I suspect I will always been comparing music and martial arts until it all makes sense to me one day, the following is some observations I'm making as an overly specialized musician who took a cue from a much more versatile martial artist. 

I have been playing the electric bass exclusively for about 20 years. I dont have any experience with many other instruments. I can fumble around on a piano, I understand how drums work but don't play them. I am knowledgeable about music theory and know how other instruments work but i don't have any practical application with them. A while back, I had an inclination to purchase a 6-string guitar. I had some very practical reasons for wanting to learn a new instrument and I can even make a case for why every bass player should eventually learn guitar. In addition to the professional implications of a musician learning a new instrument, I just wanted to do something different. I yearned to remove the burden of being overly specialized-- from being limited as a musician to one voice. I wanted to write more, to think differently and ultimately expand my general knowledge on the subject of music. 

This idea didn't take on my first attempt, however. I took a few lessons with a guitarist friend whom I have the utmost respect for, but I wasn't getting what I wanted from him. The knowledge I was seeking was actually much more fundamental and my teacher was making some very broad assumptions about my abilities as a musician-- that he could leave out a lot of basics and throw me right into some intermediate material. I did ok, but I wanted the same foundation every other guitarist gets when they learn the instrument. It was important to me as a bass player that I learn how to think like a guitarist. There is a going belief that a guitar is "just a bass with two extra strings" and a bass is "a guitar without two strings." Obvious cosmetic similarities aside, the instruments are different, require a different style of finesse and way of thinking, which, by the way, I failed at miserably. The guitar felt like a toy in my hand. I was so used to the giant bass strings that every chord I fretted on the 6-string I'd automatically pull sharp because of the gorilla grip I had on the neck. Even though I was getting by, I still felt like a big clumsy idiot playing guitar and it wasn't fun. So, eventually, guitar just kind of became one of those things that just gets dropped by the way side and I figured I'd return to someday but probably not. Then I started studying Kali at IMPACT.. the last place I expected to be inspired to practice guitar. 

It is important for me to preface that I don't know a lot about martial arts yet, but I have a lot of experience with teachers (good and bad) and I, myself, teach music so I know a little bit about how it feels to have students and meeting their expectations. I know that many of my best bass instructors taught me by example, I never felt the need to question these people. Everything they did or said made sense in the context of what they did as musicians. There was no "do this because it's the way we do it." It was "do this because I've learned it works, and he's why." It's easiest to teach this way because there is no pretention. It's easy to teach from experience and learn from an experienced teacher. So, not having endured a childhood of studying martial arts at a McDojo, I acknowledge that I am spoiled by the fact that IMPACT is the first martial arts school I've ever stepped foot insde. My initial experiences with Guro and Simo as instructors were those of instant respect, from the moment of my instroductory lesson and every day since (which is a statement I hope they do not take lightly because I don't feel that way about a lot of people).  Among the many reasons I respect these people as teachers, is how they constantly press forward with their training. No one is ever finished in this school. No one is resting on their laurels, from the top all the way down to the newest student to sign up, we are all struggling to get better at something. 

Here's a question: Why does IMPACT have a Grappling program? There are schools all over who teach one or two disciplines and carve out their niche-- and IMPACT could certainly do that. However, even if Guro and Simo thought it was just a good business venture to incorporate grappling (BJJ is very popular right now), I don't believe that the owners / operators should be expected to train in the program. They could easily not participate and no one would think anything of it. Nevertheless, Guro has a personal goal of achieving the rank of black belt in Judo and BJJ to fulfil his greater goal of having a complete "martial arts tool box." He believes he needs those skills to be a well-rounded martial artist and, since he wants to create the environment to promote like-minded, complete martial artists, he offers Judo & BJJ at his school. 

In case you were wondering, THAT is how you lead by example. After 15 years of studying he puts on a white belt and starts up something new. Mind you, Guro Ervin is way better at what he does than I am at what I do. There would be no shame, in my opinion, if he decided he'd wanted to focus on his strengths for the rest of his life. But no. He's on the road getting training sessions with top BJJ guys, emptying his cup so he can refill it all over again.

So.. what was my excuse for not practicing guitar again?

Put into words I could not find on my own until I heard them, Guro's philosophy on being a martial artist with "a complete tool box" is almost exactly the reason I first got the pang to play a different instrument. I knew I wanted to say more than just bass lines, I wanted to compose more than just bass centric music. I needed a chordal instrument in my vocabulary and I felt hindered by my lack of knowledge. There's no a good reason an artist should be limited in this way. But I wanted it so fast I couldn't grasp it. I confess that a lot of what made it so hard to practice guitar was honest-to-God disgust at being awful at something I felt I should be able to just pick up. I wanted it to be like trading an out of state driver's license for an in-state one. I wanted my 20 years on one instrument to translate directly to this new one. But, of course, it didn't. Not completely, anyway, although some of it did. I understand a lot more about music that the typical starting guitarist does not, but the idea is that you can't learn if you already think you know it all. What I realized is that my abilities as a musician-- not a bass player, but as a person knowledgeable on the subject of music, was what translated the quickest. The rest I'd have to fight for, from zero, to make something out of nothing. So I am content now to be learning very basic chords, doing elementary picking exercises and meticulously grinding my brutish bass playing hands into precise guitar playing scalpels. In the end I give myself the same compliment that I give Guro Ervin: There's a lot to be said for any artist who can leave decades of comfort and experience and doing things their own way in a duffle bag on the locker room floor and tie on the white belt and start over again from scratch.