Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdraskoy

You want to know what’s extreme? Commitment that’s extreme. Commitment to your principles and not doing something any other way.

I knew a guy like this. His name was Herbert Alcove. He was my best friend’s dad and he would pick me and my friend up back when we were kids every Tuesday afternoon following karate. It was about a ten minute drive home but every drive I would hear a new story about how sticking to your guns is what life is all about:

“Work an extra shift? ‘No way buddy boy’, I said. ‘I got my shows I gotta be watching every Tuesday night and I can’t have shifts flying at me left, right and centre’. So I quit. It’s about sticking to your guns, boys, that’s what life is all about.”

Later that night, as I recall, Lloyd, my best friend, called me saying his mum and dad had just separated. Something to do with Herbert quitting all his jobs apparently. I never saw Lloyd’s mum again but Herbert still picked us up from karate every Tuesday.

One life-changing karate session, Herbert arrived early and entered the dojo to watch us. In the last ten minutes we are always required to dip into a sumo squat and hold for as long as we can to improve endurance. Sensei would tell us that this exercise was about the mind more than the muscle. After five minutes or so Herbert had burst out laughing.

“This is what I pay for? So my child can sit on an invisible chair?”

Later, just as we were about to leave, Sensei approached Herbert.

“Mr. Alcove, I do not appreciate your outburst in my class tonight. As a parent you are allowed to be a spectator but it does not give you the right to make a mockery of my class or disrespect the art that I have given my life to. If you do this again I will ask you to leave.”

“And if I refuse?” scoffed Herbert, fixing his tall, lean posture.

“Then I make you leave,” Sensei stated.

“You make money by throwing a punch well, how is that going to help if someone has a gun?” Herbert laughed.

“Do not threaten the dojo or its children, Mr. Alcove,” Sensei calmly replied.

“You martial arts types place all this emphasis on how strong your minds are. ‘Mook mook here can sit still for days without moving’, well I can sleep for days, give me a blackbelt!” With that Herbert Alcove turned around and ushered us towards the car.

“Then I challenge you!” Sensei called out to Herbert who turned back to face Sensei again with a smile.

“You challenge me?”

“To a simple test of endurance,” Sensei continued. There was a silence and Sensei’s arms shot into the air, Herbert raised his arms but as fists, alarmed at Sensei’s sudden movement.

“I will keep my arms suspended like this for as long as possible and you will do the same. You can make as much fun as you want if you win.” explained Sensei. Herbert laughed and threw his arms dead straight into the air.
“It’s about sticking to your guns, guys, don’t let people push you around,” Herbert said on the way home, controlling the wheel with his knees.

Two weeks later Sensei was forced to lower his arms, supported by his friends and martial arts associates. Herbert Alcove was ecstatic and revealed he could put his shoulder joints in and out of position whenever he wanted. To add insult to injury Herbert kept his arms raised for six more weeks. After six weeks Herbert consulted a physician who examined and concluded Herbert’s shoulder joints were locked and no blood flow had been going to his arms for a month, resulting in gangrene. Herbert had had his arms amputated to save his life.

I am twenty and to my knowledge Lloyd has left home. Herbert Alcove is divorced, unemployed and alone but at least he stuck to his guns. He was an extreme type of guy but in the end had no guns to stick to anymore, metaphorically speaking. When I am asked to work another shift I comply. Only few live to that kind of extreme.