ME: “I’ll workout when I get home no matter what time it is.”

ME: “Awesome idea!”

ME: “What if I don’t quite feel like it though?  Seems like a good idea now, but it’ll be late when I get home and I’m starting to feel a little tired… (hear the voice of Mr. Resistance creeping in there?)”

ME: “True.  Plus you’re getting over that cold too.  You might just want to skip it and go to bed instead. (Mr. Resistance is insidious!)”

ME: “Whoah… hang on there!  You already made up your mind to workout when you get home.  You WILL workout.  Don’t let that negative crap in your head.  Whassamada with you?”

So what happened when I got home?  Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if I went straight to bed!

You are the only one with the power to motivate yourself.  You are the last line of defense against Mr. Resistance. Yes, of course outside influences matter – who you read, who you speak to, what you watch, what you listen to, etc, etc, these things all have an effect on your thinking process and motivation.  But when you are all alone with only yourself to guide you, you make the final decision to do or do not.

Each time you successfully defeat Mr. Resistance you create a stronger pattern.  Your ability to impose your will becomes greater.  You increase your mental and spiritual strength.  You create a habit of winning out against resistance.  The converse is also true, however.  Each time you give in to that small voice of Mr. Resistance and stay on that couch in front of the TV or sleep in late instead of waking early to go to the gym, you create a stronger pattern.  Yet this time the pattern is harmful.  It works against you.  It makes you weaker.

At the end of the day, who is making the decision to get you off the couch, out the door and into the gym?  Who sets the alarm clock earlier to get up and go do the work?  Push Mr. Resistance back in his place.  Kick his ass.  Motivate Thyself!

No related posts.

Motivate Thyself! is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

Hopkins tells him – “What one man can do, another can do!”

Now, most of us will probably never be in a situation where we must kill a bear for survival.  But look at it as a metaphor.  The bear is any seemingly insurmountable task in your life.  Any goal that you long to achieve, yet seems unconquerable.  Doesn’t make a difference what it is – what one man can do (or woman, we’re equal opportunity here!), another can do!

It bugs to no end when students place highly skilled martial artists like Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, or Masaaki Hatsumi, head of the Bujinkan Dojo, or even Bruce Lee, founder of Jeet Kune Do on pedestals and hold them up as unreachable and impassible icons.  Are they great?  Yes, of course.  Are they worthy of our respect and admiration for their skill and achievement?  Hell yeah!  But are they an enigma?  Are they once in a generation geniuses that the rest of us mere mortals cannot hope to reach?  No.  Not at all.  They are men.  Human beings like you and me.  They put in ungodly amounts of hard work, study, and practice to reach the peak of their craft, but what one man can do, another can do.

Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before he successfully created the light bulb.  No, that’s not a typo.  Thousands.  What if he gave up after the first failure, or the hundredth, or even after the thousandth failure?  Where would we be?  In the freakin’ dark, people, that’s where!

Do you want the martial skill of a Hatsumi?

The legacy of a Steve Jobs?

The money of a Bill Gates?

The body and fitness levels of an elite athlete?

The strength of a world champion strongman?

Go out and get it.  What one man can do, another can do.  Why can’t you?

Related posts:

1. The Warrior’s Key to Greatness – The Way Lies in Training!
2. The Warrior Fitness Guide to Striking Power is Here!
3. Prepare Yourself Every Day

Why Can’t You? is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

There is no middle ground. 

No room for wavering or debating. 

No having your cake and eating it too. 

When moving towards a goal, there must be no hesitation in your actions.

In the Bujinkan martial arts that I study, there is a similar saying, “Hell gapes beneath the upraised sword, step in to heaven.”  This may seem like crazy advice, after all who in their right mind would step forward when faced with an opponent armed with a 3 foot razor blade?!  But in training, through experience, one comes to understand and realize that the safest place when facing an upraised sword, paradoxically, is to move forward and step closer, thus finding “heaven”.

Again and again throughout warrior cultures, from ancient Greeks to Japanese Ninja and Samurai, we see this idea of complete and utter commitment, 100% determination in moving forwards towards our goals, no matter what they are.

So how about you?  How committed are you?  How much do you talk about taking action rather than actually taking action?  Do you step forward into heaven and achieve your goals when confronted with difficulty and adversity?  Do you walk the razor’s edge in life, or just in your mind? 

It’s time to step forward.  Take action.  With it or on it.

Click HERE to take action on your health and fitness goals today!

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1. Ninja Walking
2. What Does a Ninja Need?
3. Unlocking Flow in Your Taijutsu Practice

With It or On It is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

As you may have noticed, martial arts training and conditioning to develop the proper levels of fitness, mechanics, technique, attributes, and that  all elusive sense of flow can be difficult, repetitious, and sometimes downright boring, to be honest.  So how do we keep going in our daily training?  How do we push ourselves through the plateaus and dry spots with enough intensity and consistency to break through to our own personal greatness? (See what some of the historical martial greats had to say about it in this article here.)  My advice is to embrace the suck – yeah, the suck.  Learn to love it.  Crave it.  Become friends with it.  So when it hits, you not only can push through it, but actually embrace it.  Dostoyevsky said to “love your suffering.”  The Chinese martial artists call it, “eating bitter.”  We here at Warrior Fitness call it “embracing the suck!”

Does this make you weird?  Well, yes, but only in some circles.  But for the most part it earns you respect.  Why?  Because most people can’t do it.  Being able to embrace the suck and keep going  distinguishes you.  It differentiates you from the pack.  It makes you a leader.  If you want to be a leader, there’s only one way to do it – lead from the front.  That’s the only way to inspire people – by your own example.  What example do you set for your students, your family, your friends, your kids?

Learning to embrace the suck allows you to, as the great method acting coach Stanislavsky once wrote, “make the difficult habitual: what is habitual will become easy, and what is easy will become agreeable.”  So even embracing the suck is a process which allows us to continue to train with greater intensity and focus, and thus push through even greater levels of suck.

However, the best part about embracing the suck is when the suck ends and you come out on the other side.  You’ve fought the good fight, pushed through the barrier, and overcome the adversity once again.  You’re a stronger person for it.  You know it.  I know it.  So go out and live it!

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1. The Warrior Fitness Guide to Striking Power is Here!

Embrace the Suck! is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

Why are They Different? 

What made these men different?  What pushed them to greatness?  What did they do differently or more productively that propelled them to prominence?  Why were their names and storied passed down through the years, sometimes centuries?  In essence, what one factor do all great martial artists have in common regardless of style, country, or culture?  And, more importantly, how can we learn from them and apply it to our own training?  Remember, we stand on the shoulders of giants, not to imitate them, but to be able to look farther.

 Quotes from the Greats

Instead of listening to my opinion today, why don’t we go directly to the sources themselves?  Here are some cool quotes I’ve complied by some of the greats talking about their own training. 

Morihei Ueshiba – Aikido 

“The instructor can only impart a small portion of the teaching; only through ceaseless training can you obtain the necessary experience allowing you to bring these mysteries alive.  Hence, do not chase after many techniques; one by one, make each technique your own.”

“Always imagine yourself on the battlefield under the fiercest attack; never forget this crucial element of training.”

“This old man must still train and train” – said shortly before his death.

Gozo Shioda – Aikido 

“Kokyu power is produced when we push ourselves to the limit, making the most efficient use of the capabilities that lie within our own bodies.”

“Even though the body has its limits, until your death, the strength of your spirit is limitless.  This is precisely why, in the martial arts, there is no such thing as deteriorating as you age.”

Yukiyoshi Sagawa – Daito Ryu 

“Intermittent training, no matter how intensive, is utterly useless.  You must practice every day for your entire life.  That, and only that, is true training, or shugyo.”

“People who think they can ignore training their bodies and only work on techniques are amateurs.  They don’t know anything.  Actually, if you can’t prepare your body properly, you have no hope of ever perfecting your technique.”

“No matter what level of mastery you attain, you will never achieve perfection.  You should therefore never, ever assume that what you have achieved is good enough.”

“If people knew what my training regimen was like, they would be astonished.”

Masaaki Hatsumi – Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu 

“Modern budo students often forget to practice by themselves.  I used to practice by myself.  When there was no teacher, I found the secret teachings by my own desire.”

 “Studying for oneself and making one’s own discoveries is much more important than group learning, and this applies equally well to martial arts.  As I often say, ‘Life is all about solitary training.’  This is because I want serious practitioners to discover the tricks of the trade for themselves.”

Miyamoto Musashi – Niten Ichi Ryu 

“From the time I was young I have set my mind on the Way of Martial Arts, practiced the one subject of swordsmanship with my entire being, and experienced various and different understandings.”

“See to it that you temper yourself with one thousand days of practice, and refine yourself with ten thousand days of training.”

“Never depart from the way of martial arts.”

Yamaoka Tesshu – Muto Ryu 

“Study hard and all things can be accomplished; give up and you will amount to nothing.”

“If you want to obtain the secrets of such wonderful techniques, drill yourself, harden yourself, undergo severe training, abandon body and mind; follow this course for years and you will naturally reach the profoundest levels.”

Inspired yet?  Ready to train and push yourself to the next level?  Check out the new solo training sensation – Warrior Fitness Guide to Striking Power and get started today!

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1. The Warrior Fitness Guide to Striking Power is Here!
2. Double Your Training Without Doubling Your Training
3. Why Can’t You?

The Warrior’s Key to Greatness – The Way Lies in Training! is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

Some days it just seems like the universe is conspiring against you and this time it’s personal!  What do you do?  How do you respond to the myriad changes and vicissitudes life throws at you?  Do you find yourself tossed about like a small boat on a rough sea constantly overreacting and overcorrecting with each wave?  Or, do you have a quiet calm reserve of energy and strength that allows you to maintain a state of fudoshin – “immovable spirit”? 

Fudoshin is a state of mind that remains undisturbed and not easily upset by either internal thoughts or external factors.  It is the even keel that keeps your craft steady and on course during rough seas of life.  How do you develop fudoshin though?  How do you cultivate that quiet reserve of strength and energy?

Prepare Yourself Daily

Daily preparation is the key.  A reserve of strength must be built up gradually and nurtured daily, even when you don’t need it, especially when you don’t need it, so it’s there when you do.  Like a savings account you invest a little bit each day so that when the unexpected happens the funds are there for you to draw upon.  So let’s get to the nuts and bolts.  How do you prepare yourself daily?  Here’s what I do…

1. Get up earlier each morning.  Yes, earlier.  Allow 30 to 45 minutes BEFORE you actually need to be up to get ready for the day.
2. Grab a cup of coffee.  I love my coffee; there’s nothing like that first sip in the morning.  Feel free to skip this step if you don’t drink coffee.
3. Head outside for a breath of fresh morning air (feel free to bring your coffee).  According to Chinese Medicine, early morning is the springtime of the day and thus best for planting seeds to cultivate good health.
4. Stand tall, feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, spine straight.  Raise the arms laterally up over head breathing in slowly and deeply with the movement.  As you inhale imagine the oxygen and energy carried by the breath is filling up your entire body.  Hold the full breath for a moment or two, then slowly exhale completely bringing the arms back down.  On the exhale, imagine the body is expelling tiredness.  Repeat 3 to 5 times.  Feel free to add other imagery to this exercise as well.  For example, on the inhale imagine drawing in the positive qualities of strength, health, and confidence, and on the exhale imagine the breath drawing out and expelling negative qualities of weakness, sickness, and fear. 
5. Perform a full, head to toe joint mobility routine to further wake up and enliven the body.  For a complete discussion on joint mobility work and much, much more, see my book, Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Arts.
6. Depending on how much extra time you have, relax a few more minutes enjoying the strength and energy you have cultivated – and finish that cup of coffee before heading in to start your day!

 Life is Stressful – Prepare Yourself!

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1. A Day in the Life…
2. What’s Hindering Your Performance?
3. A Word on Recovery

Prepare Yourself Every Day is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

In my teacher’s and my own dōjō (道場 – “martial arts training hall”) we spend a lot of time cultivating our skills as uke. An uke (受け) is a martial arts student who, during a given training session, “receives” a technique from another student acting as the tori (取り). Wikipedia defines the difference as one “who completes a successful technique [tori] rather than who initiates one [uke].” Having a good uke as a training partner is very important, but being a good uke is paramount.

The role of uke often gets a bad rap. Too many times I have seen students relegate themselves to becoming little more than an “I attack, then stand around while the other guy does something to me” participant. When it’s time to be uke, the “pause” button gets pressed and human punching bags are born. That doesn’t seem right, does it?

It certainly doesn’t feel right, at least not to me.

Here’s the reality check: if 50% of your training time is spent as an uke, which I hope all of you do, but 100% of your focus and concentration during your training occurs only when you are the tori, that means you spend half of every training session doing absolutely no training at all – 0%!  Does that make sense? Or, perhaps it’s better to ask, “should that make sense?” The 10 years of training you are so eager to talk about during parties and social gatherings is realistically closer to five years of actual time. Humbling, isn’t it?

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

– Vince Lombardi

With a small change in your approach to the responsibility of being a good uke, you can double the effectiveness of your training without doubling the amount of time you actually train. Here are some suggestions on how you can do it:

Engage and Communicate

First and foremost, be an active and willing participant. Engage and work with your tori in a way that provides direct feedback on several levels – physical, mental, and spiritual. You should be working together and helping each other, so let your tori know exactly and specifically what he is doing wrong and what he’s doing right. Even small hints go a long way towards perfecting a technique. But don’t over communicate; say just enough to help him figure it out on his own.

Move With Clarity

My teacher often stops us in the middle of a technique and asks if we are aware of what certain body parts are doing. It keeps us on our toes (pun intended) and gives us the reality check we need to see if our taijutsu (体術 – “body movement”) requires more clarity and better integration. For example:

• Are your hips open?
• Are your knees bent?
• Are your knees over your toes?
• Are your toes spread apart and gripping the ground?
• Are your feet pronated or supinated?
• What is your right hand doing?
• Where is your left foot pointed?
• Is your back straight?
• Is your neck craned forward or properly aligned with your spine?
• When you are finished punching or kicking, are you leaning forward so far that you can’t left your front leg?
• Is your punching arm locked or slightly bent?
• Are you supporting your arm with your bicep and triceps or your shoulder and lat?
• Are you supporting your leg with your hamstring and quads or your hips and spine?

Take this opportunity – take every opportunity – to clarify the biomechanics of your movement.

Realistic Attacks

“You fight the way you train” is a popular saying in our dōjō. Put another way, “You protect yourself and others the way you train.” Punching six inches too far away from your tori is not effective. It’s a great safety measure to avoid lawsuits from overly-protective parents, but it’s not realistic. When you punch or kick at your tori, do so in such a way that he will get hit if he doesn’t move. Don’t knock him out, of course, but “remind” him just hard enough that he didn’t move in the right direction or with the correct speed and timing. It not only helps your tori to respond accordingly but also trains you to use the proper distance. Be focused and punch with reduced power while maintaining the same intensity and intention as you would when punching at full strength. You can have 100% intensity without 100% speed and power; you don’t want to hurt anyone during training.

Use Active Resistance

Present enough of a puzzle so your tori has to work to solve it. Just enough resistance, just enough force, just enough of a challenge. If he’s trying to apply a technique but not quite getting it, coach him through the correct movement while maintaining active resistance so he can feel how it works. Once he starts to “get it,” change the angle and direction slightly so it doesn’t become a rote exercise.

Be Willing to Get Hit, Locked Up, and Thrown Down

Let’s face it, not many people enjoy being hit. But we are studying “martial” arts, after all, so a degree of combativeness is ever present and should not be removed from your training. It is important to know what it feels like to be hit, locked, and thrown; you need to know that when you get punched you will survive and you can continue to protect yourself and others during an attack. Your tori also needs to understand what it takes to punch, lock up, and throw someone.

When you do get hit, locked, or thrown, approximate what your natural reaction might be and let your body be moved so flow is maintained throughout the technique’s execution.

Be Considerate of Skill Level

When training with new students you must accept that they don’t know as much as you do. Be mindful to not force-feed 800 things for them to remember every time they do a technique. New students should be allowed to get away with bad habits more so than seasoned budōka (武道家 – “martial artists”). (Seasoned budōka should not be allowed to get away with any.) Also take the opportunity to double-check and make sure you’re not guilty of the same mistakes you are trying to correct! If you are training with someone of similar skill, work in detail on the finer points and see if you can solve the puzzle together. If your tori is of higher rank, listen to what is being said to you and watch what they are doing.

Protect Yourself and Your Partners From Injury

It’s all about ukemi (受身 – “injury prevention”). Ukemi is not just rolling, flips, and cartwheels. Ukemi is also knowing how to protect your joints from injury when locked, being aware of where you’re going when you roll, are thrown, or fall, and also knowing when to not be thrown. If you get hurt you cannot train effectively, right? Be mindful of the dynamic between you and your tori and protect yourself at all times. Not overly-protective to the point of being impossible to work with, but protected and safe so you can continue to train.

Your ability to protect yourself also directly correlates to your ability to keep your tori safe. If you are not confident in your ukemi then there is a chance that you might respond in a way that ends up injuring your training partner. In the “real world” this also directly correlates to your ability to keep your attacker safe. Protecting self and others; all others, if possible.

Ukemi! Ukemi! Ukemi!

So Be a Good Uke, Won’t Ya?

In case you didn’t get the gist by now, being an uke is about your training just as much as it is your partner’s training. You might find that training as an uke, when done right, is actually much more challenging than training as a tori. Not only will you become a better martial artist, but your buyū (武友 – “martial arts friends”) will most assuredly become better, too. When you work together to cultivate a feeling of cooperation, support, encouragement, and hard work, that feeling spreads within your entire organization and the potential for progress grows exponentially. That is what training is all about, and it could all start with you working to become a better uke.

Ganbatte (頑張って – “Keep Going!”)

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1. The Warrior’s Key to Greatness – The Way Lies in Training!

Double Your Training Without Doubling Your Training is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

The RGI seminar format utilizes a unique teaching methodology which blends values-based lessons, conflict communication skills, and ethics with physical training and exercise to activate and clarify the principles being taught.  The interchange of movement with the classroom style lecture increases the absorption and retention of the intellectual and values-bases lessons.  This concept is backed up by latest research into combining education with physical exercise.  Check out the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey, MD for a more detailed discussion of the science behind it. 

RGI’s Conflict Resolution course starts with a premise: in order to resolve conflict one must be moral, knowing right from wrong; one must be ethical, putting that morality into action; and one must have the physical skills and confidence from which to proceed.  The Dual Life Value (DLV) theory is the linchpin holding the course together.  It permeates the philosophy, intellectual discussions, physical skills, and emotional stories.  The DLV states that we are all equal because my life and the lives of my loved ones are as important to me as your life and the lives of your loved ones are to you.  Further, the life value is a universal value by which all other values are judged.  If they support the life value, they are moral, if they don’t, then they are not.  This is a very high level summary of an extremely important concept.  To really gain a full understanding and appreciation of the DLV theory, you really need to attend the course and be immersed in the philosophy.  This review can do nothing more than offer a taste to whet your appetite.  I hope it makes you hungry!

PT with Joe Marine

Joseph C. Shusko AKA “Joe Marine” is a decorated veteran who served the United States Marine Corps for over 30 years.  He is now serving as the Deputy Director, Marine Corps Martial Arts Center of Excellence overseeing the Corps’ Martial Arts Program.  Joe Marine is also known as the “combat conditioning guru”.  He took the class through 2 morning PT sessions Thursday and Friday.  The Thursday morning PT session began with a discussion on health and fitness in which Joe Marine shared his outlook and really brought home the importance of taking care of oneself, especially as we get older.  We then proceeded to go through a simple, yet highly effective workout Joe calls “5-10-15-20”.  It’s basically a plug –n- play type workout template which uses a variety of bodyweight exercise for the prescribed number of repetitions, 5, 10, 15, and 20, respectively.  The set is repeated as many times as possible in 10 minutes.  This allows trainees to work at their own pace and to their own fitness level.  But as Joe says, you only get out of it what you put into it!  Friday morning’s PT was a real treat as we moved the location outdoors to the beach on Spring Lake.  This time the workout was done in teams of 2.  This really pulled the participants together as they struggled to overcome the shared adversity of the physical challenges together.

In addition to being the combat conditioning guru, Joe Marine is also known for his “tie-ins”.  These are values-based stories which serve to illustrate points and drive home the intellectual or physical lessons with an emotional impact.  Never miss an opportunity to ask for a tie-in!

Maneuver Martial Arts

Maneuver Martial Arts is the term RGI President, Jack Hoban uses to describe RGI’s approach to physical conflict.  Jack is a speaker, writer and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP).  His business and military experiences, as well as an extensive 30-year background in martial arts, give him a unique and interesting perspective.  Jack, along with co-instructors Craig Gray and Artie Mark, skillfully introduced the participants to the concept of tactical movement, striking, escapes, takedowns, submissions, and protecting others.  Tactical movement and being able to control the tactical space around the opponent(s) was emphasized as primary, over and above the concept of technique.  This allowed the participants, some of whom had no prior martial arts experience, to gain an understanding and quickly absorb the principles of martial movement as the seminar progressed.  As a martial artist of almost 30 years of experience myself, it was hugely gratifying to watch this process unfold!

The crown jewel of RGI’s martial arts training though is really the protecting others piece.  As Jack mentioned in his introduction to this section, in a typical martial arts school setting, if 100 techniques are taught, 100% of those techniques are geared towards defending yourself.  How many look at how to defend others?  Usually none.  This segment of the training served to rectify that deficiency in current martial arts training, as well as to drive home the importance of the universal life value of self and others – all others.  Protecting others activates the life value and solidifies the concepts, principles, and ethics in a very real and effective way.

Conflict Communication

RGI’s approach to conflict communication is both an art and a science.  Gary Klugiewicz is employed by PoliceOne as a police and corrections subject matter expert. He is retired from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department after 25 years of service where he was promoted to the rank of captain. Gary has been a Verbal Judo Instructor for the last fifteen years.  Gary expertly distilled the essence of Dr. George Thompson’s Verbal Judo, to give the participants a highly beneficial introduction to tactical communication.  Take a look at what Verbal Judo calls the 5 Universal Truths and see if they resonate with you.  They certainly did with me.  Also, try them out on your kids.  You’ll be amazed at the level of compliance!

5 Universal Truths

1. All people want to be treated with dignity and respect.
2. All people want to be asked rather than told to do something.
3. All people want to be told why they are being asked to do something.
4. All people want to be given options rather than threats.
5. All people want a second chance.

Real world experience in conflict communication from both the ER and out on the street from a law enforcement perspective was also shared by Joseph Lau, RN, veteran police detective Arthur “Artie” Mark, and decorated veteran detective James Shanahan.  Additional presentations were given by heavy hitters such as Brian Pensak, Marine Corps Martial Arts Program Instructor Trainer and SME, and Bruce Gourlie, Special Agent of the FBI.  There is so much experience, expertise, and information to unpack from just one of these gentlemen’s presentations that it’s impossible to delve into in a short seminar review.  My advice?  If you deal with any type of conflict in your job, in your family, in your life, get to an RGI Conflict Resolution course ASAP – you’ll never look at conflict the same way again!

The RGI Conflict Resolution Course has a synergistic effect whereby the whole is much, much greater than the sum of its individual parts.  The combined impact of the instructors’ professional presentations, the interchange of physical skills with values, morals, and ethics, and the engaging course material create an outstanding professional development course. 5 out of 5 stars – highly recommended!!

For more information on RGI upcoming events and seminars, please click here.

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RGI Conflict Resolution Course Review is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

Bujinkan martial arts are the wellspring from which my concept of Warrior Fitness sprung as a natural outcropping.  So as my philosophy of Warrior Fitness continues to evolve, it naturally gravitates to this type of structure for me to express it.  In keeping with the trinity of mind, body, and spirit, here is how I see it for Warrior Fitness:

Mind -Concentration and focus along with an understanding of the interrelationship of the exercises and how they integrate with and enhance the way we move in the world.

Body - Forging a strong body to carry us through the challenges we face. 

Spirit - Pushing the edge to consistently increase resistance to failure.

The Sanshin no kata consist of 5 forms which are called, Chi no kata (earth form), Sui no kata (water form), Ka no kata (fire form), Fu no kata (wind form), and Ku no kata (void form).  Those who have read Miyamoto Musashi’s famous work, Go Rin No Sho – A Book of 5 Rings, are most likely familiar with the terminology as well.  Here is how each is expressed in Warrior Fitness:

Earth - Building strength, stability, and structure in movement and stillness

Water - Freedom of movement through all ranges of motion, flow state

Fire - Metabolic conditioning to ignite fat loss and sculpt lean muscle

Wind - Breathing exercises to vitalize every cell in the body

Void - Pushing the edge of our limitless potential

Hone Your Mind, Invigorate Your Spirit, and Make Fierce the Body with Warrior Fitness!

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1. Your Sanshin No Kata Under a Microscope
2. Unlocking Flow in Your Taijutsu Practice
3. Create Your Own Adversity!

The Sanshin of Warrior Fitness is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.

For me, it’s a daily battle with my demons.  These are the insidious little creatures that lurk in the dark recesses of my mind.  Their sole purpose being to distract me from becoming the person I want to be.  They rationalize and cajole to pull me off the path of self improvement.  The path of training.  For others, the path may be their daily struggle to make good food choices and lose weight, or it may be the daily battle to study at night while working a full-time job in order to earn that MBA.  The path is personal.  The demons are universal.

Currently I train for a few minutes every morning which provides the dual function of waking me up and setting me on the right path for the day.  It primes my muscles, movements, and nervous system for the more involved training I will perform later that night.  Additionally, I will train during the day at odd intervals when I have a few minutes of down time.  These little periods provide the consistency I need to help me keep going.  But, as I stated above, the bulk of my training is done at night after putting the kids to bed.  Usually around 9 pm or so I head down the basement to my home gym.  This is my dedicated training spot.  For me, it helps to focus my efforts since the only thing I do there is train.  It’s minimalist with very few distractions.  Perfect for doing the work.  For the most part, I beat the demons by just getting downstairs and setting foot in the gym.  Getting there is the most difficult part, but once there, the demons are beat and the daily training progresses.

Sometimes, like last night, the battle isn’t won by just getting to the gym.  Last night was different.  I was tired.  I was comfortable sitting on the couch watching TV with my wife.  The kids were asleep.  The house was quiet.  Peaceful.  I thought that the demons hadn’t even shown up to fight because getting down there was so easy.  Once I was in the gym though, they attacked.  It was a sudden, violent onslaught that took me by surprise!  “You’re tired,” they told me. 

“You don’t need to train anymore today…”,

“You did enough over the weekend.  Relax.  Take it easy.”, 

“Why don’t you just go to bed early for a change?  You need your rest!”

On and on it went, not just verbal but real feelings of being sleepy.  Feeling like I should go upstairs and go to sleep.  I almost gave in.  Almost succumbed.  Almost quit.

But mental fortitude kicked in.  Training kicked in.  The battle was on!  I heard myself talking to one of my training buddies saying – “you have to train every day.  You have to want it bad enough.  How do I do it?  Well, it’s like brushing your teeth, Dude.  You just do it every day (usually twice!) no matter what.”  This began the rally.  But it was far from won.  What won the battle once and for all (at least for last night) was the fact that I just started doing my solo conditioning exercises.  I was in the right place.  My mindset was returning.  But the way to win the battle is to simply begin doing the work.  Understand that your training is a necessary part of becoming who you want to be.  Understand that daily training is a necessary part of that process.  And get it done.

Related posts:

1. A Case for Mini Workouts
2. The Warrior’s Key to Greatness – The Way Lies in Training!
3. Blind Spots

Battling Demons is an original post on the Warrior Fitness blog. If you are not reading this on WF, please visit today to support the content's creator.