gets too excited, they’ll waste energy, suffer from an adrenalin dump, or are prone to mistakes. And mistakes in a game where there are literally dozens upon dozens of ways to lose isn’t a good thing. Keeping your cool is essential. And the current dominant fighters of the UFC and Strikeforce exhibit this without a doubt.

I get more nervous watching them fight.

Back to this all wise practitioner. His practice of inner peace is through meditation. I’m surmising here. But it’s pretty common. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s pretty easy to reach inner peace when you’re peaceful.  It’s kinda like going into a room full of yellow balloons to look for a yellow balloon.

Now, if we place a fighter punching this all wise practitioner in the face, how well would he be able to keep inner peace? Not well. But MMA fighters do this every day. And their ability to keep this inner peace allows them to adapt to the fight. It’s very common to see one fighter losing the fight badly, and with a slight change of strategy he comes up with the win.

This can’t be done if the fighter panics because he isn’t present enough to analyze what’s going on.

MMA fighters also practice 6-8 hours a day. They have to love the process and love the journey to continue to learn and challenge themselves. Another principle of spiritualitism.

All fighters want to be champions. But as they climb the ladder to contention, they remain present and focus on their current opponent. They study tapes, go over strategy, hire fighters who can mimic their opponents, and rarely think pass them. The principle of being present is at work here.

MMA fighters practice inner peace, but they do it in an environment that doesn’t elicit it.  So who’s more skilled at inner peace?  Someone who practices in a peaceful environment?  Or someone who practices in a violent one?

I wrote this because it struck me as a huge misunderstanding of MMA fighters.  To be misunderstood is a sore subject for my main character in my book.  He’s continually misunderstood by the people he’s sworn to protect, but he pushes on because it is what he does.  What hero gives up?

Continuing on with yesterday’s post ofReading People,I remembered something today that made me laugh.  Several months ago, I was working in another office.  They have those vending machines that dispences hot cocoa, coffee, tea, etc.

Periodically, the vendor will come to reload the machines and allow that particular coffee machine to give out free drinks.  All you have to do is press the clear plastic button, and, bam, free coffee or cocoa.  They can even choose between a large or small cup.  Keep in mind this happens often enough that once the worker bees hear about this a line forms.

Nothing funny so far, I know.

The one constant comment about the coffee?  “Yuck!”

Do the cubicle bees throw it out?  No.

What do they do?  That’s right.  They drink it.

Do they come back for more?  Yeah.

What is it about free stuff that no matter how bad it may be people will line up for it?  It’s the strangest behavior.

You see this in buffets.  People prepare themselves the whole day by not eating.  Once they get to the buffet they eat their fill.  They’ll continue to eat, making sure they consume the price of admission.  Then are they done, yet?  Well…there’s dessert.  You can’t have dinner and not have dessert.

They’ll load up on ice cream, cakes, cookies.  It’s as if they’ve never seen anything like this before and hoard all the sweets.  By the time they lug their goods back, they’re too full and leave most of the dessert.  And most buffet places have a policy of no doggy bags.

Why do people do this?

What’s crazier is the buffet called Todai.  They serve Asian style seafood like sushi, lobster, different filleted fish, etc.  This one Chinese lady had an empty plate.  She rapped her fingers along the bottom edge, waiting.  Saliva lined her bottom lip.  Her eyes widened.  The chef appeared from the back and placed about half a dozen halved lobsters.

This lady had no shame.  As he placed them on the serving plate, she scooped them up.  I’m not a huge fan of lobster, but, damn, scand-o-lous.

What is it with people?

It’s simple.  They don’t live in the moment, busy scarfing everything they can get their hands on, not enjoying life right now.  They’re constantly thinking there isn’t enough, living in the future, letting the present fly by.  And it’s no wonder when they’re on their death beds, they think, “What happened?”

The hero of my story deals with this on a constant basis.  It’s the one thing that saps his soul, making his job as peace keeper miserable.  He’ll have to find a way to cope.