You will solve more problems by creating problems than by thinking about problems.
Planning will only take you so far.
Once you have a reasonable plan, it is time to take action, lest you plan yourself into paralysis.
You need to get your hands dirty.
You need to put yourself in a position to fail.
The real work is done in the work not in your head.
You will never create the problems you need to solve without first being willing to have problems.
If we want to know what works and what does not, if we want to know what matters and makes the most difference in our lives, we must first begin with some degree of consistency.
By establishing a consistent baseline of values, principles, and behaviors, it becomes much easier to determine the causes of our success or failure.
Consistency gives us the ability to add or subtract new ideas, new input, and new actions into our lives in a way that allows us to test their affect on us, on the way we feel, on the way we perform, and on the way we interact with others.
By starting with consistent controls, we can add or subtract variables to or from our lives and produce some relatively reliable data points with regards to efficacy and outcome.
The easiest way to do this is by first with limitations, restrictions, and boundaries on the aspects of our lives we wish to examine and improve.
In other words, if we want to get down to the causes and conditions of our success or failure, we must remove that which is nonessential and then add things back slowly and deliberately.
This is true whether we are talking about diet, exercise, productivity, or even creativity.
By first eliminating all that is not essential from our lives, we are then better able to determine for ourselves what truly matters or does not, what is necessary or is not, and what adds benefit or value to our lives or what causes undesirable negative consequences.
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.
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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.
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Attachment to a desired outcome blinds us to the actual problem in front of us and, therefore, also to its solution.
In order to approach a problem objectively, intelligently, and decisively, we must first step back from it so that we can see it clearly, without the distractions of emotion or opinion.
We must look at it as it is, separate from us or our desires, our needs, our hopes, and our fears.
A problem does not care how we feel about it or what we want from it. It simply is. The solution is the same.
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.
It takes longer to complain about something that it does to take action toward a solution.
The thing about complaining is that it does not really begin or end at the complaint. It is a much longer process than that. Often, whatever feelings led up to the actual complaint have been festering for a while before coming out and, once expressed, instead of finding resolution, our negative feelings begin to reverberate throughout our life.
Sometimes, the resentment that leads to us expressing a complaint is something we live with for days, weeks, or even years before and after we have verbalized it. In addition to that, the more that we complain, the more these negative feelings begin to seep into the way that we view the world, even affecting our relationships, especially the relationships with those who we are complaining about and to whom we are complaining.
Usually, the solution to whatever problem we find the need to complain about is simple and would take little to no time to address directly and expediently. A lot of times, the solution is as easy as a conversation with the offending party, but, for whatever reason, most likely fear, we find it easier to create general conflict resonating throughout our whole life than to face the risk of specific conflict with what and who is really bothering us. The action required to solve a problem, however, is usually much easier and more expedient than a lifetime of resentment, regret, and complaining.
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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Meditations on God 