Meditation/Mentality/Energy Levels

[everything]

May I suggest something to try that requires a partner.

Have your partner put you in a very uncomfortable position, then just try to relax in that position. Let go of tension and pain and just try to feel what is happening and observe. Then move to another position and repeat.

Good suggestion.

Finally, since no one has mentioned it, maybe the too-much-sex point is a big part of the problem??? hahaha, maybe it's all worth it so forget jiu-jitsu

[everything]

May I suggest something to try that requires a partner.

Have your partner put you in a very uncomfortable position, then just try to relax in that position. Let go of tension and pain and just try to feel what is happening and observe. Then move to another position and repeat.

This quote is what reminded me of the sex point but srsly, yes. The odd contortions in yoga are helping me relax when uncomfortable as well. Johnny, sounds like you already do all that so maybe it really is all your over training and other activities?

[Johnny Drama]

May I suggest something to try that requires a partner.

Have your partner put you in a very uncomfortable position, then just try to relax in that position. Let go of tension and pain and just try to feel what is happening and observe. Then move to another position and repeat.

This quote is what reminded me of the sex point but srsly, yes. The odd contortions in yoga are helping me relax when uncomfortable as well. Johnny, sounds like you already do all that so maybe it really is all your over training and other activities?

Some of the the guys I have trained with are absolute animals and outweigh me significantly, so I've gotten used to relaxing in terrible positions. I don't necessarily think that my tension is coming from being afraid of those positions. I train so much...I could be wrong though.

I do think its the mental chatter. I battled depression for a long time, and developed poor habits from it. Wasting away on the internet being one, filling my mind with trivia and wandering from thought to thought being the other. I've been working on meditation for awhile though, and although I still have along way to go, I noticed something good last night.

There are certain training partners who make me nervous. Not because they are tough; everyone is tough. The two toughest guys there, teh head coach and a huge powerhouse grappler, I have no fear wrestling with them.But, some other guys freak me out. I feel they don't like/respect me. So, I get nervous around them. For awhile, I wondered if that was real, or if I was imagining it.

Last night I just tried to chill and forget about that. I walked up to one of the guys who I felt nervous about and shook his hand. He couldn't have been nicer. I really think it was all in my mind. That is how much nervous energy I have. So,I'm just trying to let it go so I have increased clarity and I can use all that nervous energy into fighting energy.

I found this book today-

http://www.amazon.com/Sit-Down-Shut-Up- ... 1577315596

I thought it would be bullshit, commercial zen. Its actually quite good, and very accessible to my western/modern mind. He also has a web page here-

http://homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/

Anyway, thanks guy. Keep the discussion going please. I appreciate all the responses.

[Josealb]

Hey johnny, nervousness when sparring or training with someone has a lot to do with confidence in what you do. I dont mean confident in that what you do will or will not work (the same thing might work one day, then another day it wont. Depends on many things), what i mean is being secure, and not really caring if the other guy beats you to a pulp. Youre gonna do your stuff, and either you get the guy or he gets you, you did it and its what counts. Doing is everything.

On a different note, how long did you last training xingyi? do you still do?

[Johnny Drama]

Hey johnny, nervousness when sparring or training with someone has a lot to do with confidence in what you do. I dont mean confident in that what you do will or will not work (the same thing might work one day, then another day it wont. Depends on many things), what i mean is being secure, and not really caring if the other guy beats you to a pulp. Youre gonna do your stuff, and either you get the guy or he gets you, you did it and its what counts. Doing is everything.

On a different note, how long did you last training xingyi? do you still do?

I had an experience which reminds me of what you are saying.

My school is very competition based, and despite the good feeling all around, it is tough training. We have a thing called "Match of the day" where two guys are called out, and made to fight in front of everyone else. It mimics a tournament grappling match. People coach, points are scored etc.

Anyway, I had a match against a good grappler. Prior to going up against him, I thought all the wrong things. I don't want to be embarrassed, what will my coach/friends think, etc. He D'arce choked me in about three minutes. It was not a good feeling.

Fast forward a week. I hadn't trained particularly hard in that time, but felt more easy going. I started to spar with the same grappler. He proceeded to D'arce me again, as well as guillotine choke me. At the end of the class, I just wanted to leave. I almost did. But, he wanted to train more, and I told myself basically what you said in your post. This allowed me to really concentrate on the movements.

We started our first match, and I quickly ended it with a loop choke into sweep, into triangle from mount. He was caught offguard, so he asked for a second match. I D'arced him quicker than I could believe, in about 25 seconds. I had hit that state of mind I was striving for. Then I got excited at my victories, and we had a third match. This went on and on, and he eventually caught me, more from exhaustion and exciting myself than anything. You have to find that balance I found. Being nervous is as bad as being to full of yourself.

I trained Hsing I about 3-4 years with David Bond Chan. I tossed it all out when I started training BJJ seriously because I saw how important athleticism was. Now that I am a decent athlete, I see the mental to physical aspect as the most important part, so I've begun incorporating a lot of the standing meditation/power exercises he taught me again.

[qiphlow]

There is definitely some tension, especially when rolling with people of a higher skill level.

why? what are you scared of?
(i'm not trying to be an ass. tension is very often a product of fear.)

[Johnny Drama]

It isn't a fear thing. I don't mean to say I am tense when I see a higher belt. Quite the contrary, I can relax far more because I'm not supposed to be able to beat that guy. The ultimate irony is I have actually done quite well against these higher belts here and there, all because I didn't worry about if I should win or not.

The tension I am speaking of is them crushing me with their bodyweight, nullifying my movements, and controlling me in the gi. I don't mean I get tense in the sense of being scared of them, I get tense from exhaustion and being smashed. A better explanation would be this-

Tonight I rolled with my black belt head coach who won the pan ams in his brown belt division last year. He went hard on me. Tapped me three times in one round. The way he controlled me exhausted me. He used open guard work to break my posture and snap on triangles. He created tension in my body by pushing me back with his feet while pulling me with his arms. Then he threw on a sub that I fought, and changed it to another.

Despite all that, I'm learning something as far as meditation goes I think. I didn't imagine anything big happening, and I didn't win tonight either. I just kept trying and although I was incredibly fatigued, I listened less to the fatigue and more just kept doing. So, the acceptance and letting go of wants and whatever else was in my mind let me come face to face with the reality of getting horribly smashed. It doesn't sound like a good thing the way I'm explaining it, but I felt "aware" when I was gassing out badly. I think thats better then filling my head with delusions, good or bad that lead me to wasting more energy and taking more time to start the next round.

[qiphlow]

sounds like you're headed in the right direction, then. one of my older taiji brothers used to purposely volunteer to be the training dummy when my teacher would demonstrate jointlocks and stuff. as a result of that, he's scary good. perhaps you just need to keep doing what you're doing!

[bigphatwong]

I train Gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu mostly. I have a heavy background in internal martial arts, mainly Tai Chi and Hsing I. The guys I train with now, for the most part are complete animals who train every day. I basically train the same amount. I am in pretty good athletic shape. I eat well, I sleep well. I don't do drugs. I don't drink. I don't stay out at clubs. I take supplements (creatine, multivitamins, protein). My lifestyle permits me to rest before training most of the time, and I show up well rested usually. The only thing I do that could be a negative is I have lots of sex. But, you only live once and high school sucked for me so I'm making up for lost time. Anyway, moving on.

well, it sounds like you're already way ahead of the game then. My only insight would be to relax and enjoy the level that
you're at. It actually sounds very similar to the way I was taught and train, which is to basically transform your entire workout into yoga and meditation. Hsing-i in particular tends to make the mind very yang, which is why I say it enhances just about everything I do in life as well as in MA.

Basically, my meditation was this. I'd go up on my apartments roof, in the hot sun, wearing little clothing. I'd close my eyes, breath though my nose, sit cross legged. For the most part my breath was deep and controlled, although sometimes I did the yoga fire breathing method that some of you might have seen Rickson Gracie do. I tried to let go of all thoughts. No matter what it was, I considered it a distraction and just tried to still my mind and see what I was really thinking/feeling. I concentrated on my breath, the sensations of the air against my body. I would do this for about 15-30 minutes per session. 1-3 sessions per day, some of them would be inside though.

Oh man, I can only imagine how that must have appeared to passengers in a plane passing overhead.

"Mommy, why is that strange man sitting on the roof in his underwear?"

Also, I'm going to try and spend much less time on the pc. Ironic that I'm writing it in this post, but I feel its a huge sap on my energy.

Word.

[everything]

man I think you answered all your own questions. I can learn from reading about and keeping in mind your experience when training bjj.

have you seen that commercial where Tiger Woods' father says that no one on the planet is mentally tougher than Tiger? As a not-great athlete, I still wonder - what separates such a dominating champion from the other very elite athletes with great physical, technical skills? It's his incredible will and focus on top of it all, they say.

[Sprint]

If you Google "Mindfulness in Plain English filetype:pdf" it will lead to a pdf file of a practical book about meditation. As the title suggests the book is about the Mindfulness type of meditation. The reason I mention it is that scientists recently discovered that monks who meditated this way had changed the structure of their brains.

Basically there is a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex: high activity on the left side of it fills you with positive emotion; high activity on the right has the opposite effect. In fact too much right side activity leads to anxiety and depression. Anyway, in everyone there is a balance, or set point, between the two parts and that set point generally determines our level of happiness/contentment or otherwise with the world. Using magnetic resonance brain scans scientists have found that by using the mindfulness technique you can shift that set point to the left and that after a period of time the change is permanent. Unfortunately they reckon it takes about 10,000 hours meditation for the changes to be permanent, but that significant improvement can be made with much less effort.

The book itself is one of the finest I have ever read on the subject and I would recommend it to anyone.

[Johnny Drama]

well, it sounds like you're already way ahead of the game then. My only insight would be to relax and enjoy the level that
you're at. It actually sounds very similar to the way I was taught and train, which is to basically transform your entire workout into yoga and meditation. Hsing-i in particular tends to make the mind very yang, which is why I say it enhances just about everything I do in life as well as in MA.

I'm trying to do that (relax and enjoy things). I like what you say about making your entire workout meditation/yoga.

have you seen that commercial where Tiger Woods' father says that no one on the planet is mentally tougher than Tiger? As a not-great athlete, I still wonder - what separates such a dominating champion from the other very elite athletes with great physical, technical skills? It's his incredible will and focus on top of it all, they say.

I was lucky enough to train with Marcelo Garcia for six months as a beginner in grappling. What I took away from him, was not any of the techniques he taught, but his mindset. While he was among the hardest workers I've ever seen, if not the hardest worker (no one else comes to mind), what separated him from every other guy in the gym was his absolute happiness. He was truly a wonderful person, and absolutely loved Jiu Jitsu. He loved the hard work, the theory, the techniques, everything about it.

I remember when I walked into class after a few months, and he was teaching the day after he won ADCC last year. I said something like "By the way, congratulations on your performance". He stopped what he was doing and went "oh, thank you, thank you!" and hugged me. It was totally genuine. I'm an actor and have been around a lot of fake people, but Marcelo was totally real. I was caught off guard. A no name white belt who the blues wouldn't even look at with respect yet, and here is the greatest grappler in the world acting like I just gave him the ultimate compliment. He just loved life and what he was doing.

My current coach told me he thought Marcelo was so successful because he was confident. Why is he confident? I believe because he is happy.

I really like this style of Soto Zen meditation made by Dogen. Its main thing is to get you in touch with reality. I originally just wanted to increase energy levels by eliminating mental chatter, but I'm seeing theres more to it. It really shapes your perspective about things. The emphasis on experiencing the here and now seems perfect for a martial artist.

Sprint, thank you for the recommendation.I've been reading it and its excellent. I also really appreciate the info.

[everything]

> Marcelo Garcia etc.

Wow! That is really fantastic and fortunate. Interesting insight about his attitude. By coincidence I was looking at his book today on the x guard, reading the intro about how he was not ever satisfied with other guard types and kept experimenting. Yesterday I was reading about Tiger Woods' will vs. his knee and why he chose to finish the US Open (he'll now have surgery and be out of commission for 6 - 12 months). He mentioned Torrey Pines being where his dad first took him at age 10 to go to a "real course", winning there as a junior, etc. The author commented he was surprised Tiger's motivation was not solely based in grit and determination. Ok I have no idea at the moment what the sport psychology lesson is there. Anyway please post about your progress.

[Johnny Drama]

> Marcelo Garcia etc.

Wow! That is really fantastic and fortunate. Interesting insight about his attitude. By coincidence I was looking at his book today on the x guard, reading the intro about how he was not ever satisfied with other guard types and kept experimenting. Yesterday I was reading about Tiger Woods' will vs. his knee and why he chose to finish the US Open (he'll now have surgery and be out of commission for 6 - 12 months). He mentioned Torrey Pines being where his dad first took him at age 10 to go to a "real course", winning there as a junior, etc. The author commented he was surprised Tiger's motivation was not solely based in grit and determination. Ok I have no idea at the moment what the sport psychology lesson is there. Anyway please post about your progress.

Thanks, I will. I plan on training a lot this week, we'll see.

[kreese]

There are reasons why sexual discipline is a part of qigong/neigong training. You could start by experimenting with varying periods of abstinence and serious, daily IMA training. If you are really good, you can have your cake and eat it too.