I find myself getting tangled up in words often, but I think there's a lot of value in unpacking the language we use in our art, and in adjusting our definitions as we learn. Today, we worked on relaxing our back muscles, and "relax" is one of those simple words that I've really had to think about over the years. When I first started training, I found that if I just relaxed my muscles, I would often wind up losing my structure entirely. I thought of relaxing as just "emptying my body of tension," and I'd get really floppy, and I'd be unable to actually perform a technique. Often, I'd just wind up gathering myself. I'm starting to understand relaxing as a much more active process. I am intaking breath, and softening my vision, and yes, relaxing my muscles, while activating my fascia and filling my body with the energy wave. There's a lot of active presence and subtle work required to truly relax. As much as we "do less" with our muscles, we are doing a whole lot more with the rest of our body parts. What are some of the definitions you've had to expand as your training has developed? And what are your thoughts on the complexities of relaxing?

When we think about training it is often about sword techniques (or techniques from your respective system) and proper movement. Of course that is training but we can find ways to incorporate training into our every day lives. Today I really had to work on applying relaxation and remaining calm! I start work at 630am and today my computer didn't work. I had a lot of issues and the IT person, who was quite nice, was in Dublin with a very heavy accent. I could not actually work until noon! I caught myself several times letting frustration get the best of me so had to refocus. I was fortunate to have a coworker who is much better with computers help me and at one point we had to take my computer back to the server room to connect it there. Of course no table to put the computer on so I took that as another training opportunity. While my coworker was working on the computer, I used the least amount of muscle needed to hold the computer working on posture and breathing. So how do you incorporate training into your every day life?

Hi everyone, I'm excited to have my son, Matthew, now assisting me with video editing and uploading. With his help, I've been able to upload over a dozen new videos for you today! If you have questions or if there's a particular video topic you'd like to see, be sure to leave a comment below. I keep a running list that I'll probably post here soon so you know what's on the way. New videos are now being uploaded to the Premium members area. Premium members have access to regular (complete movement, non-start/stop) and full-speed videos, as well as fundamentals of classical samurai jujutsu (Aiki-Jujutsu), tanto-jutsu, and jo-jutsu. VIP members (distance students) have access to everything in Premium, plus live classes, class recordings, and direct access so I can help you progress.