Jason’s First Real Martial Arts Lesson?

Steven Barnes
8 min readDec 5, 2021

It is possible, JUST possible, that another little opening has presented itself with my son Jason. As you may know, I’ve been frustrated to have skills I’ve been paid absurd amounts of money per hour to teach, and Jason won’t let me in to teach them. They have to do with body-mind techniques from all over the planet, things I had to learn to save myself as a fatherless boy in a hostile world.

He fought me on judo and jiu jitsu, until I finally had to make a choice between the martial arts and his academics. I didn’t have the energy to nail him down on both. But I know that I agree with Thom Hartman’s book “The Edison Gene” in that there are different sorts of people, and learning styles, and those who are primarily kinesthetic are not served by classrooms that are primarily digital — -and that means “reading” as well as “computer screens.”

He is, I believe, a hunter in a world increasingly controlled by farmers.

Jason was supposed to live a life of a hunter/warrior: running, jumping, fighting, burning off all that adrenaline BEFORE he sits quietly to study a book. But for whatever reason, perhaps social anxiety, unless he has a “buddy” with him, he’s never entered the athletic arena. When he has, he is freaky strong and fast. But for whatever reason he won’t if alone.

Sigh.

Combine this with the fact that western civilization continues to move toward a Wall-E world of people able to sit on their butts and stare at screens or through VR…

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Steven Barnes

Steven Barnes is a NY Times bestselling author, ecstatic husband and father, and holder of black belts in three martial arts. www.lifewritingpodcast.com.