The Martial Artist

How two hobbies saved my life.

That’s a little cliché isn’t it? Saying that something that could be seen as so small saved my life. I guess in this case it rather gave me a new perspective on life and a new control over how I viewed myself.

Since I was a child after an event and a series of smaller events leading into adulthood I’ve never really saw myself as a person, more like a puppet, an inanimate object to be controlled, something to be used and discarded by others.

Only alive when useful. Lifeless and soulless, I’ve felt as though I was watching my life unfold from the sidelines, an audience member to a really shit TV series. If I could, I would have stopped watching at series two.

During lockdown, like most of the world I got bored, felt lost and unsure of what to do and how to spend my time. I spent my days sat in front of the TV and my nights in bed, I could feel myself slipping away.

One day something clicked, I had free time, time to do what ever I wanted, and that’s what I did, I brought airdry clay and started moulding, random animals, sculptures, and pots, giving myself something to focus on, a creative outlet.

Whilst my mind was occupied, physically, I wasn’t sleeping, I was irritable and restless so one day I asked to use my brothers weights.

I started training daily. Eventually we started drilling boxing and kickboxing techniques in our living room and I finally found it. The thing I could really enjoy, I started watching clips on YouTube to see what I want to learn and that was the start.

After lockdown I went back to my full time job and due to my brothers health condition the training stopped. but I continued my creative development.

I got a job in a pottery painting studio.

I loved learning to glaze and load the kiln, It was like a daily science lesson, my painting skills improved with every piece, and I started to learn more about the different types of clay and how to hand build. My fascination only grew, and it dawned on me that I had outgrown this small business as I had learned all they had to teach me.

It was at this point (well actually a little earlier) that I started to learn wheel throwing being taught by someone I now consider a good friend and contact within the pottery world, with a starting story similar to my own. Eventually I got a job in a wheel throwing studio closer to home, I taught classes, loaded the kiln, mixed my own glazes and even learned to throw consistently.

However, this dream job quickly became a nightmare, I was often left to do the workload on my own, I was stressed, and mentally at a low. A few weeks after losing this job, due to personal matters all out of my control I took one too many ibuprofen.

Now that got pretty dark. And whilst that Is an important part of the story, it’s one we’ll have to circle back to.

Now let’s travel back in time, it’s 2023 and I’m still working and the pottery painting studio. I’ve just started therapy, my eating disorder is kicking my ass, I’m self-harming and need something to throw myself into in a physical way.

In 2023 I started kickboxing for real, after signing up for a free trial and physically unable to make it through the door, I finally arrived, yes my friend had to join me for my first lesson. I was a nervous wreck. After this session, I was hooked. I trained weekly. By the end of the year, I had started with my PT in the gym to add strength a condition to my plan, I knew where I wanted this to lead and what I had to do to get there, of course keeping my plans to myself until the right time.

I trained consistently, eventually training twice a week and even doing 1:1 sessions at kickboxing to better improve my skills.

And then, it happened.

We’re all caught up.

September 2024, I had lost my job, and was sofa surfing at a friends house as I was technically homeless, With no money coming in and a bleak future, or so it seemed, I decided to do what some may see as the unthinkable, but for me I had thought about it and I had thought about it a lot, over months and even years and this just so happened to be the final thing, the straw that broke the camels back, the event that brought my then reality crashing down. Had I been through worse?

Yes.

But in that moment none of that mattered, there was no worse, no better, no light at the end. Just an ending. An ending that had waited for so long, a constant demon in the shadows.

Honestly, it was kind of humbling, I fell a sleep for a few hours, and then to my surprise, I woke up. 

I felt groggy, extremely sick and lightheaded, I probably should have gone to the hospital but instead I went to kickboxing. Training was hard that day, for obvious reasons, but I pushed through and once I got home I felt calm.

It was after this I told my coach I wanted to fight, and I decided I wanted to run my own ceramic business, so, I got to work, I started training full time 6 days a week, 10 sessions most weeks training twice a day.

To start my business? I contacted the Kings trust in the hopes of getting a grant.

And this I guess is where the story actually starts, as usual the context was long but necessary for you to fully understand.

From that day October 8^th 2024 I haven’t self-harmed, I’ve kept my goals front and centre, and whilst it has been hard occasionally I’ve pushed through and that’s why you’re reading this today.

Assuming of course you’ve made it this far.

Whilst training full time my coach asked if I wanted to start helping out with the kids sessions, occasionally running the stretches in the adult sessions, and later running the warm ups, everything was moving forward and everything started falling into place, new opportunities opened up and it felt as though I was on the right path.

A few months went by and I started training for a coaching course to officially qualify, as an instructor, though the course got cancelled twice I ended up qualifying with my coach, surrounded by the people who had supported me from day one, the fitness test challenged me, pushed me to new limits, there were times I wanted to give up even saying out load “I can’t do this anymore”, but then it clicked, this is what I said on that day, on the last day I gave up, clocking out mentally, the day I knew I couldn’t go on.

But I did, I continued, I kept living and had brought myself to this point.

This is what I’ve been training for.  

I pushed through to the end, laying on the floor when it was all over.

A strong sense of accomplishment and for the first time in a long time I was proud of myself and the person I had built.

A happy ending, the credits role, and the screen turns black.

But this isn’t a movie and I’m no longer watching my life through that little screen, I’m present and aware, I feel every hit during sparring, feel every emotion through life’s ups and downs, no longer soulless, a vessel for others. Whilst some things are still a struggle, I no longer give up, I keep pushing forward.

And as for the business?

Well you can see for yourself.