A 10-Year-Old Kid with a Chemistry Set and a Passion for Martial Arts (and 40 more years’ experience)
I am a 51-year-old lifelong martial artist with a Ph.D. in chemistry. I have worked for 20 years (since completing my doctorate) in pharmaceutical and toxicology research and have trained in several different martial arts systems since I was about 10. A coworker once joked that I was basically a superhero – scientist with a high-tech lab and martial arts expert (his words, not mine). I told him all I needed for that to be true was billions of dollars or a radioactive spider bite. I hate spiders so that’s out. If anyone has a billion dollars, I’m willing to test that part of the theory. Other than that, I’m just either just the nerd on the martial arts mat or the beat-up martial artist in the lab depending on the time of day.
I do have an interesting background as a martial arts coach. Growing up in Sylvania, AL in the 1980’s I was always outside. My friends and I played in the woods behind my house and when I went to a friend's house, we played in the woods at their house. We hunted, fished, camped, and played army all day on a regular basis. We also rode bikes – a lot. It was not uncommon for us to ride bikes back and forth to each others houses and around the community on our various journeys. At a young age, I became interested in martial arts, mostly karate and ninjitsu at the time. This was before the Karate Kid movies, so my influence was more from Sho Kosugi, Bruce Lee, and Chuck Norris movies along with Saturday morning WWF (now WWE) wrestling. Like every other pack of boys in the 80’s, we started to imitate the moves we saw on the screen on each other. Kicks, punches, wrestling moves, and even military things like shooting positions for our pre-air soft BB gun wars became part of our young skill set. We traded martial arts magazines. We rented every martial arts and military movie we could and watched them together so we could imitate them.
As great as growing up in rural small-town Alabama was at the time, the drawback was that we didn’t have a lot of variety in some things. Martial arts schools was one of them. We were, however, extremely fortunate to have a local man named Anthony Cuzzort who taught classes in the school lunchroom in a nearby town. My parents took me there for classes, and I still remember that first conversation - $25 a month and classes were Tuesday and Thursday night from 6:30-8:30. Anthony was an exceptional instructor who instilled in us the reality of combat sports and reality-based self defense long before those terms came along. Being a veteran, he gave us a filter to recognize practical techniques and legitimate teachers as opposed to the fly-by-night charlatans who came and went teaching flashy moves and passing out belts. This discernment would serve me well in coming years, and Anthony has had more of an influence on martial arts in our local area than most almost anyone recognizes.
During that time, I was also always interested in chemistry. I had several chemistry sets and microscopes over the years. I would always complete all the experiments in the brochure and have just enough chemicals left over for some failed things to try on my own. Oh well, scientific method, right?
So basically, from the time I was 10 years old, I have been interested in chemistry and martial arts. I have achieved a high level of training in both as well. I have a brown belt in BJJ and a 2nd degree black belt in Goju Ryu karate which I finished in Birmingham while in college. I also have advanced belts in other systems like TKD, Kyokushin, Krav Maga, Combat Submission Wrestling, and STX Kickboxing. I plan to complete my black belts in BJJ and Civilian Tactical Training Association in the next few years. I have competed in karate, kickboxing, wrestling, BMX biking, and of course math. I also have a doctorate in chemistry with over 20 years of experience in research and development. I’m still that 10-year-old kid with a chemistry set and a passion for martial arts.
Over the years, like everyone else, I have encountered several health problems. In 2012, I began having sever join pain and stiffness. I got bad swelling in my fingers. After a couple of years and 2 rheumatologists, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune inflammatory condition called ankylosing spondylitis. This disease is systemic but primarily affects the spine as well as peripheral joints in the hands and feet, at least initially.
In future articles, I will explore how my martial arts background has helped me in dealing with these health challenges. For now, if you were once that 10-year-old kid who wanted to train martial arts, I can show you but could never adequately tell you how much it can benefit your life.