Cool, like many on HN I have long held an interest in the martial arts. After a 9 year hiatus after almost getting my back broken by a jujitsu rock star (in whi

Cool, like many on HN I have long held an interest in the martial arts. After a 9 year hiatus after almost getting my back broken by a jujitsu rock star (in which hiatus I mostly did walking, hiking, and cycling) I just re-memorized fukyugata ichi from my karate days. Since martial arts interest is, in my life, associated somehow with higher than average stress levels, I found some additional benefit from martial arts by treating the interest as a hint from my subconscious to do the following _outside of_ martial arts: - Attack problems in clever ways - Learn to grapple with things; don't give up! - Explore and exploit the biggest leverage points - Try to "level up" over time--rate my belt level in various areas - Stick up for myself - Explore the idea of life-mastery - Invent one's own routines, styles (non-martial arts), etc. One of the biggest problems I've encountered in doing this is that once you learn to overcome one kind of problem, you only seem to come across harder problems; the previous problems aren't as problematic anymore. For example, someone who learns to be more socially adept might suddenly find themselves absolutely bowled over when they realize how much gossip, scheming, and sabotage really happen in the world. At each one of these maturation levels, it's been important to find ways to temper my viewpoint so that the problem itself doesn't overwhelm before I can start to grapple with it.