Last night as I was wrapping up one of the green belt classes at the dojo, I shared two conditioning exercises for the students to try that help build basic flexibility and core body motion for the three foot staff. The exercises are elegantly simple – one involves turning the stick with one hand in…
My teacher’s teacher, An-Shu Stephen K. Hayes talks about life as a ninja and the wisdom of play at TEDxBloomington. Watch this and see what lessons you get out of it. I won’t say any more than that – watch, listen, and see what you learn.
Social media expert? Marketing guru? PR wizard? One of the most common questions asked in the discussion about personal titles and marketing superlatives is, if we shouldn’t call ourselves experts or gurus or ninja, what should we call ourselves? In the martial arts, there’s one title that exists at the top of the hierarchy that…
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride Marketers love hyperbole, and when we ran out of superlatives like guru, expert, and maven, we turned to sillier superlatives like ninja. However, like many foreign loan-words, you have to be careful about…
In the martial arts, there are series of exercises called kata (in Japanese), or forms. These are single or multi-person exercises that follow a pre-arranged sequence of techniques that are performed almost like a dance. An astonishing number of martial artists no longer see the value in kata. To them, they are outdated, outmoded relics…
As Facebook says it’s his social media birthday, I thought it’d be fun to share one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever experienced in my life, thanks to my teacher, Sensei Mark Davis. Each fall, there’s an event called New England Warrior Camp (which predates PodCamp and BarCamp and other camps by quite a…
Every year since 2006, friends of Chris Brogan put together our three words for the coming year that define what we’re focusing on in the coming year. They’re not goals, but more like rails or guides that help keep us moving in the general correct direction. Here are mine for 2012. Story When I look…
There is such a thing as a foolproof way to win. There is no easy button for it. It requires you to act bravely, egolessly, and boldly. The foolproof way to win is to help everyone involved win. Here’s an example from earlier today. I was having a discussion with a friend about an intellectual…
If there’s one thing the jonin (heads of ninja families) had in spades, it was the long view, the perspective that spanned more than just now or the next battle, but the next decade or two. The most successful jonin leaders made decisions that might have seemed counterintuitive or foolish in the short term but…
