How to be a Physio Grand Master

Here we are sports fans, another Dave blog that promises to give you the secrets you need
to fast track your career to renown and success.
The short version - there is no secret or short cut. Do the work. Don’t be shit.
For those brave enough to continue, read on intrepid traveller as we take a detour through
various ramblings about the World according to Dave before circling back to remember what
the fuck we were talking about in the first place.
Right.
So.
The greatest movie ever made is called Game of Death, starring Bruce Lee. He died during
the making of it and it had to be finished with body doubles. For those of you raised on more
modern pop culture, it’s the origin of Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill yellow jumpsuit. It’s Bruce’s, not
Uma’s. For those of you who haven’t even seen Kill Bill, how the fuck did you end up here?
Seriously.

The climax of the movie is where Bruce’s character must ascend the levels of the Evil Boss’s
pagoda, with a badass dude waiting on each level to stop him. Each level represents a
different style. You have the karate dudes, the kicking dude, the praying mantis dude, the
weapons dude, the hapkido dude (yes they’re all dudes, it was the 70s).
Obviously Bruce kicks all their asses.
The final level - The Temple of the Unknown - Bruce has to face the fighter who transcends
style, and become the Ultimate Warrior. In the coolest cameo in movie history, the unknown
warrior is played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the 218cm tall NBA player, who was a student of
Bruce’s.
Bruce wins, saves his girlfriend and by creating the most epic fight scene ever put on film,
inspires a whole martial arts industry, film and pop culture for decades.

As you may have guessed, Bruce was one of my heroes, watching his movies as a kid, after
he was gone. As a result, and in line with what all obsessive kids in the 80s and 90s did, I
consumed every piece of media I could on him, his life, his philosophy.
Most people that even remember Bruce Lee remember his one Hollywood movie, Enter The
Dragon (the second greatest movie of all time). It was released right before his death and
made him a global figure. But that achievement is the last 1% of Bruce’s story.
99% of his story is about struggle, effort and the pursuit of being truly excellent at something
that means a whole shit tonne to him.

The commonly held number for the time it takes to become a true master is 10000 hours.
If you work at something 5 hours a week, that’s about 40 years.
If it becomes your career, you do 38 hours a week (god forbid anyone would do more than
that), with 4 weeks off a year and week of public holidays gives you 1786 hours/year. So
around 6 years of full time work.
Now Bruce, he started when he was 13, and as a teenager trained around 30 hours a week.
As an adult it was 6 hours a day, minimum, often more.
He died at 32, so roughly, 30000 hours. He was a master 3 times over, going off that logic.

Now Bruce was the best in the world. But to think that it was JUST practice that got him
there would be flawed. If I had done 30000 hours of martial arts I don’t think I’d be in the
same position. Lots of people work hard and tirelessly and don’t become masters, or fail
because of external factors.
So there will always be randomness
But even with that randomness, we can certainly guarantee that Bruce would not have got
there without the practice, without the mastery of his craft.
Those people who are aware of him from Enter the Dragon may have seen this guy come
out of nowhere, but there were decades of struggle and perseverance before that happened.
Overnight success doesn’t happen outside of winning the lottery. Overnight fame might. But
being famous is shit, especially if it’s not for anything to do with skill. Being excellent should
be the goal.
The other thing they would be aware of are all the times Bruce was knocked back. One of
my favourite shows as a kid, which I have since disavowed because of crimes against
Bruce, was Kung Fu. This had a white dude - David Carradine (the bloke who played Bill in
Kill Bill - Tarantino just followed Bruce around stealing shit), with a shaved head and the
Asian equivalent of blackface (it was the 70s) walking around in an American Western
version of a kung fu revenge quest.
The idea was Bruce’s. He was meant to star in it. But because he looked Asian, Western TV
executives cut him out of it. Even though the show was about Asians. White people suck.

Not only is the path to mastery long. It’s hard. And you will fail many times along it.

So dear reader, now we reach the point where we return to relevance and sense, kind of,
and I explain what in the actuall fuck this has to do with being a physio.

Becoming an excellent physio is a long, hard path, along which you will stumble and fall.
We do not graduate with a handle on all we may be asked to do and at the pinnacle of our
success. At best, we are, hopefully, unlikely to hurt someone. We then have to strive towards
excellence. And so we should, and it is worth it.
What’s the average career span of a physio?
5 years.
So a fucking shit tonne of physios get absolutely nowhere near mastery, yet quit.
There are a myriad of reasons why, but a massive one is the difference between expectation
and reality.
Now, reality can and should change. I feel good physios deserve to be paid more, and
pathways to success be more standardised.
But that is highly conditional. GOOD physios. Conditional on not being shit.
You get nothing for nothing.
It’s like Bruce Lee expecting to be a kung fu master because he rocked up at kung fu school.
So the expectation is flawed. Expecting to be successful without experience. Expecting the
reward without the effort. Expecting to beat Kareem without ascending the pagoda.
I get it, you’re young and smart
But so was every grey haired physio who has had their ass kicked by dealing with humans in
an uncertain world. How many grey haired physios do you know telling everyone that they
are the best, or have the secret to curing back pain, or act like they have proprietary
knowledge that no other physio can access?
There are a few now that I think about it. But the number of self proclaimed geniuses is
inversely proportional to experience. There are way more experienced physios that will tell
you they don’t have all the answers, refer more to colleagues who may be better placed and
make less mistakes, as their heads are not wedged in their ass.
If you have been a physio for 3 years and think you have all the answers and should be
considered a master, I will suggest the more likely scenario is you don’t yet understand how
wrong you can be. So gaining the benefits that come with real expertise should yet be ahead
of you. They are there, just not yet.
That fact doesn’t sit well with some clinicians. So they quit.

AND THEN

Because we’re physios and we’re pretty strange. A great paradox. Or another one, as there
are plenty.
Having persevered, strived, failed, succeeded and continued on to become vastly
experienced, we do one of 2 really shit things.
Either we chronically and criminally undervalue ourselves and fail to step into real mastery.
Or we check out and cease to evolve.
Like Bruce not making Game of Death because he doesn’t want to look like a show off, or
doesn’t want to seem arrogant, or doesn’t want to annoy stupid white people.
Or, just when he has the opportunity to make real impact, stops training and eats
cheeseburgers while watching Jackie Chan movies.
Both are shit, one for each side of a shit coin.
One, for your reasons. You have shit in your head that makes you feel you don’t deserve it.
That being successful is for other professions, not health professionals. We care for people
therefore it should be a struggle. Or we just care way too much what other people think of
us. Which is funny because no one is thinking of anyone else but themselves.
When you have the opportunity to help a huge number of people, you are compelled to be
excellent, and to succeed with that excellence on the biggest scale possible.
The other for less honourable reasons. You get to a point where things get easier. More
would require more work. So you park the bus. You dial in the work. Punch your ticket and
spend your time thinking of anything but your clients. I’ve seen this constantly in 20 years.
Get to a certain year of experience, normally around double figures, then repeat that year
until the end. No challenge, no evolution. No effort. Often coupled with a healthy disdain of
those traits in others, or new evidence that suggests progress is needed.
This affects those asking these clinicians for help, but also those that train under them.
Apathy is infectious, and so influences the ones leaving early as they can see a glimpse into
the future and think “no thanks”.

So how do you become a physio Grand Master?
Evolve - you don’t have to go a million miles an hour, but you do have to progress
Do the Work - reps matter. You can be great for your clients immediately but you need time
to really develop your craft, your brain and your confidence accuracy.
Seek out Current Masters - where better to learn from than those who have done what you
want to do? Just because someone is older doesn’t mean they are passed it. Most of the
time it’s the reverse. Conditional on having a 30 year career, maybe they know a thing or 2.
You don’t have to copy them. But I think you should listen
Pull your head out your ass, or pay someone to do it for you - you will be wrong. The worst
way you will be wrong is when you’re sure you’re not. Work at getting it all together and
when you think you have it, break your shit.