PeaceWalker Blog

The Story of the Angry Man and The Buddha One day the Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him, saying all kind of rude words. The Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man, “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?” The young man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.” The Buddha smiled and said, “That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.” ~ Unknown ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This story came to mind after I read a couple interesting articles:  Why College Professors Are Afraid to Teach Millennials ...

  Ranks and Techniques By Moshe Katz Perhaps there is no more controversial issue in martial arts than rank. People chase after it, some buy it, some quit over it. Friendships are destroyed, relationships are ruined over rank, ego, and competition. What is the value of rank? Rank serves several purposes and has several advantages and disadvantages. Rank serves as motivation for students. You are excited to earn that first yellow belt and are already doubling your effort for Orange belt. You dream of someday wearing the black belt and joining that elite club. Motivation is important for most human beings. Rank offers recognition. You worked hard you deserve to be recognized for it. That is why the police and military offer medals for bravery. You did an act of bravery, you deserve our recognition and respect. Rank is also important within the dojo/club. The yellow belt should respect the brown belt. The brown belt should respect the second dan black be...

  Boxing is a sport, with spectators, rules, rings and judges. It has little in common with Krav Maga. Boxing is a sport, a fight sport, a brutal sport, but always a sport. There have always been rules to boxing. There are more techniques that are not allowed that those allowed. Krav Maga was born for self defense. There can be an exhibit of Krav Maga but no tournaments. There can only be a tournament in the same sense as you can have a tournament of art; i.e. a panel of judges chooses the best piece. But there can be no Krav Maga sport. It is a contradiction in terms. Boxing and Krav Maga have different roots and different goals. They have certain elements in common such as striking and blocking but just like basketball and ping pong both are played with a ball, yet they are more different than similar. So why the confusion? Why do I see videos labeled "Advanced Krav Maga" where in fact it is fancy boxing moves? What is going on over here? First allo...

In the famous words of the Yoda, "Do or do not, there is no try!" How many times have you heard someone who was going to do something (fill in the blank) , but they never seem to be able to do it? The goal could be a lot of things: lose weight, get out of a bad relationship, go back to school to finish that degree, quit smoking, get in shape, start that business, quit the toxic job they've hated for the last 5 years, go on that vacation, go to martial arts class , spend more time with their kids... the list goes on and on. Some of these folks are very excited about achieving their goal, so they talk and talk about it. They buy books, watch youtube videos and sometimes even look like they are doing something productive. They are very busy trying, but not very busy doing! They are acting like trybabies. How do you know if someone is being a trybaby? First, a trybaby has the wrong focus. They focus on: The problem & negative things What they can't d...

Here we are at the end of yet another year! My, my they are going really fast now-a-days! It surely doesn't feel like it should almost be 2017! Shouldn't we be flying around w/jet packs, beaming ourselves on Mars, basking in the afterglow of world peace and prosperity for all by now?! Not so much... Some of my 2016 goals worked out about that well too! I don't know about you, but I get excited to look at my New Years goals from the previous year.  I  compare what I set out to do with what actually transpired. If you remember from my blog last year, I had three main goals which were: #1 - Finish my Book #2 - On-Line PeaceWalker Classroom Mgt Course for Teachers. #3 - (Monthly) PeaceWalker Webinar Series Well, so how did I do? Um... Oh... *blush* I didn't actually accomplish anything on that list. I know, I should be fired! (Good thing I'm self employed!)  So what the heck happened? What DID I do then? No more excuses Gray! Here's the rundown: ...

A wonderfully gray and chilly Michigan winter day. Roads are icy, so its slow going to my chiropractic appointment at Chiropractic Unlimited. After a little snap, crackle, pop, I walk into one of my favorite coffee shops to do some work on my newly designed Ronin Krav Maga website (Link is to the current site. The new one isn't quite ready yet). There are a group of about six young ladies ordering and asking the barista a number of questions about the coffee selections, so I go to my usual spot and start unpacking my gear. I take off my coat, stuff my scarf into my sleeve. Out comes my computer, plug in the cord, get my earbuds, put in my thumb drive, grab my notebook, get situated. Forgot my phone is in my jacket pocket, I'll need that. Oh, my calendar is in my pack too. Have to have that too. Finally after all of that's done I sit down and see that the internet connection isn't working.  I screw around with that for a few minutes... still not working. Get up che...

I was out in New Jersey training with Jack Hoban this weekend. It takes some time to traverse the 1600 mile round trip, so I get to catch up on my emails, phone calls and reading. On this trip I was able to make it through two books: Nicole Zaagman's Bee Badass and Brilliant and Russell Brunson's DotCom Secrets. A good way to make use of down time on planes, trains, layovers and such. Brunson's book was about marketing on the web and was full (and I mean FULL) of so many good marketing strategies that by the end my head was spinning how to use them in my own business. He must have been reading my mind because in his conclusion he wrote: Being overwhelmed is actually a good thing because even though you feel like all that information is a big, jumbled MESS upstairs, your brain is subconsciously making the connections. Right now, without you consciously doing anything, it's figuring out how to use all of the knowledge you just took in. All this is happening, ev...