Kohei Uchimura (above) was the 2012 Men's Gymnastics Gold Medalist. Genetically gifted? Perhaps. But I urge you not to get too hung up on letting your DNA or rather, your concept of your DNA, determine what you are capable of. The reason? It's because individuals like this dedicate insane amount of their life to their craft. And that goes a really long way.

Consider what most single young guys are doing on a Friday evening- going out to a bar or party, or perhaps going out on a date. You'll find that the dedicated folks still make time to practice their craft. Below is a picture of me in the crowd from six years ago (fifth from the right- top row). Jujitsu class on a Friday night. Dedication to the craft.

10th Planet San Francisco - 2010 w/Eddie Bravo visiting Denny's class

And when  looked back at my life from age 20 to roughly age 40, the time I put into being on some sort of martial arts mat added up....a lot. Assume only four days a week every week for twenty years (this assumes no weekend training or seminars which is totally not the case). That's over 4,000 classes. Let's be even more conservative and say that it's really only half that. It's still two thousand hours dedicated to studying something besides my day job or the television screen or the bottom of a beer bottle. And this says nothing about the money I've spent training martial arts over the years- I've estimated it to be at least $20,000.


So keep doing your thing and stay dedicated. Your approaches and your specific passions may change slightly over time as you gain wisdom or as your circumstances change but you must continue to put one foot in front of the other until your last step into the grave. That's a famous Zen saying...just kidding. I made it up just now.