Quitting is Not an Option - 2/22/06

Hi folks. Looks like I'm going to have to stop resisting and join the Internet Blogging universe. Personally, I'm not really sure who will read these ramblings, but I'm was told I need to have a blog. So, here it is!I've been a big guitar nerd since I was seven years old. A big guitar nerd. Hours practicing. I am REALLY stubborn, and I try not to do anything halfway. I would play scales until my fingers literally bled. Like the Brian Adams song, except I was probably not even an idea in the summer of '69.You probably all know I've been associated with Taylor Guitars for years and am somewhat identified by being a guitar player.What you may not know, is that I also train in and teach a variety of martial arts disciplines.Disclaimer: Not a tough guy. Never been one. Not into Steven Seagal movies. No disrespect to him, or he'll snap my arm like a twig! Or worse yet, regale me with his Country singing stylings...What's the connection between martial arts and music? Well... let's put it this way... While I didn't grow up in the inner city, my bithplace has been mentioned in the "The Sopranos" almost every season since the beginning. Get the picture? It was a tough school system. If you wanted to keep your milk money, then you either learned how to run or how to defend yourself. I was never much of a runner. I chose option B. It turns out that one in every three people I have trained with over the years plays a musical instrument pretty seriously. Why? Well, chances are if you were a band geek in school, then some meathead tried to hang your head in the toilet. Karate lessons may have followed. It sounds a little zany, but it correlates almost every time.I don't like seeing the toilet from the inside, so I started with boxing at age 7 and moved onto traditional Okinawan Karate at 12. By 17, I was seriously into Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan and spent many years training aggressively in those forms with several noted teachers. I've earned instructors ranks in a few styles, which I mostly ignore. The weird thing about black belts for me, is that once you have one, it becomes much less meaningful than when you were trying to earn one. I guess it's the journey, not the destination that matters. My belts are in a box in my closet. Six years ago, I had the singular good fortune to start training privately with Sifu/Guro Don Edwards (top left). Don is a 6th degree black belt and acknowledged Master of Filipino Eskrima. Eskrima is a weapons-based martial art with roots in Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Western combat science. It also has a very effective empty hands and grappling component. Master Edwards also holds a Full Instructor's rank in Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do under Sifu Richard Bustillo, who trained with Bruce Lee in the backyard. He also holds ranks in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and I haven't even mentioned his Third Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do or his Muy Thai Kickboxing experience. Get the picture? He's the bomb! The nuclear bomb!I run a traditional Chinese Martial Arts program for Sifu Don and also help out with Eskrima classes, when my music schedule provides. The school is my refuge. Why am I babbling about this? Well, most of you don't know that Friday's Child disappeared from the map for most of 2003 because I was deathly ill for most of it. I had a form of Central Nervous System Lyme disease. It sat in my body, undiagnosed, for long enough to trigger a form of relapsing/remitting MS (Multiple Sclerosis), which I will keep now forever like luggage. That year cost me my marriage, my band, the feeling in my hands, some friendships, and a host of other things.Picture this. Taylor Guitars trades you an old guitar for a brand new, massively expensive 610CE Dreadnought. The day UPS delivers it, you are unable to walk and your hands are numb claws. Imagine that you have had a popular Indie rock band for 7 years of hard touring, and on that same day, you are asked to open for seminal jam band, Rusted Root, and have to say no. Rock bottom folks. Rock bottom.I took intravenous antibiotics to knock out the Lyme. I remain on an injectable drug called Avonex to combat the MS. It works very well, though I had to overcome my innate distaste for needles. Like I said... not a tough guy!From there... two things came into play heavily... Music and Martial Arts. I was told by several doctors to pack it in, go on disability, take my medicine, lay on the couch, etc. Sifu Don Edwards told me to get up off my ass and start training again. I listened to Sifu Don. Instead of laying on the couch, when I was finally able to move around a bit, I started to train. I was 30 pounds lighter, after the attack, and had lost lots of strength and muscle mass. Sifu Don would not allow me to succumb to it. Five months later that year, Sifu Don and I demonstrated stick and knife techniques on Martial Arts Television at Six Flags Great Adventure. The climb back up had begun.The second hurdle was the numbness in my hands. I couldn't tell where my fingers were going on the neck of my guitar. They were weak and innaccurate. Answer... Finger tip push ups. Lots of them. Combat conditioning exercises. Tai Chi. It all works. That was followed by two things... Bach and Paganini. Basics. I drove my hands until my technique was so pure, I overrode the bad sensation in my hands.It's two and a half years later. I teach or assistant teach at least two martial arts classes a week. I reformed the Friday's Child trademark with my former guitar mentor, Don Regan (the other Don in my life), Rich Haddad, and Rob Grosso. The band is now bigger and more popular than it ever was. Our new album is climbing up Mediabase's Mainstream Rock Charts.What's my point? I don't know. I guess it's that people should not count you out until you're dead. You have two choices: live or die. There is no in between. Quitting is not an option... unless it's a bad job, a bad mate, or a bad band... You can't quit life. So go do a sit up! Now! Hurry up! Whimp! Look at Rob Grosso's before and after photos to the left. I train him five days a week. He's a barbarian now... literally!

Seriously, click the martial arts pictures to visit Don Edwards' site at www.imafit.com. Pay us a visit. We'll make you work out hard...