I started meeting men in the meetings. They’d give me their phone numbers and tell me I could call them if I felt like taking a drink. They were very friendly and supportive, but I never felt comfortable in the meetings. I’ve always felt a little weird in groups. I’ve always felt apart from things. I’d listen to these guys talk, and I couldn’t believe how bad off they were. Amy would ask, “How was the meeting?” and I’d say, “Great, but you can’t believe what happened to this one guy.” I couldn’t identify. It seemed like I was always the youngest guy in the room. And I was the guy who had suffered the least. These guys had lost everything. They had just been destroyed. Well, I drove to the meeting in a BMW. I had money in the bank. I wasn’t in trouble with the law. My wife still let me come home. I couldn’t believe I was a “real” alcoholic, if that’s what it was to be a real alcoholic.
That’s how I felt for the first ninety days. Then I went to a new meeting. It was a very young group. I met all these people who were just starting out. Some of them were being brought in from group homes, just like I had been when I was a kid. There were all these young guys wearing the institutional blue pants and white shirts. And I thought, “That was me.” I recognized myself in them. And that’s when I got it. That’s when I understood my alcoholism as a sickness, as a disease. I understood the progressive nature of it. I saw these guys at the beginning of their disease, and these other guys at the end of their disease, and I understood I was just another alcoholic somewhere in the middle. Not different, just at a different stage.
After that, things got easier. I felt much more like we were all on the same page. I felt more relaxed in the meetings. I felt more comfortable. After a while, it seemed more comfortable to be in a meeting than to be not in a meeting.
I had trouble getting people outside the meetings to understand that things had changed for me. I was at an event and everyone was drinking shots. They kept offering me shots, and I kept saying no, thank you. They got drunker and drunker. One guy finally asked me why I wasn’t drinking. So I told him, “I’m an alcoholic. I can’t drink.” He said, “No problem! Let me get you a beer!”
There have been times when I wanted a drink, or when I remembered how I used to drink. I get to feeling down emotionally, or feel like things are just too complicated, and I start finding my mind sort of … going there. When I see that happening, I say the Serenity Prayer and it passes.
I still get nervous about the future. It’s so undetermined. I had all these plans and strategies in place, and then they were gone. But I’ve turned those things over to a higher power. I’ve surrendered. The other night I was at an event watching Nick Diaz kick B. J. Penn’s ass. I was watching a guy I’d trained get beaten by a guy who’d beaten me. I was watching two generations of MMA fighters, both of whom I’d helped educate and form, doing their thing.
And all night long people came up to me, saying, “Mr. Shamrock, I’ve always wanted to meet you,” or “Mr. Shamrock, I want to thank you for all you’ve done for the sport.” In the past, I would only have thought, “Why is this guy bugging me?” or “Why is this guy interrupting my moment?” This night, though, all I could think was that these are real men coming up to me, speaking from their hearts and saying something really, really cool. I wouldn’t have had the courage to say that kind of thing to a man I respected that much. I thought, this is pretty cool, to be the guy they’re saying that about. I felt like I had earned their respect.
17
THE MARTIAL WAY
My introduction to martial arts was my introduction to life. It was my first exposure to the concept of a moral code. It was my first exposure to the ideas of honor, respect, and discipline, which to me are the three ideals of the martial way.
I didn’t choose it. It happened to me. I became a martial artist because I had to survive in the fighting world. I was training with Ken in the Lion’s Den and getting hurt, so I needed to grow and change. I was learning about fighting, but I needed something bigger than that. I found it in Japan, when I was first exposed to true martial artists.
I remember the very first moment of my consciousness about this. I had arrived in Japan along with another Lion’s Den guy, Jason DeLucia. We were being introduced to people. One man called me “Shamrock-san” and bowed very deeply. So, being a smartass, I bowed back and made fun of him. Jason hit me and said, “Don’t do that! Never do that! He was showing you respect! You can’t make fun of him.”
This was a whole new idea for me. I had been trained in the reverse of that. I had been trained in juvenile hall, and in jail and prison. I had been trained in gyms, with all the Lion’s Den guys. There was no respect. There was no honor. There was no discipline. Guys came to the gym dirty and sweaty. They brought their girlfriends and wives. No one bowed. No one trained. They just showed up and started beating on each other. In Japan I saw a new way. Over time, this new way developed into an idea. I based the idea on the concept of Bushido—the warrior’s way.
I learned that everyone has a warrior’s way. Everyone has a warrior’s mission. It’s a life mission. Whatever you choose for yourself or whatever you think your life is about, you must go on that mission. You have to do battle and you have to fight along the way, whether it’s a fight for your health, or your life, or the life of your business, or your marriage, or whatever. And you must fight fairly and honestly and stay true to the three ideals of honor, respect, and discipline.
This became the basis for my whole life. I learned it from the people I met in the martial arts community and developed it, over time, through my exposure to them. Every time I met with them, I saw that the martial arts people were different from the fight people. I’d go to this gym to train, or I’d go to that gym to teach, and I’d see fight people who wanted to challenge me to show off. No one showed any respect. No one seemed to have any discipline. Then I’d be asked to come teach at a tae kwon do school, or a karate school, and I’d have a completely different experience. They wore clean uniforms. They were quiet and respectful. They bowed. They were orderly and disciplined.
I observed and absorbed that. It became the basis for the martial way as it pertains to how I live my life. This is how I learned to live my life. I saw the application to everything I did, and I applied it to every action.
I learned that if I run my business life with honor, respect, and discipline, I enjoy success. I learned that from doing it the wrong way and getting the wrong results. I learned that if I screwed a guy over in business, I would meet him again and he would try to screw me, or that my reputation would be damaged and that would screw me. Either way, some negativity would result from the negativity I had put out. And the opposite was true. Something positive always results from something positive I put out.
I learned the application in my personal life, too. I had not been parented well, or coached well. As a child, I was taught by being punished. As a fight student, I was taught by getting beat up. In both cases, I learned the lesson without getting any information. I knew I had done something wrong because I got punished for it. But I didn’t know what I had done wrong, and I didn’t know how not to do it because I had not been taught. I had not been exposed to honor, respect, or discipline.
So when I became a teacher and a parent, I tried to do it the other way. I saw that bad parenting gives you bad children—who in turn may grow up to be bad parents. Bad teaching gives you bad students—who may go on to be bad teachers. I tried to develop a method of teaching and parenting so that the information I had got transmitted in a way that could be retained and in a way that helped create a good child and a good student.
These are the tools I learned and developed to live my life. They work in my business life and in my marriage. I try to bring honor, respect, and discipline into every part of my life. I also developed a system for teaching and learning that seems to work in every part of my life. I developed it from years of writing and thinking about fighting and the martial way. I was a good student of fighting. Part of my training, starting from my first
weeks at the Lion’s Den, was trying to write down exactly what I was doing and exactly what results I got. I used to have whole notebooks full of information about this move, or this hold, or this diet, or this exercise regimen. Over the years, I developed a system for thinking about things, for studying things, through the writing I was doing. That’s how I came up with the idea of plus, minus, and equal. This is my formula for success.
What it means is that, in order to be successful in any part of my life, I need a plus, a minus, and an equal. I need someone who is my plus, who can teach me. I need someone who is my minus, who I can teach. I need someone who is my equal, so I can test myself.
In the gym, that means I need a trainer who can teach me things I don’t know. He’s my plus. I need a student, or a group of students, so I can pass along what I’m learning and learn it better in the process. They are my minus. And I need a sparring partner, a fighting buddy, so I can test and perfect what I’m learning. That’s my equal.
I do this in my work life, too. When I started commentating fights for Showtime, I had a mentor—Al Bernstein. He’s been commentating for thirty-five years. He knows everything. He’s my plus. Then I had a partner—Mauro Ranallo. He’s been a television guy for a long time, knows a lot about sports but not as much about MMA. He’s my equal. Then there was the new guy—Pat Miletich. He’s been around MMA for years as a fighter and a trainer, but he was new to commentating. So he’s my minus. I was learning from Al, developing what I was learning with Mauro, and teaching what I was learning to Pat.
If you can control those three pieces, you can master anything, and you can control the information better than anyone. This system comes from the martial way, and it’s how I approach everything in my life.
It’s been especially important for me to find mentors in life. But mostly I didn’t pick them. I didn’t choose to meet Bob Shamrock. I didn’t choose to work with Ken Shamrock. I didn’t choose to study with Masakatsu Funaki. Somehow I pulled them into my life and was able to learn from them.
It’s also been important for me to be a mentor. Teaching is a big part of learning. Passing on the knowledge is an important part of mastering it. I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I ignore these ideals and when I don’t follow the martial way in some part of my life. When I follow these things, everything good comes to me. When I stop, or I take away the minus or the plus, it all falls apart.
For example, I got involved many years ago with the American Kickboxing Academy. I originally worked with two partners. One was Bob Cook, a student. He was my best student. He was so devoted. He was working as a tree faller. He’d work eight hours a day, then drive three hours to train with me—then train for two hours and drive three hours home. I called him Crazy Bob Cook. My other partner was Javier Mendez, an amazing kickboxing champion who started teaching and training me and later became my business partner. Together we became the first really well-rounded MMA school in the country, and we started Team AKA, one of the most successful fight teams in the country.
Javier was my mentor, my plus. Bob was my student, my minus. I was learning from Javier and I was teaching Bob. But I forgot my own system. I had retired from fighting and moved to Los Angeles. I stopped communicating with my partners. I stopped connecting with them and telling them things and asking them things. So I had removed my plus and my minus. And I kept taking meetings and creating media. I assumed out of ego and trust that my partners wouldn’t doubt or question anything I said or did. But Javier came and told me they weren’t comfortable with the way things were going. He said that he needed to be above me in our business, whatever that meant. I freaked out and clammed up. A couple of phone calls would have made the difference, I think, and would have repaired the damage. But I didn’t make the phone calls. The American Kickboxing Academy became the biggest fight school in the United States. They have trained dozens of champions. The team is still run by Javier and Bob, and I don’t have anything to do with it.
What happened? I asked Maurice Smith, my trainer and partner, what had gone wrong. He said, “You messed it up.” He was right. I didn’t see that until it was over, and it was too late, but I had a valuable asset and I lost it because I forgot my own system.
I have tried never to make that mistake again. I try to remember to use it in all my relationships, even in my marriage. I think it makes me a grounded, honest, communicative person, which makes it possible for me to be a good partner to my wife, and a good husband. Because I am loving, and communicative, it’s easy for her to tell me what she needs from me, and it makes it easy for me to give it to her. When I have difficulties in my relationship, I go to my mentor, to my plus, or to one of my equals. I ask them to help me. I ask them to give me their opinion and their experience. I don’t try to figure it out on my own.
When I have an issue with someone who’s more like my minus, I just try to share what I know. Years ago I trained a guy I called Shoulders. He was sort of a genetic freak. He had these massive arms and shoulders—beyond anything I’d ever seen. It was natural; he wasn’t training or lifting to get that way. He was just built huge. He was a country boy from Canada who played a lot of hockey and got interested in MMA. He joined my gym and got really involved. He practically lived in the gym. He trained hard. He would train until he dropped. But he couldn’t fight. He had some sort of mental block that was stopping him. So he just trained and trained and trained until he was all broken down.
After many months of this, he finally wore himself out. He was really down and really struggling. His knees were wrecked. So I asked him to help me coach. I was going on the road for some International Fight League event and I asked him to come along. We were sitting at dinner, having a few drinks, and I asked him to tell me what was going on. Finally he told me. He said that his father and mother had forced him to live in a shed his whole life, and have sex with them both. They kept him in this shed, worked him like a mule, and made him have sex.
I couldn’t believe anyone could live like that, or that anyone would be able to talk about it. But he laid it all out. I thought my journey had been tough. But this was beyond anything I’d ever heard. It was hard for him to tell the story, but he told it. When he was done, he said, “Mr. Shamrock, that’s my problem. I don’t know how to function. I can’t fight. My mother and father took my manhood away from me.” I told him, “I don’t know what to say about that, but here is what happened to me.” I told him my story. I told him what had happened in my life and how I’d gotten past it. And I said, “Your mom and dad didn’t take anything from you. No one can take away your manhood. You are a man. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what MMA is all about. We’re becoming men.” Soon after that he went back home to Canada and had his knee fixed. He got married, and today he has a fight team of his own.
I have had an amazing life. I have had an amazing career. In the beginning I was scared all the time. I didn’t know what I was doing. I got by on athleticism and desire. I never doubted myself. I got nervous because I wasn’t nervous. That stressed me out. But living through the stress, fighting when I was scared, fighting when I wasn’t scared, has made me a survivor. I could never have become the man I am today without going through the things that happened to me. I could never have become the man I am, or the man I am trying to be, without fighting.
Fighting has been my way of life. Fighting has been my discipline. Fighting is art. When it’s done right, it’s beautiful. There is nothing more beautiful than the painted canvas of just totally kicking someone’s ass.
I have fought some huge fights. I have fought some fights no one thought I could win. I won them because I brought everything I had to the fight. I didn’t leave anything at home. When I fought, I was fighting all the way. I was absolutely willing to die if that’s what it was going to take to win. It’s hard to fight a man who’s willing to die. It took me my whole fighting career, and everything that happened in my life before that, to make me into that guy. It took a lifetime of abuse, neglec
t, mistreatment, violence, and incarceration before I learned to fight back, to respect myself, and to take care of myself. It took another lifetime to learn the principles of honor, respect, and discipline.
In some ways, the hardest part of that is the discipline. It’s the part that’s easiest to skip. Training is harder than fighting. Fighting is easy! It’s exciting and you get the adrenaline high. Nothing hurts when you’re fighting. You don’t feel stuff. You might do some damage to yourself, but only one piece of your brain registers it—not as pain but as information. It’s as if one part of your brain knows something is going to hurt later. It doesn’t actually feel the pain at the time.
That’s not true with training. Training can hurt. Training, a lot of the time, is just uncomfortable. But discipline is all about doing the thing that’s uncomfortable. It’s about doing the things you don’t want to do. We’re all programmed the other way. We spend all our lives trying to avoid discomfort. Discipline is all about learning the opposite lesson. In the fight life, this can be really extreme. The fight life is so isolating, and so lonely. When you’re really in it, all you do is train. If you want to be the best, you get rid of all the other things. Parties and birthdays and personal relationships are no longer important. Training is everything. Creating and maintaining your physical machine is everything. This is historically part of the martial way. The old samurai did nothing but train and figure out ways to kill people better. They didn’t even take wives. It was too much of a distraction from their training. That takes amazing discipline. To be successful in any area—in business, in sports, in a relationship, in any endeavor—you have to understand that it’s OK to be uncomfortable. It’s OK to be in pain. Discipline is about knowing that you have to suck it up and humble yourself and do the right thing, which is usually the hard thing. That might be the hardest lesson of all—to do the hard thing when it’s the right thing.
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