All in !!!

For those who have read my books, you may be familiar with the name 'Ron O'brien' - Ron has been a friend of mine for some 35 years. He accompanied my on many adventures, To Brazil in the late 80's for BJJ training, in Indonesia well before that, In India, Mongolia as well as countless hiking trips into the wilds. Last weekend we went on another hike, this time into the remote regions of the central plateau in Tasmania. The weather started out allright, but by the third day we were three foot deep in snow. The walk out was very hard for him, despite my carrying his load and taking frequent rests. Luckily my friend Craig was there to lend moral support. We made it out, and after good serving of chocolate pudding on the ferry trip back home, Ron seemed to have recovered quite well. As it turned out though, my great friend of three and a half decades and stalwart partner in many an adventure, had taken his last trip. Two days ago, his heart gave out -and after several serious attacks, he passed away late last night. Ron was a man who lived his life on his own terms, he pushed the envelope in every respect - he extracted more juice from life than anyone else I have ever know. He poured wisdom, he exuded love, he was the most truly vital person I have ever met. Always - he was all in! I shall miss him dearly.
JBW

Masters of our own destinies ...

Sure, you can outsource stuff; get that graphic designer to do the artwork; then give the product to a marketing guy, who will probably schedule a series of meetings with you, until finally a decision is made and your little old pamphlet is done. How many businesses or martial arts gyms have gone this route?
OR …
You can invest some time in learning these skills yourself and once done – do the whole job yourself in an easy afternoon.
We live in a world where it is soooo easy to become dependent upon a whole team of other people to get even the simplest thing accomplished. The self-reliance of the past generation seems to have become an increasingly rare bird. We can always outsource right? We can always ask GOOGLE; we can always locate that technique on Youtube or look up our passport number on our new i-phone.
Don’t misunderstand; I am all for the convenience that technology offers; but not at the expense of sacrificing my ability to learn, remember and use my mind. I don’t poo-poo the wonders of the GPS – but I can also navigate by the stars, by compass and I can read both map and terrain. It doesn’t cost much to take ownership of skill and knowledge – and empowering ourselves by owning and using learned knowledge empowers us to become people of action.
If you don’t act because of something you don’t know – then realize this is an opportunity to learn and do! A lot of the time, when we find ourselves stalling or postponing … it is simply because we havn’t yet taken ownership of all the necessary skills to complete the task. Get those skills … at every opportunity.
JBW

A prelude to action ...

What stops people from taking action – in anything – a technique in the heat of the struggle – buying that first property – clearing e-mail from inbox – distributing that new pamphlet for a budding business?
This is a very interesting topic – to myself at least. The difference between pulling the trigger and taking action and endless weighing and pondering is more often than not, the difference between living an extraordinary and successful life and one of mundane sameness.
There are usually a number of factors that inhibit people from taking action – but among the most powerful of them is that of ‘lack of ownership’.
I have talked about this recently in some of my seminars. One of the things I insist upon is that participants remember the techniques that I teach one week after I have finished teaching them. This seems like an obvious and easy request but in my experience, the majority of people cannot remember or replicate what was taught to them in a seminar, after even s single nights sleep has come and gone. When I teach, I try to do so in such a way that maximizes the possibility of everyone remembering what we have covered; I do so because I understand that REMEMBERING is the first step toward taking full OWNERSHIP of any form of knowledge. WE need to bring new knowledge into our minds in the kind of way that allows us to DO SOMETHING WITH IT at a later date. One of the first things we need to do is to make a clear distinction between ACCESS TO INFORMATION and the OWNING of it.
We live in a world where oral traditions are rapidly becoming a relic of the past. Many would argue that we needed hold information in our headspace, when we can easily access it on the internet, in books or on DVD’s. In my opinion however, these things are just tools that should be not be overly depended upon.
I feel that the reason people often fail to take decisive action is because they do not properly OWN the knowledge they have momentarily borrowed from outside sources. Once we take knowledge of a subject into our mind and have truly digested and taken ownership of it, some sort of ‘critical tipping point’ is reached and we allow ourselves to ACT.
Make a clear distinction between the state of having been exposed to knowledge and the state of having taken ownership of it.
JBW

Modifying our Drilling methods ...

An important part of BJJ training is the drilling of the techniques we have learned. Getting those reps under our belt builds muscle memory, understanding of the technique, etc. There are though, a couple of important skills that we don’t get from ‘drilling’ …
To apply a technique in the heat of combat, we need to also RECOGNIZE THE OPPORTUNITY that calls for that technique. This is something we don’t get by drilling. When we drill/do reps, we are not necessarily developing our ability to spot the situation (out of the hundreds of situations that crop up) that calls for that particular technique.
Secondly, drilling a specific technique doesn’t necessarily develop our ability to MAKE THE CORRECT SELECTION of a technique in any give situation. When we drill/do reps, no SELECTIVE process happens, we just do the movements over and over. In real combat, we need to select the right technique, for the right situation (round peg – round hole – square peg – square hole) from the hundreds of techniques we know.
These two skills – RECOGNIZING THE OPPORTUNITY AND BEING ABLE TO SELECT THE RIGHT TECHNIQUE FOR THE RIGHT SITUATION - we usually develop in sparring. But we can often modify our drilling methods to help out a little. Eg: rather than drill a technique on it’s own – we can drill three or four at a time. Our partner ‘feeding’ us various situations, thereby forcing us to RECOGNIZE and SELECT . We still get to ‘do the reps’ – but now we are building these other important skill-sets as well. Food for thought.
Train smart.
JBW

Seek similarities - or find differences?

To better organize and understand things in my mind (read: techniques) - I have found that when I am dealing with a group of things that are all very similar (say 10 entries/variations on Darce choke) then I focus on or emphasise the DIFFERENCES between each of the techniques. if however, the techniques are all quite different (a group of seemingly unrelated techniques) then I take the opposite approach and focus on or emphasise the SIMILARITIES between them. In thinking about it - it seems I also do this with lots of other stuff.
I have perhaps taken this approach with people as well - when dealing with different cultures, I tend to focus on what similarities we share - when dealing with people who outwardly appear the same as each other, I try to tease apart what makes them unique as individuals.
There you go - it's early, I am not sure what it all means - I just know it helps me. After a only a few hours sleep - I am stuffing some pasta into my belly as I wait to board my flight to Auckland. A big day ahead ... looking forward to it.
JBW

Do we notice?

You know how it is when you go away for a few weeks, return home, and marvel at all the obvious changes that have taken place - in and around your town/city? Or your child heads of for a week or two of summer camp and when he or she comes home, you are amazed at how much they have grown? The point is this: every day, small changes are occurring, all around us, and within us; but we barely notice them, if we notice them at all. This sis certainly true on the mat. I cannot count the number of times I asked myself why I wasn't improving; why each night seemed as difficult as the previous, especially during my first few years of BJJ practice. The truth of course, was that it was difficult to measure any improvement, because everyone else (whoI was measuring myself against) was improving also. It was only when someone new came onto the mat that it became obvious that I had indeed made considerable gains.
This morning, during my Tabata-based workout, we went back to a more classic style of routine, one similar to the routine I went through when jumped into this kind of training as rehab after my last knee op. We did twenty seconds of pulling-chain exercises, had ten seconds to get to the next station, then twenty seconds of pushing-chain - times eight exercises - a one minute break after which we repeated it three more times. it was all done at maximum intensity - and I felt good throughout the whole thing. After it was all said and done - I asked myself a simple question "Could I wrestle well, right now?" the answer came back in the affirmative - and so I noted my improvement. it was still hard and challenging, but not like the first time I did it, when at the end of it all, I could barely get up onto my feet and walk (let alone wrestle). So we all make improvements - all the time - but it's only when we do careful measuring that we tend to notice what we have achieved.
On the mat, I notice many of my students making great gains - that is all well and good - but in the end, it's they themselves, who need to notice the gains; this is important if they are to remain motivated.
Good training
JBW

Thinking ...

My father told me, more than once when I was a youngster, ‘What separates the men from the boys - is THINKING’. My father always saw the big picture; in fact, as evidence of this, I once saw him paint a Dymaxion skymap of our planet on our lounge-room wall – south America was on the right hand side (nearest the kitchen) and the African continent was on the left. He showed me that it was almost possible (barring the annoyance of the Behring Strait) to walk from the bottom of south America to the southernmost tip of Africa (When I later tried to explain that this was possible to my primary school teacher, I was ridiculed in front of the class – yikes). My father was a big picture kind of guy – but he was also good at details; and taught me to take the same view.
Every day, I find time to let my mind do it’s thing; to wander, to muse, to connect things, ideas and notions in unexpected ways. I always find time to let my brain yell, sing, wander, question and wonder. Finding time to ‘wander from path’ of usual thought opens the door to truly creative thinking. I love especially, to do this with my thinking on the martial arts. Keep the twitching down to a minimum of you want to retain your friends – but find some time, even a few mounted a day, to let your mind cut loose … and think.
JBW