Many people, resort to escapism as a way to put it plainly — escape — from reality, stress, and responsibilities. Escapism, comes in many forms — some choose to smoke a joint to relax, some jump into another world through books, video games, or a Netflix TV show. While these forms of escapism are not inherently bad in moderation, they can become destructive when the desire for escapism outweighs the joy of everyday life.
Myself, I do enjoy video games and lately due to the nature of my injury I’ve been having my fair share of indulgence. It’s an incredibly immersive way of escaping into a completely different universe, where the events that shape that universe are dictated by all of your actions. In one game, The Ghost of Tsushima, I play as a samurai warrior, Jin Sakai, who is on an epic quest to thwart the Mongol invasion of Feudal Era Japan. As you play through the story, Lord Sakai elevates his skills with his deadly katana, mastering the weapon with beautiful precision. As your playtime increases, your familiarity with the blade becomes honed and you unlock an expansive move set to use against increasingly complex enemies. You become entwined in the fata of Jin Sakai and his story; how will our hero fair against the Mongol Khan and his mighty army? You put in hours assembling the core skills to elevate your swordsmanship, and you seek education in stealth to expand the branches in your tree of skills. By the end of the game you’ve become not just a samurai, but you’ve become — The Ghost. A warrior who is not confined to one particular set of skills but someone whose expanded their knowledge into a foray of tactics spanning the realms of brute force, cunning, stealth, and archery. With this wealth of knowledge, it becomes difficult to pidgeonhole you into a box — your skill set gives you an air of unpredictability.
Ghost of Tsushima, reeled me in because it’s a truly cinematic story that pits me into the role of a samurai’s fight against a seemingly great evil. For those hours in game I am pitted against something, I am levelling up, I am learning, engaging, and trying to progress through this tremendously engaging narrative. Now, this game has likely sold millions of copies, and is unanimously loved by most critics — the creators of the game deserve all of the praise sent there way.
However, it begs to ask, what if we as people were as engaged with the story of our own lives as we are with those of the works of fiction? All of these hours spent expanding our virtual arsenal of skills, as our spines slump over, our butts become flattened like pancakes, and slowly the eyes begin to strain as the 4K OLED panel blasts rapid moving combat sequences into our retinas as our necks crone forward. The physical body becomes a vehicle for the imaginations indulgence. If a security camera watched you for those many hours you play, it would showcase you hunched over, biting your lip every 20 seconds as you are seemingly transfixed by whatever is happening in front of you on a screen. You are completely engaged, and present in the virtual happenings of this world as your physical body begins to progressively express the manifestation of your addiction. Street signs become difficult to see from far away, your shoulders round forward, maybe your back hurts, your butt is flatter than the highway from Regina to Winnipeg, and overall your motivation to seek self improvement in your own life starts to dwindle.
Sports in general capture this sense of “levelling up” so perfectly and in a much more physically and mentally healthy way. If your child is escaping into a video game, or an iPad for hours on end, imagine if they instead applied that energy towards a sport that developed their physical body, and taught them the discipline to live a healthier life, and how to properly build connections with other children forming strong team bonds. Both sports and video games, capitalize on the very human desire to play because we want to have fun! Except, video games to their credit are hypnotically more immersive, and less physically fatiguing. As a parent it is very tricky trying to take something away that is so readily accesible, and powerful — to the point to where it can immediately pacify them when they are throwing a temper tantrum. But as Uncle Ben once said, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”
With training in martial arts, you can become Player 1 — you can become your own Jin Sakai. Adults, and children alike, I’ve never seen someone so genuinely truly happy as when they have won a gold medal after a tough match against another skilled competitor. Why? It’s because that person — man, woman, or child — they achieved victory because they worked at it. No one, can discredit that from them and they feel it internally.
Losing — real life’s “GAME OVER” screen — offers you a chance to regroup, level up and try again. You might not be strong enough to beat the boss fight right now, but if you practice, go do some more side quests, and expand your skill set you could come back try again. The convenience of pressing a button, to “Try Again” is replaced with real arduous work. To get back to the Boss Fight, you have to make the climb through the castle again, you’ve got to slay the many grunts that guarded the keep again, you’ve got to solve the complicated puzzle before you enter the Bosses Chamber again, and of course you have to actually fight the actual Boss — again.
Now imagine this:
You’re a 3 stripe white belt who just got his ass kicked at the Rocky Mountain BJJ Invitational, by Jizanthapus Bascynszki — he double legged you, and got to side mount crushing you with top pressure. You sat there for minutes as time seemed to crawl forward on torn knees. The crowd began to shout advice begging for action.
“Get up!”
“Elbows in, you’ve gotta frame!”
“You can do it!”
“Shin em!”
Frustrated, you haphazardly turn away, giving your back as Jizanthapus sinks his hooks in and chokes you out for the submission.
Three months go by, and you carefully worked to correct your mistakes at the previous tournament. You recognized a big hole in your game, and that was surrendering takedowns too easily. You used the XP and skill points you earned from working your job at the Bubble Tea Cafe, to train in the barracks with Roman Budnikov, a greco Roman wrestling specialist to help you better your understanding of preventing takedowns. In the training room, you have a focus each session on preventing takedowns and if a takedown does happen you work to get to strong enough positions to either reverse the position or stand up. Your confidence grows as your training partners struggle with keeping you in positions that they previously labelled as your kryptonite. The day of the next tournament looms, and you glance at the NO GI bracket — you see his name matched against yours in the FIRST match of the day, “Jizanthapus Bascynszki”.
The day has arrived for the CBJJF Provincial Championships, and there stands Jizanthapus. He’s confident, almost too confident — smirking to himself knowing that the last time you two competed he used your back as a floor mop to clean the mats. You calm your mind with positive affirmations, and you know tactically you are more capable to deal with his skills this time around.
The ref ushers you both to your individual sides of the mat, and points at you both “ 3, 2, 1 — Combate!”
The match begins as you both set yourselves into your stance. This time, you know to not be so tall to expose your hips. You are actively hand fighting to make it difficult to get to your legs. A minute goes by, and the crowd grows frustrated, but you maintain your approach of battling the hands and head trying to prevent opportunities for the takedown. Jizanthapus grows impatient and shoots a double leg from too far away, but you stuff it with a perfectly timed sprawl. Jizanthapus even amidst being sprawled upon, still has a ferocious clamp on your thighs. You actively begin to fight against the grip by getting your under hooks, but Jizanthapus follows you upward and clamps onto a body lock. In a messy tie up, Jizanthapus trips you to the mats, and ties you up in half guard. His breath is laboured, and his lips are chalk white. Your coach shouts what you already know, “He’s exhausted!! He put everything into those takedowns!!”
As you register your opponents fatigue , his heart is drumming upon your chest. You know he’s too close to having you flat on your back which cost you the positioning for the whole match last time. You frame with your knee into his hips and go back to the thousands of repetitions of getting the under hook and attacking the single leg. Jizanthapus surrenders the position shockingly easy, likely being too complacent with the top position due to fatigue.
The tables have turned. You now are in side control, with 25 seconds left to go in the match. You are up 3-2 on points, and you know that to win you have to maintain top position. Jizanthapus, flips and flops like a fish out of water but you maintain strong top positioning. Time begins to drain to zero. You are victorious. It was not flashy, it wasn’t a submission — but it was an honest effort against a rival that had beaten you previously, and you won it with skills you assembled over time through a deliberate effort. No one can take that away from you, and no one handed you the win. You did it all on your own.
You and Jizanthapus shake hands. You know he will come back stronger and summon the knowledge of his team at Snake Charmer BJJ.
In your next match you are pitted against Avery Macavoy, and this man is structured with the body of an arachnid. A small torso with absurdly long, thin, wiry limbs. The match begins, and he immediately plops to his back. He walks forward towards you and you are tremendously confused. Macavoy, ensnares you into his guard and works almost immediately to hoist up a triangle choke. You feel helpless, as the world turns to black with his thighs wrapped around your neck. Avery, the arachnid, is victorious. You reflect on the day of the tournament. You rewrote your past mistakes, and defeated a past adversary but you were exposed to a new style that previously you did not recognize in a new opponent. You appreciate the depth of the game of jiujitsu. A game that rewards you with real skills by providing you with real challenges to overcome.
Ultimately, escapism isn’t the villain — in fact, it’s often where we recharge, learn, and play. But the danger lies in when we let the fictional quests replace our real ones. Ghost of Tsushima might let you become The Ghost — a master of blades, stealth, and survival — but stepping into the dojo, into the gym, onto the mats, gives you the chance to become a real warrior. The XP is earned through sweat, frustration, and grind. The enemies are uncertainty, doubt, and fatigue. The rewards? Confidence, resilience, and growth that no one can uninstall.
Levelling up in real life takes more than grazing in front of a flat screen — it takes presence, pain, and patience. But when you finally overcome what once beat you, when you stand victorious after being humbled — that win hits harder than any cinematic cutscene ever could.
I’m not saying throw away the PS5, and live a monk like existence — go ahead, and escape when you need to. But don’t forget to come back, and write a story worth escaping from.
