Listen to the newest podcast right here! Our overall health determines how much physical energy we have and how sharp our mental focus will be. How we feel determines our attitude toward everything we do; our attitude in turn influences our actions (or our inactions). It’s a tremendous feeling to be energetic, healthy, fit and focused. When our emotions … [Read more…]
Today we’re going right for the jugular, so to speak, to discuss the top three mistakes that I made in Jiu-Jitsu between the ages of 30 and 40. For those of you knee-deep in the martial arts in your 30s, hopefully you’ll be able to pull a few small hints and warnings out of the messes … [Read more…]
We define black belt in all sorts of ways – commitment, courage, humanity. And across the world you’d be hard-pressed to find two people who agree exactly on what it means. Is it a perfect technique? A demonstration of mental toughness? An ideal of perfection? So I’m going to step out on a limb here and … [Read more…]
As students, we often develop very powerful relationships in the dojo. But over time, it’s easy to let something other than the martial arts – like drinking beers or eating pizza (as in, “let’s just grab some peetzer and beerz!”) – become the cornerstone of our connections. The bond goes from being productive to destructive, because we no longer take a stand for … [Read more…]
With Mother’s Day coming, I’d like to reintroduce my mom to everyone. When she was about twenty six, her first husband went crazy, got a gun and shot her three times. My mother walked down the street in Atlanta, Georgia at a time when she was a foreigner and didn’t speak much English, and managed to … [Read more…]
Click the play button to listen now! For more about the cooperative training model, visit us at Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu anytime. Share This:
What’s the alternative? Revisiting an old martial arts maxim provides a clue. There is a meme I see from time to time on Facebook that always makes me cringe. It goes something like this: “Beware of the person who is not smiling when you’re winning.” It’s as if to say that this person is your enemy, a snake … [Read more…]
This week’s Martial Arts Mind post isn’t a post at all…it’s a podcast. Check out this interview with the legendary Sifu Paul Vizzio, the subject of one of our earlier posts as well. Click below to listen. Share This:
Martial arts, as traditionally taught, has always been about life and death. For millennia it has presented the practitioner with a way to live better – as well as how to die better. In our context, “life” is to survive and then to succeed. “Death” is to live a memorable, fulfilling life with principle, and … [Read more…]
Monday mornings I train with Sifu. Every time we meet, he teaches a sparring combination – that is the curriculum for our time together. Setting aside the ridicule I endure and the mental button-pushing that he does, I always receive an assignment from him. He’ll say, “Listen, you have to work on this specific detail … [Read more…]