Think about the last time you were supposed to do something and didn’t. Maybe it was something related to work, or something you were supposed to do for your family or a group you are a part of. When you didn’t accomplish what you were supposed to, did you begin Continue Reading
Collaboration
The Best Kind of Student: The Eager and Honest Orange Belt
Many times when we are looking to gain insight or at the very least get the ball rolling in our own train of thought, we think revelations or thought provoking questions will come from the masters. While, yes, we would hope that we would gain insight from the masters of Continue Reading
De-Escalate the Situation
When we start training in martial arts it is easy for us to believe that the main goal of any self defense situation is to dominate your attacker making them regret that they attacked you! After all, why do we learn how to block, punch, choke, or throw? What we Continue Reading
The Important Difference Between Being “Busy” and “Responsible”
Busy and Responsible When we look at these two words they seem to be pretty much synonymous with each other. In reality, though, there is one key difference between the two that can affect your mentality and your lifestyle. Busy means that you are spending or dedicating time because you Continue Reading
Why Do You Train?
Every martial artist has a different reason why they started training, but the interesting question is why they kept training. There are many people who never make it to black belt, as well as a shocking amount of people who will quit almost immediately after achieving their black belt. Why? Continue Reading
Do You Know as Much as You Think? Stay Humble
In Peter Boghossian’s How to Have Impossible Conversations, he talks about a social observation called the “Toilet Effect”. Several people were approached on the street and asked,”Do you know how a toilet works?” (Boghossian 36) I know, what a strange question. Who doesn’t know how a toilet works? Literally every Continue Reading
Reasons: Why Do You Train? Are You Dedicated and Responsible?
In what is widely known as the first Autobiography ever written in Western Literature, Confessions, Augustine of Hippo or St. Augustine, depending on what your religious beliefs are or lack thereof, Asserts, “I did not sin for the sake of sinning or because I had anything to gain from it. Continue Reading
Three Fortunes – Infinite Possibilities From Lunch with a Coworker
I was having lunch a couple weeks ago with my friend Yoshi who is a colleague of mine in more ways than one. We are coworkers at the same company, but we also train in the martial arts together. He had ordered three different plates of Dim Sum to go Continue Reading
3 Keys to Technical Success
David In judging basic techniques in my students and myself, my three points of focus are always connection, vectoring, and alignment. For me, connection refers to synchronizing the timing of my hand and foot, my hip and shoulder, and my wrists and ankles. It is important to synchronize the entire Continue Reading