He Said He Never "Lost" a Match

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”

                                                                                        - Scott Fitzgerald

I began my martial arts training when I was a young boy of ten.  As many youngsters, I had heroes that I idolized. 

Unlike many of my friends who admired heroes from more traditional sports like football, basketball and baseball, my heroes came from the world of martial arts.  Names like World Kickboxing Champions, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace (who would later become my instructor), Joe Lewis and Jeff Smith (both of who I would also later get the opportunity to train with) were who I held in the highest of esteem. 

And of course, there was Chuck Norris.  People today’s world know Norris mostly through his movies and Walker Texas Ranger television series, but when I was growing up, he had just begun his acting career and was still best known for his championship achievements in Point Karate. 

Unlike Kickboxing, where techniques are thrown full power and combatants can win by knockout, in Point Karate, competitors face each other in the ring to see who can land “controlled” techniques that are then awarded points by observing judges who determine whether those kicks and punches were effective. 

This is the sport that Chuck Norris won his titles in.  Although the techniques are delivered with speed and power, the controlled nature of this type of fighting makes it more like a game of tag.  This means that the margin of victory and defeat can be slim as an opponent’s technique may land just a milli-second before his adversary’s, giving him the victory.

As I am writing this post, I have next to me Chuck Norris’s book, Winning Tournament Karate.  Published in 1975, this was a book that would rarely leave my side when I first purchased it back then.  Several of the pages have penciled-in notes from my 12-year old self marking my insights from studying it contents. 

All these years later, there is one section of the book that has always stayed with me.  In its Preface, written by long-time Norris student, John Robertson, he states,

“Chuck Norris rates extremely high in self-confidence.  Once his winning formula was perfected, he would accept only one verdict, ‘winner’.  ……..  He once remarked to me that he had never lost a match, and after seeing my look of disbelief (because he had lost matches and would be the first to admit it), he laughingly pointed out his meaning………"

"A man only loses a match, when he broods over his loss.  But if you learn from that loss, it becomes a major victory and puts you one more rung up the ladder of achievement.  I don’t call that losing.

”

Even some four-and-a-half decades later, those words still ring true for me and it got me thinking, how do I deal with “defeats” in my own life and how can do a better job of transforming them into “victories”.

Here are three things I believe we can all do to insure we “never lose a match”.

• Forgive yourself – After a defeat (or having a situation not work out the way we want it to), the person we are almost always hardest on is ourselves. Having the ability to forgive ourselves, is essential to moving past the defeat and onto new and bigger things. 

In 1998, I made it all the way to the finals of the National Taekwondo Championships.  I had fought extremely well in winning my three previous matches to get to the finals.  After scouting my opponent in the upcoming championship match, I felt absolutely positive that I would defeat him, as I felt my toughest opponent had been in my semi-final match. 

Well, you probably know what happened.  I lost the championship match, being “schooled” by a craftier fighter in the process.  I was not physically beaten, but rather I was strategically outplayed.   For months afterwards, I beat myself up over the loss, replaying it over and over in my mind.  Finally, I realized I had to let it go and forgive myself.  Until I did, I would continue to be beaten everyday not by my previous opponent, but myself. 

• Identify the blessings and lessons learned – In every defeat there is a lesson to be learned. Please know that I am not an advocate for losing. Losing can be extremely painful! I should know.  I played on the Northwestern University football team in the early 1980’s where we set the record for the most consecutive losses in major college football history (Columbia University would later reclaim that honor.  Thank you, Columbia!). 

Losing is not fun.  But, as the Chuck Norris story above illustrates, if we use our losses as a learning experience, we can build from them, using them to achieve greater success. 

I challenge each of us to consider a “defeat” we experienced and identity at least one blessing or lessoned learned from it. 

In my personal life, my divorce after a 26-year relationship was, at the time, devastating for me.  However, when I look at the lessons learned from that experience and the how it acted as a catalyst to be an even better father (and human being) and leading me to do the work I am doing now.  As a result, it was indeed a blessing in many ways.

• Take action on what you can correct/control and forget the rest – In 1999, I decided to take another try at competing in the National Taekwondo Championships.  When I began my training for the event, the loss of the year before clearly on my mind. 

However, once I was able to truly accept what had occurred and become aware of the strategic errors I had made, I corrected them and transformed the disappointment into focused energy that I used as fuel in winning the national title that year.  Focusing on what I could control and correct from the experience, forgetting about what I could not and then taking action on my new awareness was crucial to my success. 

This week, I challenge all of us to look at our defeats with a new perspective.  Do your best to release your judgments against yourself and open yourself up to all of the opportunities that lie before you. 

When we look at things from this perspective, our defeats actually become victories in life’s grand scheme and then you can truly say you never “lost” a match.

Chris Natzke

Black Belt Leadership Speaking & Coaching

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