The Hardest Fight of My Life

By Jonathan Lowell – The Iron Sensei

I have been training in karate since I was nine years old.

My first Sensei was Peter Urban. I trained with his black belts out on Long Island, and when I was old enough, I would take the train into New York City every Saturday to train with Urban Sensei himself. Back then, I didn't know there were different styles of karate. Karate was karate.

I was just a kid, and I was tolerated more than anything else. I kept my mouth shut and trained.

Those were different times. The Vietnam War was still going on. Many police officers trained in the dojo, and there weren't many kids or women on the floor. It was a serious place. Nobody was there to socialize. You trained hard, and you earned your place.

As I grew older, I heard stories about the legends of karate. One name fascinated me more than any other—Gogen Yamaguchi, "The Cat." I dreamed that one day I would train with him.

As a junior competitor, I continued to compete and study. Information about karate was scarce in those days. There was no Internet, no YouTube, and very few books. If you wanted to learn, you had to find someone who knew more than you did and get on the floor.

Eventually, I found my way to the Shorei-Kan Goju-Ryu dojo in Manhattan. It was there that I really began to understand traditional Okinawan Goju-Ryu.

Around that time, I kept hearing about an Okinawan instructor in Spokane, Washington—Teruo Chinen.

At a tournament, I met one of Chinen Sensei's students. She performed Shishochin Kata beautifully. We started getting together informally to practice kata, and I remember telling her, "One day I'm going to train with Chinen Sensei."

I had no idea how that dream would unfold.

Everything changed in 1990 when Morio Higaonna came to New York.

Watching Higaonna Sensei was one of those rare moments when you realize your understanding of karate has just changed forever. I learned that he and Chinen Sensei had both trained under Eiichi Miyazato in Okinawa and that Chinen was Higaonna's junior training brother.

I became Higaonna Sensei's student and followed him around the country for nearly twenty years, attending seminars whenever I could.

Over the years, I also had opportunities to train with Chinen Sensei.

People often asked me what the difference was between the two.

I always tell them there wasn't a difference in the karate itself. Both were exceptional. The difference was in the expression.

Higaonna Sensei was like a battleship with enormous guns. Chinen Sensei was like a jet fighter—fast, precise, and incredibly technical.

Even today, many of the kihon drills and teaching methods I use with my own students come directly from Chinen Sensei.

Then I learned something that stayed with me.

Chinen Sensei had diabetes.

He was diagnosed in 1995, although I'm convinced he probably had it long before then. Around 2010, complications from diabetes led to the amputation of his lower left leg.

Most people would have retired.

Not Chinen Sensei.

He continued traveling the world, teaching seminars, demonstrating karate, and inspiring students while wearing a prosthetic leg. He eventually passed away in 2015 from complications related to diabetes.

Another martial arts giant who lived with diabetes was Carlson Gracie.

Carlson was one of the most important figures in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Vale Tudo. His influence on modern MMA is impossible to overstate. He also battled diabetes before his death in 2006.

For years, I watched diabetes affect martial artists I admired.

I never imagined it would happen to me.

Then one day, I was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

I was incredibly sick.

The doctor walked into my room and said, "You have Type 2 diabetes. Your blood sugar is out of control."

I was stunned.

They immediately started me on insulin and antibiotics.

Suddenly, I was injecting insulin after every meal and pricking my fingers several times a day to test my blood sugar. It hurt. It was inconvenient. It was depressing.

I remember thinking, How did this happen to me?

Eventually, my blood sugar improved. My A1c dropped into the normal range, and I was switched to a single long-acting insulin injection at night. It was progress, but I still hated every shot.

Then life got harder.

I suffered my first heart attack.

At the time, I was teaching karate every day and training constantly. Years of stress had taken their toll. My marriage eventually ended in divorce, and over the following years I suffered three more heart attacks.

The last one, in 2018, nearly killed me.

The doctors began talking about a heart transplant.

I was sent to a transplant hospital in Orlando for evaluation. My heart's ejection fraction had dropped to around thirty percent.

Those were frightening days.

My ex-wife went with me to one of the appointments. A mutual friend whose husband had undergone a heart transplant became someone we leaned on for support because we simply didn't know what the future held.

I honestly didn't know if I was running out of time.

But I wasn't ready to quit.

I walked every day.

I stayed disciplined with my nutrition.

I kept moving.

Slowly, I started coming back.

Then Planet Fitness opened near where I lived.

Walking into that gym changed my life.

The gym became more than a place to lift weights.

It became therapy.

It became church.

Every workout reminded me that I was still alive and still capable of improving.

Little by little, I grew stronger.

I rebuilt my body.

I rebuilt my confidence.

Despite everything, I eventually accumulated nine coronary stents.

People joke that cats have nine lives.

Sometimes I smile and think maybe they're right.

Then, in 2023, another challenge appeared.

One morning my ankles started swelling.

I called my cardiologist, and he told me to come into the office immediately.

My first thought was, Is this it?

After examining me, he said, "You need a pacemaker."

That very day, I checked into the hospital.

I wasn't thrilled about having a device implanted in my chest.

My biggest question wasn't about the surgery.

It was, "Doctor...how long before I can get back in the gym?"

Fortunately, my cardiologist was a weightlifter himself.

He smiled and said, "Give it a month."

That's all I needed to hear.

One month later, I was back.

Slowly at first.

Then with a vengeance.

I wasn't trying to become the man I used to be.

I wanted to become better.

Eventually I moved back to Miami.

At my doctor's recommendation, I wrote The Hallandale Diet.

That book eventually led to coaching people who were facing many of the same challenges I had lived through.

People often say you can reverse Type 2 diabetes.

That's not really accurate.

For many people, it can be put into remission.

That's what I did.

It didn't happen through magic.

It didn't happen through shortcuts.

It happened through discipline.

One meal.

One workout.

One walk.

One day at a time.

Today my doctors are pleased with my health, and I continue to train, lift weights, and teach.

I've lived through diabetes.

I've survived four heart attacks.

I train with a pacemaker.

And I know what it feels like to think your life is over.

It isn't.

If you're struggling with Type 2 diabetes, recovering from a heart attack, or simply trying to become stronger as you get older, understand this:

You are not broken.

Your best years may still be ahead of you.

I've walked that road.

Now I'd be honored to walk it with you.

Osu.

About the Author

Jonathan Lowell, known as The Iron Sensei, has trained in Goju-Ryu Karate-Do for more than five decades. A student of Peter Urban and Morio Higaonna, he has competed, taught thousands of students, and operated his own dojo for over twenty years. He is also a licensed massage therapist, author of The Hallandale Diet, and founder of the online coaching program Iron Rebuild, where he helps men and women over 40 lose weight, build strength, improve their health, and regain confidence. Through The Iron Sensei Journal, he shares the history, philosophy, and living traditions of karate while drawing on a lifetime of training and continuous study.

← Back to The Journal