I’m 5’2”, 120 Pounds—and That Isn’t My Only a Disadvantage

I can’t be the only person who did this.

Especially when I was younger, I’d look in the mirror and see everything that was wrong. Everything I wished was different. Everything I thought needed fixing.

And I don’t just mean physically. I did it with school too.

If I brought home a report card with a couple of A’s and a C, guess which grade got all my attention?

Not the A.

The C.

• How do I turn that C into a B?
• How do I get rid of the weak spot?
• How do I make everything good?

Which sounds responsible.

Maybe even admirable.

But there’s a problem with spending your whole life trying to turn every C into a B.

You can end up pretty good at a whole bunch of shit and exceptional at nothing.

Years ago I read a book called Work Less, Make More by Jennifer White.​

I don’t remember every lesson, but one idea stuck.

That hit me hard, because I’d spent a lot of my life doing the opposite.

Fix the flaw.

Correct the weakness.

Bring up the low score.

Stop being deficient.

Somewhere along the way I started asking a better question.

Not:

How do I get better at the things I’m bad at?

But:

What am I already built to do well — and what happens if I become fucking dangerous at that?

I’ve Always Been the Small Guy

I often joke that I used to be 5’4”, but after 35 years in construction, gravity collected its tax, because now I’m around 5’2”.

These days, after a few years of jiu-jitsu, I’m somewhere around 120 pounds.

Amy says that when she met me in 2001, while I was training hard for my second-degree Hapkido black-belt test, I was probably around 130 or 135.

Maybe.

I honestly never paid much attention to my weight.

Because whether I weighed 110 or 135 didn’t change anything.

I was still the smallest guy.

On the job.

On the mat.

In a lot of rooms.

I knew what I wasn’t.

I wasn’t big.

I wasn’t physically imposing.

I wasn’t going to overpower most of the guys I trained with.

And when you’re young, it’s easy to turn that into a complaint against reality.

• If only I were bigger.
• If only I were stronger.
• If only I had more reach.

But reality doesn’t care what body you wish you had.

You’ve got the one you’ve got.

So eventually I had to stop asking one question and start asking another.

How do I fight like a bigger guy?

Became:

How does a small guy need to fight?

That changed everything.

Stop Playing the Big Guy’s Game

In Hapkido, one of the exercises that changed things for me was the Aikido hapo undo — the eight-directions exercise.

Footwork.

Movement.

Changing angles.

Getting off the line.

Over time, those movements dramatically improved my speed, mobility, and agility.

And suddenly being small wasn’t only a disadvantage.

It was part of the game.

I could move.

I could change angles.

I could get around bigger bodies.

I didn’t need to stand in front of someone stronger than me and see who could hit harder.

That would be a pretty fucking stupid game for me to play.

So I became much more of a counter-striker.

Instead of trying to smash through someone’s defenses, I could bait the attack, let him commit, let him create the opening — then use my speed, timing, and movement to counter.

The weakness didn’t disappear.

I was still small.

I just stopped building my whole strategy around wishing I weren’t.

That’s the distinction, and it matters more than it sounds.

Being small still costs me things.

I just stopped letting that cost decide the game I played.

BJJ Is Teaching Me the Same Lesson Again

Now jiu-jitsu is making me learn this all over again.

I’m still usually one of the smallest people on the mat.

And if I try to play strength-on-strength against someone who outweighs me by 40, 60, or 80 pounds, that isn’t courage.

It’s shitty strategy.

So I’m discovering what this body actually gives me.

I’m bony, and that’s useful.

Elbows and knees make pretty good frames.

I’m small enough to find little pockets of space inside positions where a bigger person has more trouble moving.

I’m learning to hide my limbs and make it hard for somebody to get the lever they want.

And my hand fighting has gotten pretty good.

Even when someone takes my back, it’s getting harder for them to finish the choke.

Now, let’s not get carried away.

I don’t know how hard everybody is really trying, and the brown belts and black belts can absolutely still choke the shit out of me.

But they’re having to work a little harder than they used to.

That’s progress.

And once again, it didn’t come from becoming bigger.

It came from getting better at being me.

Maybe Your Weakness Isn’t the Problem

There’s a bigger lesson here than martial arts.

A lot of us pour enormous energy into becoming some imaginary version of ourselves.

• More outgoing
• More aggressive
• More organized
• More charismatic
• More analytical
• More disciplined
• More whatever

We see somebody succeed because they’re great at something we’re mediocre at, and we decide that’s the thing we need to fix.

Maybe.

Sometimes a weakness really does need work.

If you can’t manage money, communicate with your spouse, do the essential parts of your job, or take care of your health — saying, “That’s just not my strength” is bullshit.

Some things require a minimum level of competence, because the consequences of ignoring them are too high.

But minimum competence is not the same thing as mastery.

That’s where most of us get confused.

You might need to bring the F up to a C so it stops hurting you.

That doesn’t mean you need to spend the next ten years turning that C into an A-plus.

Maybe that time belongs somewhere else.

Maybe the better investment is taking the thing you’re already unusually good at and making it exceptional.

I had to learn this the slow way, after a lifetime of being the small guy — and thirty-five years working in rooms full of bigger ones.

You might be able to learn it faster.

Every Attribute Changes the Game

I’ve started thinking about strengths and weaknesses differently, and I think this reframe is the actual gift here.

Being small isn’t good.

Being small isn’t bad.

Being small changes the game.

It creates constraints — I can’t rely on size.

But it also creates possibilities.

I can fit into spaces differently.

Move differently.

Frame differently.

Attack differently.

Force different reactions.

The same is true outside martial arts.

• Being introverted changes the game
• Being highly analytical changes the game
• Being intensely emotional changes the game
• Being cautious changes the game
• Being impatient changes the game

Having an unusual background changes the game.

Almost every characteristic gives you something and costs you something.

Strategy begins when you stop arguing with the cost long enough to notice the advantage.

That’s what I wish I’d understood earlier.

Because for way too many years, when I looked in the mirror, I mostly looked for what needed fixing.

Eventually I started looking for something else.

• What works?
• What’s naturally there?
• What am I unusually good at?
• And what would happen if I trained the hell out of that?

It didn’t magically erase my weaknesses.

I still have plenty of them.

I just stopped letting them own my attention.

🥋 Put It on the Mat

Here’s the exercise, because the point is to actually do something with this, not just nod along.

Take one thing about yourself you’ve spent years treating mainly as a disadvantage.

Don’t lie to yourself and pretend there’s no downside.

There is.

Write that down first:

Then ask the question most of us forget:

What does it let you see, do, learn, endure, notice, or become — that someone with different attributes might never have needed to develop?

Then pick one advantage you’re currently underusing.

Just one.

Don’t try to fix ten weaknesses this week.

Train one strength.

Make it measurably better.

Because maybe the thing that’s been holding you back isn’t the hand you were dealt.

Maybe you’ve just been trying to play somebody else’s hand this whole time.

Play yours.

📚 Leader’s Library

​​​Turning Pro​ by Steven Pressfield​​​

Why?

Turning Pro is about the moment you stop waiting to feel ready and start treating the work that matters to you like a professional would—with consistency, commitment, and responsibility.

Turning pro doesn’t mean you suddenly become an expert.

It means you stop letting mood, fear, distraction, and Resistance decide whether you show up.

You may still be a beginner. You may still screw things up. You may still have a long way to go.

But once you decide the work matters enough to practice it seriously, you’ve already changed where you’re standing.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck