The physio says I’m the only guy to whom he gives a monthly massage who puts his gear back on in the order that I do.

My process is to climb into my socks, then my shirt, leaving my nuts for further airing. I pay the bill, check the date of my next appointment, finally ‘slipping into something un-comfortable’ (as I call it). That’s me doing it my way.

Like a lot of guys I suspect, it’s important to me to do stuff my way. My father was very strict so much of my early life was spent doing everything his way. Up to the age of fifteen or sixteen I automatically sought security in conformity with others. It was only when I began to get ‘out there’ that things changed – radically.

Fortunately I’ve been ‘out there’ quite a bit; I haven’t always lived in Halifax (and by ‘out there’ I don’t mean I’ve also spent time in Huddersfield). The more guys you come up against as part of your daily activities, the more you realise that every guy has his ‘own way’.

This probably sounds a pretty obvious observation but I don’t think it’s quite that limp. It’s very much a matter of translating desire into action. It’s fine for Frank Sinatra to sing

‘My Way’ and for others to pretend to relate to it, but I reckon the truth is quite different; many guys are still in my 15-year-old condition in varying degrees, afraid to allow their real desires an airing.

I’ve learned quite a bit about other guys from doing karate. In the dojo in which I did my original training I was taught the basic elements of the style by a butcher’s assistant who was a brown belt and bigger than me. He was a rotten teacher because he used the principle of ‘doing it my way’ as part of the initial training. This is the one time I can remember when I actually suffered because another guy was doing it ‘his way’.

Especially punching. His ‘way’ hit me, like, ‘full on’, and it hurt. My punched response was greeted with derision, clearly the attack of a pussy. He said I was just ‘going through the motions’, and that my punching lacked ‘chi!’ (which translates as ‘I’m going to kill you, you miserable little fucker, etc. etc.).

You’d think that in an environment like a karate dojo where there’s a lot of kicking and punching the easy access to a physio would make a lot of sense but we certainly didn’t have one at ours.

If there was any injury that was deemed potentially serious, say to so with your spine, the sensei told you to strip off and lie on your stomach. With his naked feet he would then walk slowly up and down your back, turning at your neck and arse until he heard it ‘click’ back into place. That was ‘doing it his way’.

My current physio gives me a fifty minute rub-down every four weeks. He’s not bashful but I always feel comfortable. He does it ‘his way’ and I’m happy with that.

The only thing ‘weird’ is that there’s bits of me he sees regularly that no-one else – guys, anyway – have seen – me included. I daren’t ask him if my crack is hairier than most (which I’ve long suspected). Mind you, I’m not anxious about it.

Having said all that, I have a suspicion my views on guys ‘doing it their way’ is somewhat skewed by the fact that this represents the guys with whom I’m involved. Because I myself operate ‘doing my own thing’, I tend to be attracted to those who operate in the same way.

Whereas…. increasingly I have an idea that most guys are intimidated by Big Government, Big Bureaucracy and Big Business, mostly ‘cos around age 28 they opted for security over freedom.

Heroes-in waiting, to whom I kind of assume I’m writing, have never had it easy but that’s something to be accepted as part of the deal. Any aspiring Hero has only to look at history. It’s always been a Struggle, but Struggle is ok. Struggle is good. As it says in the WMD Glossary:

STRUGGLE: The relentless challenge whereby an adult remains mentally and emotionally alive.

Think of Hercules. He only had to look at a princess he wanted to shag before her dad demanded an enormous dowry plus the completion of a few odd jobs like cleaning out the stables where a herd of elephants had been holed-up for the past thirty years, and slaying some nine-headed monster that had been causing trouble in the neighbourhood. Fortunately Hercules wasn’t fazed by this providing he could do it ‘his way’ so he said, ‘no problem’.

Fundamentally it would seem that ‘doing it your way’ is like enthusiasm; it makes the difference between Action verses leaving it ‘til later.

In Life terms it’s a good indication of a guy’s Balls, as it reflects the memories of him he leaves behind.