Allow life to happen around you.
Let people be who they are.
Observe without judgement or criticism.
Participate playfully, but do not interfere.
Be yourself, unabashedly and unashamedly.
Be inspired.
Be inspiring.
Do not hesitate.
Run toward your fears.
Run into the darkness.
Find your light there and let it shine.
Be yourself, enthusiastically.
There is no reason to make yourself unhappy simply so that someone else can feel more comfortable.
Without being cruel, insensitive, or mean-spirited, be yourself.
Do not grovel, crawl, or shy away from being who you are.
Be yourself unapologetically.
Others will adapt.
They may even thank you for it.
The world is full of people who are not you.
One more not you is not needed.
We need you to be yourself boldly and bravely.
Listen to your heart’s calling, follow it wherever it leads, and allow your life to be an expression of whatever truth you find along the way.
Live your life as yourself, even if it means going against the flow and disappointing others along the way.
The ones who matter will understand and the ones who do not understand do not matter.
Be weird.
Be strange.
Be unique.
Be yourself.
There is no you besides you.
Do not waste your time here hiding who you are, trying to fit in, and trying to be like everyone else.
Do not shy away from what makes you different because those characteristics, those attributes, and those rough edges are what make you you.
Your differences are what make you special.
Accept them, embrace them, and accentuate them.
Your very existence is a miracle.
Do not chase your opponents into their game.
The longer we practice jiu-jitsu, the more we develop our own uniquely personal technical-style, strategies, and tactics. While this is happening, however, our training partners are also working on improving and developing their own personal styles as well, their own games, so to speak. Like us, they, too, are developing a mindset, philosophy, and a physical language all their own, based on their personal goals, their physical attributes, and their strengths and weaknesses.
Through this process of individual and mutual improvement, we have the constant benefit of increasingly complex and challenging problems to solve. We learn what works and what does not work in what circumstances, against what offenses and defenses, and what causes us repeated success or failure against whom. The better we get at our own personal style of jiu-jitsu, the more we tend to want to impose our game on others while they try to impose theirs on us in return.
One of the primary lessons in all of this is that, not only should we not try to beat others at their own game, but we should also not chase them into the positions they are best at and we are worst at with the hope of out-thinking and out-maneuvering them where they are comfortable and we are not. We learn not to attack others’ strengths with our weaknesses and, instead, to try to lead or guide them into the places we are strong and they are weak. As Pedro Sauer says, “The mouse trap does not chase the mouse.”
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.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
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We all need to feel supported in our pursuit of the person we are meant to be.
One of the greatest gifts we can receive from another person is to be believed by them, to have them see or hear the story we are trying to tell about who we are in the world and for them to believe that story. This type of belief is both empowering and uplifting. It gives us the permission we need to explore the places within ourselves we suspect are real and true, but are afraid will not be accepted or supported by the world around us.
We all want to be seen and heard in our own way. Having someone else believe what we are trying to say about who we imagine ourselves to be, even when our ability to express it has not yet fully formed into something clear and powerful, gives us the room to continue to grow into who we are. It tells us that it is okay to try, to fail, and to try again until we get it right, until what we feel and how we express those feelings converge into a single path leading us toward who we are meant to be.
This all takes time. It requires trust in and dedication to the process of becoming. Most of all, the process of becoming demands consistency. Once we know what we want to, or must, say with our lives, we cannot hesitate, we cannot waver, and we cannot stray from our path for too long lest we become lost in a world of distraction and confusion, unsure of who we are, who we are meant to be, and where we are headed. If we want others to believe us, we must first believe ourselves.
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.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
Meditations on God 