Goosey
.
I'm a big fan of Japanese Pro-Wrestling. I got into it years ago from reading Dave Meltzer's awesome
Wrestling Observer Newsletter(I think I started subscribing to WON in 1984 and have been reading it ever since). In Japan Pro-Wrestling is one of their major sports... there's Sumo and there's baseball and there's
Pro-Wrestllng(and it's off-shoots). It's a huge deal there...both as a "sport" and as a cultural force. Perhaps the biggest "hero" of Japanese Pro-Wrestling has been Antonio Inoki. He is a huge cultural icon...bigger
than anyone in sport here... he's been their "champion" many many times... he's a promoter...he's a
politician. He's probably best remembered here as the lantern jawed "Japanese Champion" who fought
Ali in that PPV "fight" in 1976. Inoki is a major personality in Japan. Well, the reason I'm mentioning Inoki is that when he was "champion" some times he'd lose... Inoki losing the "title" was huge news there...but usually when Inoki would lose the title an unusual thing would happen... he'd "start back from the bottom". As "former champion" he'd still wrestle...but he'd have "fights" with the guys who were the guys
usually in the opening matches(and not the big "money drawing" stars). By "starting at the bottom" again he'd have to prove to everyone that that is what "real champions" do... if they lose...they give themselves
a "gut check" and go through the journey that ended with them being champion. Inoki would start at the bottom again...then fight his way up the ladder to be champion again. I thought that was awesome...
and felt I learned something from all of it. I feel that Inoki's struggle(which always was an on-going...
"living myth" to many of the Japanese people) was very applicable to weight training. In fact my friend
Arthur Jones always had a similar idea... he was a great one for "going back to where you started"...
"back to the basics". He always applied it to weight training" and he applied it to academic and intellectual pursuits(he'd always recommend that you re-read the "classic"books you read as a kid...he even recommended that you go back and re-understand the foundations of math and science...). On training
I've always agreed with Arthur on this point. If you've trained for any length of time you realize that you
are always "starting over"... and when you do it behooves you to "go back to the basics"... "start at the
beginning again"... learn the basic lifts again... get your "ducks in order' again... Wasn't it TS Elliot that
talked about you returning home and "knowing it for the first time"...
Wrestling Observer Newsletter(I think I started subscribing to WON in 1984 and have been reading it ever since). In Japan Pro-Wrestling is one of their major sports... there's Sumo and there's baseball and there's
Pro-Wrestllng(and it's off-shoots). It's a huge deal there...both as a "sport" and as a cultural force. Perhaps the biggest "hero" of Japanese Pro-Wrestling has been Antonio Inoki. He is a huge cultural icon...bigger
than anyone in sport here... he's been their "champion" many many times... he's a promoter...he's a
politician. He's probably best remembered here as the lantern jawed "Japanese Champion" who fought
Ali in that PPV "fight" in 1976. Inoki is a major personality in Japan. Well, the reason I'm mentioning Inoki is that when he was "champion" some times he'd lose... Inoki losing the "title" was huge news there...but usually when Inoki would lose the title an unusual thing would happen... he'd "start back from the bottom". As "former champion" he'd still wrestle...but he'd have "fights" with the guys who were the guys
usually in the opening matches(and not the big "money drawing" stars). By "starting at the bottom" again he'd have to prove to everyone that that is what "real champions" do... if they lose...they give themselves
a "gut check" and go through the journey that ended with them being champion. Inoki would start at the bottom again...then fight his way up the ladder to be champion again. I thought that was awesome...
and felt I learned something from all of it. I feel that Inoki's struggle(which always was an on-going...
"living myth" to many of the Japanese people) was very applicable to weight training. In fact my friend
Arthur Jones always had a similar idea... he was a great one for "going back to where you started"...
"back to the basics". He always applied it to weight training" and he applied it to academic and intellectual pursuits(he'd always recommend that you re-read the "classic"books you read as a kid...he even recommended that you go back and re-understand the foundations of math and science...). On training
I've always agreed with Arthur on this point. If you've trained for any length of time you realize that you
are always "starting over"... and when you do it behooves you to "go back to the basics"... "start at the
beginning again"... learn the basic lifts again... get your "ducks in order' again... Wasn't it TS Elliot that
talked about you returning home and "knowing it for the first time"...
