Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: Hi, this is Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers from Ohio Martial Arts. Most people know that martial arts is practical self-defense and getting people in fantastic shape, but people also know there’s something more going on. There is this idea of learning to focus the mind. This show is designed to address that third component, how people can focus their mind to get more of the things life that they want and less of things that they don’t. Thanks for listening to my show. I hope you enjoy.
[music]
Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: We always make three promises to our students, and our first promise is we want to teach people how to defend themselves. I gave a talk some months ago at this chamber, and it was a great talk. It was so good… in my own mind. [laugh] Now it was good. It was good, because I recorded it. I listen to it, and I said, "Wow, that's good! I really like what that guy has to say, but these weird blank looks on everybody at this chamber meeting. It was really strange, and then one old guy raises his hand— he's a wonderful guy but different generation than us. Really good person but raises his hand, "I don't get it! I don't get it!" I said, "Well, explain." He says, "I thought martial arts was fighting people and stuff! What does this mental stuff that you're talking about?"
Then I went on to explain to him that well, when we think about self-defense, you have to also think about cause and effect. And that the reality is that you have to ask yourself why you were in a self defense situation in the first place to really deeply understand it. And the other thing that's really also important to understand is that you can have all of the physical preparations, but when the mind is not in the right place you still end up struggling. It's not as if you can just do something in the physical world that's going to overcome a lack of belief. Belief is way too powerful.
And I went on and on, and he said, "I still don't get it!!!!!!!"
Students: [laugh]
Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: No, he didn't actually do that, but I think that was the case. And really to speak to a guy I say, "No, you come into my class, I'll teach you how to fight. You're going to know how to fight," but along the way I make two more promises. Promise number one is I'm going to get you in great shape, and promise number two, you're going to know something about your mind that you didn't know before. And once you get that second promise about the mind, you'll really understand why it's so important, because its what going to lock and glue everything else that we've done together. Without it, nothing else matters.
So, the three promises are we're going to teach people to defend themselves. Second promise, we're going to get them in good shape, and the third promise is we're going to teach them to discipline the mind. But at the same time, we understand we have to meet people where they're at. When they hear the word martial arts, they need to know how to fight, and they need to know exactly how to do it. Then they need to see some of the shortcomings of just knowing how to fight without a disciplined mind, and then we can hopefully bring them home. Does that make sense?
Students: Yes, sir.
Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: So, what I'm going to talk to you about tonight, and the reason why, in my talks, they usually go the direction of the mind is because I can show you a punch, or I can show you a kick, or I can show you an armbar, or I can show you a sweep, but I can't really show you my mind. I can only really talk about my mind just like I can talk about yours.
Some years ago, Sempai Shelly got called for jury duty, and if you know her story as a martial arts teacher, you know there's a point in her life where she got physically attacked. That's why she got involved in martial arts, and the thing that they wanted her to serve on jury for was very similar in nature. She had to say, "I have to recuse myself from this. I cannot be a fair and impartial juror, because life has exposed me to things, and those things life has exposed me to will make me very prejudicial against anybody that's in the courtroom." Both sides agreed, and so she didn't serve.
The point of this story is that what happens to use as we go through life is we have experiences. Experiences like losing money, experiences like doing poorly in a sport, experiences like getting a negative medical diagnosis. The problem with all of those negative experiences, just like Sempai Shelly's experience, while hers is more dramatic than most of those other things, those experiences create in our mind prejudices. We have prejudices. We have prejudices about our ability to succeed financially because of a bad experience that we've had. We have prejudice about our ability to be good in an athletic setting or to learn quickly because previous experiences.
What we're teaching here in the dojo is you have to learn to recuse yourself from judging from the window of those experiences, and the way that you do that is through learning to meditate, because what happens when you learn to meditate is you begin to learn to wipe away all previous experiences. You begin to start with a clean slate. All of the failures, all of the negative beliefs, all the thing that you think are possible for you based on bad experiences that you may have had in the past, when the mind become still, you let go of all of those things. Then you are free to create new opinions based on what's in your own best interest.
So, one other hidden ingredient that I'll finalize the class with tonight is to understand the value of our own opinions, so that when I have an opinion that says, "I think I can do this. I think it's possible. I've always been good at things and this feels right to me and I think I've got it," or when we have an opinion that says, "I don't approve of this at all. No, that doesn't feel right. Something is off. I’m not very good at this. This isn't right." In our everyday waking state, the difference between those two opinions is razor thin. It's very very difficult to tell because they're really an emotion that's very close. The emotion of approval and the emotion of disapproval are sitting right beside each other, almost like they're on the top of a mountain. One's on one side of the mountain, one's on the other side, but they're right on the top of the mountain. One side of the mountain has the sun on it. The other side has the cold.
What happens when you learn to meditate is you learn to put yourself right at the top of the mountain, and you begin to recuse yourself from all past negative emotion, negative thought, negative trauma. So then as you go through your day, when events come to you, when decisions need to be made, and you have to make those decision, you can decide whether you approve or whether you disapprove based on how you feel emotionally. When you do that, you start making better decisions and, over a period of time, your decisions get better and better and better and better.
So this is why when we start class, we always say that mediation is the foundation of all true martial arts. What really meditation does for you is it allows you start with a blank slate and have clear opinions about the direction that you want to go in. That's why we recommend you meditate. Do it on a daily basis. Make it a part of your life.
Seiza.