It's been more than three years since I've posted here, and I'm sure that's because I'm on Facebook every day. I post lots of short updates and commentary because I'm pretty busy and never felt that I had the time to sit and write longer posts like the ones here. Well, things have changed recently, and I have a lot more time for lots of different things, so I figured I'd come over here and write about, well, everything.
In my last big update from April, 2022, we had just closed out the 'big yellow school' location of Jade Mountain Martial Arts and moved to a new location in Cinco Ranch. It was a nice place, all things considered. Even so, I have to admit that it never felt like home to me. The people were amazing, as my students have always been, but after more than two decades of running the business, the idea of retirement finally started to appeal to me. If you've known me, you know that even having that feeling was a bit of a shock! I always envisioned myself teaching until I just keeled over on the mat in the middle of a lesson when in my 90s! As surprising as that feeling was, it grew until I just couldn't ignore it anymore. I had lived my childhood dream of becoming a Sifu and running my own martial arts school for twenty-two years, and I felt other dreams calling me.
I retired from teaching full-time on December 20th, 2025. We had a celebration, and I was so honored to see so many familiar faces! A handful of my earliest students showed up, too, and they'll never know how much it moved me to see them (I'm getting misty-eyed as I type this). This picture is only about half of the attendees, as folks came and went all afternoon. I was deeply touched by their love and support.
It took over a month for me to get the school all cleaned out. My storage facility is filled to the brim with stuff that I really should discard, but just can't bring myself to yet. There was a lot of paperwork involved in closing out the school, and lots of administrative stuff that I had to handle, so it's taken this long for me to really feel like my time is free again. It's March now and I'm only just now getting my feet under me. It's a really cool feeling to realize that I have all day to work on all the things that I couldn't find the time for before. And let me tell you, there are a LOT of things that I'm dying to dig into now that I have the time!
Since I was young, I loved writing stories. I published my first book back in 2014, and since then, I've published a dozen books, mostly fantasy fiction. I slowed down a lot in recent years as the school required more of my mental bandwidth, but now I'm free to really immerse myself in being an indie author, and I'm beyond excited at the idea! I have one new book in editing right now and I've got three more planned for this year. The thing is that being an indie author requires that I do an awful lot of other stuff besides simply writing the books, such as editing, publishing, marketing, advertising, accounting, and running the entire business side of that career. It's a lot of fun and interesting stuff, but when you're running an entirely separate business as well, it's hard to fit everything in. Now, I can focus my energy mostly on my writing and publishing tasks, and I'm absolutely thrilled about that.
One of the things that made my retirement possible is the fact that my lovely fiancee, Kathryn, is running her own business as well! She runs CarePatrol of Central and West Houston, and she's been extremely successful with it. That's one hard-workin' lady! It just so happens that she desperately needed someone who had the same computer skills I've cultivated for both JMMA and my author business, so now I am her official Media Manager. I was a perfect fit for the job, and working with her allows me to do all my author stuff as well. Plus, I admit that I might just have a huge crush on the boss. 😉
So if anyone ask how retirement is treating me, I have to answer that it's treating me quite well. I'm busy pretty much all the time, but I love every minute of it. I'm still working out, teaching BJJ once a week at my friend Larry's school, teaching Tai Chi on Saturday mornings, working in my author business, and handling various social media tasks for CarePatrol—and I'm happy as a clam.
Oh, and I'm also bald now. Shaved my head several weeks ago and I'm sticking with it. 😊
If you want to take a peek into my author career, you can check out my website at www.WhitMcClendon.com and see all of my books. I'm also on Facebook/IG and Threads. Feel free to stop by and say hello! As I said to many of my students: "I'm retired...not dead!"
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