Tag: Martial Arts Inspired

Back To Zero

Published on September 19, 2022

Before reading this, do a body scan and progressively relax one muscle at a time starting with your forehead and ending with your toes—get your body back to zero percent unnecessary tension.

When done, how much tension would you say you released that you didn’t even realize you were holding?

Well, that tension is the equivalent of you pushing the gas in your parked car.

Multiply that over the course of an entire day—and you can imagine how much energy is being wasted.

The challenge is that tension is often the default, unconscious state—we don’t even realize we’re tensing up when we do!

Go ahead and do another body scan and see how much tension already came back.

…This is why we have to make relaxing a conscious effort.

Both for energy efficiency and bodily health. Tense muscles become brittle—and brittle is prone to injury and disease. Relaxed muscles are flexible—and flexible is healthy and resilient.

Doing a progressive relaxation body scan—regularly—is an excellent strategy.

How can we do this? Here are 3 ideas to get you started:

Set a timer: every time the timer goes off, do a body scan and get back to zero.
Use a trigger: every time your phone rings or buzzes, do a body scan and get back to zero.
Time-block: After each meal of the day, do a body scan and get back to zero.

The goal, like any other habitual practice, is to move relaxed from conscious to unconscious so it becomes more and more our default state.

P.s. In case you missed it, here’s the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week.

Selective Tension and Relaxation

Published on September 15, 2022

In Martial Arts, one of the goals is to learn how to maximize the creation of power while minimizing the expenditure of energy.

Essentially, it’s the practice of learning how to fully press the “gas pedal” while fully releasing the “brake pedal.”

Pressing the gas and brake pedal at the same time is wildly inefficient for driving. And so is it for moving the body. Yet, this is the default when it comes to moving the body with any degree of intensity.

Both the protagonist and antagonist muscle groups tense which, in effect, slows down the attempt to speed up all at once.

…And wastes a bunch of energy in the process.

The art then becomes learning how to selectively tense certain muscles while selective relaxing others in real time. And the challenge, of course, is that there isn’t only one gas and one brake pedal—there are hundreds.

And so it is for life.

The question to consider is this: in each task that you’re trying to complete, what resistance could you simultaneously reduce?

Sometimes we focus so much on the doing that we forget about the un-doing. Because while a 10% increase in speed for “doing” is good, a 20% decrease in resistance is better.

And this isn’t a question that’s asked and answered only once—it’s an ongoing awareness.

We’ll never get this perfect—for our bodies or for life. But, progress—any progress—makes the effort undoubtedly worth it.

P.s. This became the introduction for: 23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less

Be It Then Become It

Published on March 11, 2022

You don’t start acting like a black belt when you get a black belt.

It’s only after you’ve acted like a black belt long enough that you finally receive one.

The same is true for any other identity you want to embody in life.

You become it by acting like it long enough.

The “becoming” doesn’t happen first.

You Don’t Start Good—You Become Good

Published on September 25, 2021

Let me assure you that approximately none of us start “good” at anything.

Take meditating for example. Expecting to be “good” at meditating when you first start is like expecting to be “good” at Martial Arts when you come to your first class.

The point isn’t to arrive “good”—the point is to start where you are and improve.

Besides the rare few who are “born enlightened,” I’m of the opinion that all of us have busy, irrational, crazed monkey minds which make meditating exceptionally hard.

…Which is precisely why we should be spending time practicing it.

What we need to do isn’t *not* meditate because its hard. What we need to do is better manage our expectations.

Meditating isn’t about closing our eyes and being able to experience a magical ceasing of all incoming thoughts. Not a chance.

It’s about stopping the flow of incoming information and allowing what’s there to settle.

When I meditate, I spend probably less than a minute out of twenty actually free from thinking. This is an excellent day of meditation for me.

In fact, any day I practice meditating is an excellent day of meditating—because I practiced it.

Get it?

The practice is the reward. Just like in Martial Arts. What are belts but an external motivation tactic to encourage training?

The end goal (black belt) is simply a motivation tactic that’s designed to get you to practice.

So, if you want to become a “black belt” in meditation (or anything), humble yourself and start practicing like a white belt.

Drop And Give Me 20!

Published on July 20, 2021

When I was a Martial Arts student, my teachers would give the entire class push-ups for the wrong-doings of a single student.

I hated being punished for things I didn’t do that were also out of my control. It made me resent them in many cases.

So, I resolved to never do that to a class when I became a teacher (Yes, I knew I wanted to be a Martial Arts teacher long before I ever was).

Now, the motto that I have worked tirelessly to embody is praise publicly, reprimand privately.

No longer is the attention of the class pointed towards the students’ wrongdoing—now it’s pointed towards the students who are doing things right. And the students who are doing wrong get a private conversation from a more experienced instructor who can compassionately help them understand and change their behaviors.

Had I not felt that resentment and planted that seed in my mind when I was a student all those year ago, maybe I never would have felt the need to change that tradition when I was in front of a class (with misbehaving students) all those later years.

You can learn just as much from the people who do wrong by you as you can from the people who do right by you.

You just have to keep an open mind and learn how to channel your negative emotions rather than let your negative emotions become you.

You Stop Incoming Hits By Hitting Back

Published on June 4, 2021

A friend of mine is going through a rough time. Life is hitting them from all angles. All they want to do is crawl into a ball and hide. In their defense, I think we’ve all been there. I know I have.

But, all this does is move shots from all angles in the front, to all angles at their back. It does nothing to stop the incoming shots—it merely changes the target.

In self-defense situations, you always do everything you can to avoid the fight—but you also defend yourself when necessary. Getting swung at even once is just cause for self-defense. And defending yourself isn’t curing into a ball; defending yourself is hitting back.

This is what you have to do when life decides to hit you, too. You have to hit back. Not by punching, kicking, or elbowing. But, by confronting, transforming, and responding.

Just like you block a punch by confronting it with your arm, you block a problem by confronting it with your mind. Just like you transform a person’s energy against them in Martial Arts, you transform emotional energy into a creative outlet in life. Just like you respond to an aggressor’s attack based on training, you respond to life’s challenges based on experience.

And if you don’t know what to do against an attack and get hit—what do you do? Curl into a ball? Or figure out what went wrong and learn how to defend against it? The latter of course. So, expand your mind! Find the right book. Write to find clarity. Talk to more experienced people. Broaden your understanding. And hit back.

Don’t just give life a different target; make life the target and take your shots.

Care For The Big Picture By Caring For The Small Details

Published on February 26, 2021

“When you pay attention to detail, the big picture will take care of itself.”
George St-Pierre, via MoveMe Quotes

In Martial Arts, the direction of your toes—matters. The placement of your hands—matters. The distribution of your weight—matters. Even the height of your shoulders, the tilt of your head, and the squint of your eyes—matters.

Of course, the general coordination of the move matters, too, but it’s precisely the above mentioned details—the fine motor adjustments—that puts the “Art” in “Martial.” It’s the great divide between what makes “okay” and what makes “great.”

What separates an amateur punch from a professional punch isn’t their ability to quickly extend their hand from their face to a target and back—it’s how the details were minded in the process.

As is the case with basketball dribbles, hockey slap-shots, football throws, etc.—details are what separate beginners from masters and amateurs from pros. Anybody can dribble—few dribble professionally. And the same is true in how things are done in any sport.

But, attention to detail isn’t just activity specific.

The way you do anything is how you do everything. Attention to detail is a character trait that some choose to develop.

It’s a careful awareness. It’s a trained devotion to excellence. It’s the rigorous loyalty to the minutiae. It’s a deliberate decision to improve—beyond where most people stop. It’s a drive for inches when most people park after miles. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for the preoccupied. It’s not for the careless.

It’s for the people who choose to be passionate, focused, and committed to paying details the attention they require—in any and every chosen task. It’s why attention is paid and not granted.

And it’s why masterpieces are so valuable—because they’ve been paid for in attention, energy, effort—details—many times over. Details that others find too expensive to pay. Details that, bring the big picture to life. Details that, when removed, would leave masterpieces as just pieces.