Meditations on God

Injury Halts Progress
Self defense starts with taking care of ourselves and our partners on the mats so that everyone gets stronger through training, not weaker through injury.

It is good to train hard, to push ourselves, and test ourselves in practice, but it must always be remembered that it is just practice. The goal of practice is to improve, to get stronger, to get faster, and to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday. Beyond that, the goal is to do this for a long time, so that our progress, and that of our training partners, never stops.

If we train to the point of injury, either our own or our partners’, progress is halted. The saying ‘pain is weakness leaving the body’ may be true, but the opposite is also true. That is to say, injury is weakness entering the body.

Injuries do not make us stronger, nor do injured training partners. In any martial art, we need to stay healthy and strong in order to continue training and in order to improve. Likewise, we need strong, healthy training partners who will push us, but who will also take care of us and us them, so that we can continue training together long into the future.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.

Street art photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh, artist unknown unless otherwise noted.

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February 8, 2020

aikido, bjj, brazilian jiu-jitsu, injury, longevity, Martial Arts, muay thai, safety, self defense, training
Changing Ourselves To Change The World
Choose a practice that affects you in the way that you want to affect others.

If we commit ourselves to a practice consistently enough, over a long enough period of time, for better or worse, that practice will begin to shape who we are and how we relate to the world. Oftentimes, our actions and our interactions affect our thinking much more than our thinking affects our actions. What we do, how we do it, and who we do it with transforms us as well as our perceptions and that, in turn, transforms the way that we relate to and move through the world.

Martial art practice, as one example, is a microcosm of human development, behavior, and relationships that, within the right (or wrong) circumstances, becomes an operating system for our lives. Not all operating systems are created equal, however, nor do they all serve as healthy models of human interaction. For this reason, as important as an effective martial art practice is, it is equally important to consider how the martial art we practice will affect us and how we will affect others because of it.

Martial arts were always intended to be more than simply a peacetime hobby for self improvement or even self-defense. Especially in samurai-era Japan, the martial arts were used as a means by which to affect society and culture as a whole in accordance with the ideas and ideals of that particular martial group. This is part of the meaning behind the name Holistic Budo, in fact, which is to say that this is a blog about how martial arts can positively affect and shape our thinking and behavior so that, through them, we can positively affect and shape our relationships, society, and culture.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.

Street art photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh, artist unknown unless otherwise noted.

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February 7, 2020

budo, change, culture, holistic, life, lifestyle, practice, society
Self-Care is Anti-Selfish
Taking care of ourselves is not the same as only caring about ourselves.

By starting every day doing something for ourselves, creating something from within ourselves, we can give freely of ourselves for the remainder of the day without regret. Approaching our day like this, front-loading it with time to meditate, time to move, and time to do creative work is not selfishness. In fact, it is anti-selfishness.

If we want to live lives of service, whether to our families or our communities, setting time aside each day for self-care and creative work is absolutely necessary. We can not be our best selves for others if we do not take care of ourselves first. This means taking care of our minds, bodies, and spirits in order to be effective vessels of kindness and change.

There are only so many hours in the day and, so long as we are sincere and willing, the hours do not discriminate. By starting the day with mindfulness, with a movement practice, and with creative expression, however, we guarantee that these things do not get swept aside by our other priorities as the day goes on. If we wait until later to take care of ourselves, later may never come.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.

Street art photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh, artist unknown unless otherwise noted.

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February 6, 2020

community, creative work, creativity, exercise, family, meditation, mindfulness, movement practice, self care, selfishness, service, win the morning win the day
Moving Through Our Egos in Jiu-Jitsu
Life is expressed through motion and our jiu-jitsu should reflect that.

In Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the best time to attack or sweep is when our opponent is moving to escape or pass and the best time to escape or pass is when our opponent is trying to attack or sweep. Movement creates opportunities. The goal of jiu-jitsu practice, then, should be to move a lot, even if it means getting submitted, swept, or passed a lot because we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.

By moving a lot, decisively and with purpose, we are sure to make a lot of mistakes and our better opponents will capitalize on these mistakes. The better our opponent, the more quickly and surely our mistakes will be used against us. This is the path of learning, however, so we should embrace it by being willing to move a lot and lose a lot in order to learn a lot.

Nothing is gained from sitting or standing still. There is no submission, no sweep, no pass, and no escape that does not require movement. The sooner we begin to move, through our fears, insecurities, and losses, the sooner we will find mental-emotional calm and stillness in our movements until the only thing that can stop us from moving forward toward our goals, whether position or submission, is the truly better opponent and, for that, we should thank them and try again.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.

Street art photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh, artist unknown unless otherwise noted.

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February 5, 2020

bjj, brazilian jiu-jitsu, escapes, fear, gracie jiu-jitsu, growing, jiu-jitsu, learning, life, losing, loss, movement, risk, submissions, sweeps, winning
Be Yourself For Others
Often, the struggle we face in our lives is between what other people want from us and what we actually want for ourselves.

When we are young, we are told that we can be anything we want to be when we grow up, but, as we get older, we are also told that we must conform to expectations in order to fit in, get ahead, and be successful. Over time, we discover that what we want to do is not necessarily the same as what we must do, nor is who we want to be necessarily the same as who we must be. As the realities of life creep in, these lines begin to blur and it is easy to lose sight of who we were before we were told who to be.

The more responsibilities we acquire in our lives, the more difficult we may find it is to separate what is needed to satisfy others from what is needed to satisfy ourselves. As we struggle to find balance, there is always a risk of moving too far in one direction or another. If we move too far toward expectations, we may lose our own identity, but if we move too far away from them, we may lose our community, but we need both.

The goal should be to pursue and embrace the ideas, traits, and desires that make us unique in a way that also benefits the people around us, such that we are adding value to and also influencing our community though our creativity, passions, and perspectives, not in spite of them. If our community does not support us in this, we have to determine whether it is our ideas or our environment that needs to change, making sure that we move forward in the direction of what is healthy, righteous, and true.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.

Photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

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February 4, 2020

community, creativity, desire, ideas, identity, necessity, need, responsibilities, want

Injury Halts Progress

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Changing Ourselves To Change The World

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Self-Care is Anti-Selfish

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Moving Through Our Egos in Jiu-Jitsu

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Be Yourself For Others

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