Meditations on God

What is the Lesson?
Pressure, resistance, and pain are the path to knowing who we truly are and what we are capable of.

‘The Butterfly’ by Ana

If you seek to do something worth doing, something that will change your life and the lives of those around you, you will face difficulties, obstacles along our path. These obstacles will slow you down, sometimes to what will feel like a complete standstill. These moments will often feel like you are losing momentum, like progress has halted, or like you are losing ground and moving backwards.

Oftentimes, you will feel as if these obstacles are to be overcome or avoided. You will want them to go away or you will want to go away.

If, instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” or “How can I avoid this?” you embrace these obstacles by treating them as lessons and ask, “What are you trying to teach me?”, you will often find that these obstacles are not really obstacles at all, but stepping stones on the path to the place you are truly meant to be going.

“As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
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June 19, 2019

budo, challenges, difficulites, life, obstacle, obstacle is the way, stoic, stoicism, the journey, the path, the way
Lose Now to Win Later (As a Big Guy or Gal in BJJ)
Are you playing the long game or are you trying to win?

Robert Van Valkenburgh at Kogen Dojo: Photo by Mike Oswald Photography

As a big guy in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), I am often encouraged to use my weight and size to my advantage. It is common to hear, “No one tells the smaller guys to be less fast or flexible. Use what you’ve got.” On the surface, this seems like reasonable advice, but I am not sure that it is a fair comparison. In fact, I think that this mindset is a trap.

In the beginning, when skill is equal, larger, stronger folks tend to dominate over smaller folks in jiu-jitsu. As time goes on, however, smaller folks begin to learn how to use leverage, timing, and technique to neutralize and escape their larger opponents’ size, strength, and pressure. For the sake of survival alone, they have to. Eventually, these neutralizing and escaping skills begin to develop into attacking skills and the smaller practitioner begins to get better, a lot better.

If, while the smaller practitioner focuses on surviving and escaping, the larger practitioner continues to focus on winning because, let’s face it, winning feels good, something funny happens. The larger practitioner begins winning less and less often against the smaller practitioner. Eventually, the smaller practitioner begins winning. Now, in the face of diminishing returns, the big guy (or gal) has to make a choice.

Does he (or she) continue to try to win with size and strength or does he (or she) revisit the fundamentals of leverage, timing, and technique? The first option will likely lead to frustration and, eventually, quitting. The latter option will also lead to frustration and a lot of losing at first, but, if his or her pride can withstand the initial blow, it will pay off in a big way because it will allow him or her to become something very, very dangerous down the road: a technical big guy (or gal).

“As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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June 18, 2019

big gal bjj, big gal jiu-jitsu, big guy bjj, big guy jiu-jitsu, bjj, brazilian jiu-jitsu, gracie jiu-jitsu, japanese martial arts, kogen dojo, Martial Arts, submission grappling, the long game
Art is the Expression of Essence
“I’ve found that this dish takes a lot of black pepper.”

-Chef David Chang

Spicy Volcano Ramen from Akira Ramen & Izakaya in Baltimore, MD

Taste is subjective. It is a personal and/or cultural preference. Essence, on the other hand, precedes and transcends taste. It is the thing that just looks, sounds, tastes, or feels ‘right’ even if we cannot exactly describe why. Essence is the truth of a thing. It is the strawberry-ness of a strawberry, the buttery-ness of butter, or the beefy-ness of a steak. An expert is simply someone, whether through good fortune, practice, or education, who can more easily experience, identify, and recreate this essence than others.

When a chef like David Chang says that he has found that a particular dish “takes a lot of black pepper,” he is not saying that he prefers the taste of that dish with a lot of black pepper. He is saying that the essence of that dish demands a certain amount of pepper in order to be made manifest and be experienced in its ideal form. He is an expert not because he is an arbiter of taste, but because he has developed a palate that is more sensitive and more in-tune with the essence of a particular thing than the average person. He is saying that “this dish is more like itself when it is made with a lot of black pepper.”

The art of the chef is to honor the essence of an ingredient or a dish so that others may experience it as well.

“As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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June 17, 2019
Who Will You Be (When the Curtain Falls)?
Knowing who you want to be is more important than knowing what you want to be.

Fatherhood is a challenge, not in the sense that it is challenging, as in difficult. That is a given. All work that matters is difficult. More so and more importantly, it is a challenge to who we think we are, who we actually are, and who we want to be as men.

For example, my daughter still thinks I am a great singer, a good guitar player, and a skilled martial artist. The truth is that I can barely hold a tune, my guitar playing abilitiy is sub-novice level, and I am merely a serious beginner when it comes to martial arts. Some day, she will figure all of this out.

The question is, when she does, when the curtain falls and she sees that her father is merely a man, simply another flawed human, fumbling to do his best, what kind of man will she see beyond the illusion of youth? Will she see a man who is scared and hiding? Will she see a man who is selfish and dishonest? Or will she see a man who, in spite of all of his flaws and fragility, is trying his best to be present, authentic, and generous?

“As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
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June 16, 2019

authenticity, budo, family, father, father’s day, fatherhood, generosity, honesty, life, parenthood
Your Pain Is Our Pain
On a team, there is no such thing as a personal problem.

A team, in the truest sense, is an organically interconnected unit. It is a whole that is greater than its individual parts. Even if there are some redundancies and overlapping skills or responsibilities built into the structure, every piece is crucial to the overall function and success of the group. That means, if one person on the team is struggling, the whole team is struggling.

In a true team effort, it is the responsibility of any and all members to lift up, support, and strengthen every other member. A team lives or dies as a team. No one is left behind and everyone is responsible for everyone else. There may be a chain of command and there may be delegated roles and responsibilities, but, if a man or woman is down (literally or figuratively), it is up to everyone else to step up until the team is back on track, as a unit.

If a team member is having issues, either inside or outside of the team, that are negatively impacting his or her role within the team, and therefore the team itself, these issues are not his or her burden to bare alone. By definition, they become the team’s burden. It is the role of leadership to see these issues and address them before they go too far, but herein lies the catch. On a team, everyone is leadership.

“As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

39.073857 -76.547111
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June 15, 2019

budo, decentralized command, leader, leadership, life, no man left behind, no woman left behind, personal problems, personal struggles, team, teamwork

What is the Lesson?

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Lose Now to Win Later (As a Big Guy or Gal in BJJ)

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Art is the Expression of Essence

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Who Will You Be (When the Curtain Falls)?

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Your Pain Is Our Pain

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