Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  Hi, this Joe Hurtsellers from ohiomartialarts.com and welcome to my podcast. Most people think of martial arts as something that going to be really difficult and hard, and that they’re concerned if they’ll be able to do it.  Well, we’ve made our passion making martial arts techniques simple, enjoyable, and easy for the average person.

Most people know that there’s an internal mental part of the martial arts too, but so often those things that been made complicated, and difficult, and hard to understand.  The purpose of this show is to take complex mental aspects of the martial arts and break them down so that they’re so simple and enjoyable that the average person can put them to use in everyday life.  Welcome to Mindpower. I hope you enjoy.

[music]

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  There are three promises that we make, and the first is that you'll learn to defend yourself when you study martial arts.  It's really important. Second promise is you'll get in good shape, and we'll do it in a structured way in a way that your mind is engaged.  You're busy learning. You're looking at curriculum. You're studying the nuances of something, and that's really useful. I used to a lot of running, and one of the things I enjoy about running is I'd run in new neighborhoods.  Several times I'd go out for run, and I'd just kind of forget where I was until I checked my GPS. I was like, "Oh crap, I'm not going to be able to get back. It's to far because I'm enjoying the scenery." Now, those runs would not have been nearly as long had I gone to a track somewhere and ran on a track because there was nothing to occupy my mind.  So, there's use for that, and that will sometimes get us in better shape than we would get otherwise.  

But then there's a third promise of martial arts, and the third promise is we're going to teach you how to focus the mind, and why that's useful, and why does that really matter.  And the foundation to understanding this is understanding this idea that it's not just what you do physically that really counts. I know that there are bosses that you probably work for, and maybe employees that probably work for you, and you don't want them to say this because we live in a world that needs results.  If you work in an office where there is a certain number of calls required a day, they need you to check that box that says you made those calls. But haven't you noticed that one person makes the calls, and they make four or five sales. And somebody else makes the same number of calls, and they don't get the four or five sales.  So, of course, in the workplace we can't measure what's going on with those boxes and those types of things, but what I'm trying to say is that two people will do the same activities in many cases and get radically different results.

Now I'm not a physician and I can't get into the details of this because I don't know all the details of this, but haven't you noticed somebody that was not eating the way they should but boy were they health?  Boy were they healthy! Don't you hate those people? And haven't you noticed somebody—and they usually, by the way, work at the health-food store—who is into all of the health? They know exactly everything. They know exactly what to eat and exactly what quality and quantity, and they're so focused on it, and they're on top of it.  You go into the health-food store and they go, "Here, eat this, and you'll look like me," and you go, "I don't want that. I don't want thing." Right?

The reason is that we teach there is a mental component, and that mental component is more responsible for your results than anything else.  Now, I want to give a little bit of an adjustment to that statement because, more of than not, when you get the right mental component, the right mental component will lead you to instinctively choose the right activities, choose the right food, do the right things that you need to do to ultimately lead to your success.  It's not necessarily like a mystical beam of health, or a mystical of wealth, or a mystical beam of martial arts knowledge will just be sprayed onto you when you get the right mindset. But what happens instead is the right mindset has a tendency to affect the decisions that we make, and we begin making decisions based on listening to our own internal guidance.  That internal guidance knows exactly how to talk to that person on the phone to get the sale, knows exactly what your body really needs to be able to be healthy and do well. Does that kind of make sense?

Students:  Yes, sir. 

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  So, the mental component is critically important because you can have two people come to the same martial art class, and one of them really does get the benefit of learning how to fight, and learning how to get fit, and all of those things.  And another person is not getting those things, and it's because there's something off in their thought, or there's something off in their vibration that's preventing them from getting where they want to go. So, that's why we talk about this third area because you have to get that third area.  Then, the beautiful thing about that third area is then you can instantly apply it then to everything because once you figure out one area, once you figure out how to shift your focus and shift your mind in one area, then you can take it away from martial arts. You can apply it to your family. You can apply it to your boss.  You can apply it to your career. You can apply it to your finances. You can apply to your health. You can apply it to everything. Does that make sense?

Students:  Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  So, what essentially is the foundation of that one area?  So, we talk about this idea we call the law of momentum, and what the law of momentum basically means is it means things of a like nature have a tendency to stick together with each other.  Now in martial arts, the familiar symbol of the yin-yang really speaks to this idea of opposites. That having money is a great thing, but with have money, in some instances, brings about the possibility of losing it.  Having health is a great thing, but having health also brings forth the possibility of ill-health. We live in a world of opposites, and the reality is that you can't take one position without, in many instances, activating the opposite position.  So, a way to look at this, and a way I kind of like to diagram this, is you imagine these bits of belt here are subjects in life. Let's say I have a subject, and this represents money. And so, on one end is being broke, and on the other end is being financially abundant.  Let's say this belt represents health. On one end this represents being in poor health and being unhealthy and being sick, and this, youthful and vibrant and feeling really really really good. And let's say this is the martial arts thought. On one end, "I've never been good at athletics.  I'm not very good at defending myself. I lack confidence." On the other end, "I'm vibrant. I'm powerful. I got this. I can do this. I don't care how hard it is I'll figure it out." Right, make sense?  

Now, this diagram is a little bit imperfect because in reality—and I hope my description makes sense—this would really look more like a birdcage because the ends, because the law of momentum, are bound together like portions of an atom or portions of a molecule.  So, what I'm saying is if I'm standing over here thinking about being broke, thinking about how lousy my checking account looks, struggling with that, then I only have ideas and thoughts and access to things that are kind of close to that, right? So, if I go beyond the feeling of lack, like what's actually in my checking account.  I go beyond and I say what does that, at its core, really feel like? It feels like loss, right? I don't want to bring everybody down, but I'll do it just for a minute just to active this. It feels like I'm stuck, right? It feels like I have very few opportunities. It feels like a lack of clarity. It feels like I'm not keeping up with everybody else, right?

Now think about that vibration that I just activated by talking about it too much.  How far is that vibration really from, "I'm not very good at things. Everybody else is better at things.  I'm just not keeping up. I just feel kind of trapped. I just don't feel like life is fair." You see how those two vibrations are really close, except this one was about money, this one was about hook kick.  Make sense?

Students:  Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  But once you go down here, it's real easy to go down here.  It's real easy to go down here, and of course we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of subjects.  So, this is the greatest thing. If you get this one thing, man, it could just change your whole life. If you understand that, then you also understand that the other ends of every subject also hang out together.  So, if every time I look at my checkbook I get those negative feeling, I wouldn't spend very much time looking at my checkbook because it'll make your hook kick suck. Make sense?

Students:  Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  However, since you have dozens and dozens of other subjects, you have a new grandbaby that was born, and you say, "Why do I love my grandbaby?"  Well because she reminds me of youth. She reminds me of renewal. She reminds me of continuing our family. She reminds me of freshness, newness, possibility, freedom.  She reminds me of love, and when you get into that vibration, you think about your grandbaby and all of sudden think about how close that vibration is to the vibration of, "And I can do things, and I'm competent at things.  Things work out for me, and I'm with it. I'm up to speed. I’m youthful. I'm young. I'm healthy."

So, it's just the most incredible thing you will hear and ever get.  What we're saying is this: you don't have to fix your bad areas because every time you go to one of your bad areas it activates all the other bad areas.  Instead, what you do is you crowd out all of your bad areas by focusing on your good areas, and you can jump from good area to good area to good area to good area.  Does that make sense?

Students:  Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  So, another way of looking at it—and I teach this all the time.  You know, I teach kids, and you have ten kids in the room, and one kid is acting up—Joe has seen this has does it as well; he's very good at it—and one kid is acting up.  The experienced teacher, what do they do? They say to the kid that's acting up, "Please stop that. No, no, straighten up. Come here, no, no, straighten up, straighten up, straighten up, straighten up, straighten up."  In within just moments, you'll actually see it in real time how this works. This is this law of momentum because as I try and correct the child that's misbehaving, the child that's right beside him starts misbehaving too.  Another one starts misbehaving, and pretty soon I end up with an entire class of misbehaving children.

Why?  Not so much because of them, but because I activated in myself a vibration that was like, "Things aren't going well.  Things are struggling. Things are difficult." But if instead of focusing on the child that's not doing well, if I could turn my attention to the child that is doing well and give all of my attention and all of my credit to him, pretty soon the kids that are nearby that are misbehaving will start imitating that child and all of a sudden you'll see this in real time in the space of five minutes.  You just absolutely see it. Does that make sense to everybody?

Students:  Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers:  So, literally what we're saying, and just to kind of bring it to a head, is it's not at all what the subject is that you have to really be that concerned about.  What you do you do have to be concerned about is your vibration, and your vibration is determined by how you feel. That feeling should feel like power. It should feel like joy.  It should feel like fun. It should feel like good, right?

So, I'll end this class with two really quick stories that are a little bit corny, but I'll tell them anyways because I never let the idea that something was corny stop me in the past.  So, understanding this principle, I'm driving my car the other day, and I'm driving pretty fast. I always set five miles over the speed limit. I'm one of those guys, five miles. So, the speed limit is 70; I'm going 75.  I came onto this exit, and the exit took me into the passing lane. I had to be in the passing lane because it came onto that side, on the left side. So, I'm in the passing lane, but I do need to get into the right lane. I’m getting ready to turn my turn single on, and I look in my mirror, nothing's in my mirror.  I start to go, and I get that little light in my mirror, thank goodness, and I go, "Whoa!" And a semi goes barreling past me on the right side probably going 95 miles an hour. I mean like really scary.

So, instantly what did I do?  I went upstream. I went [acceleration noises].  I didn't salute him or anything like that- because I was a little too—but the point was I knew the way that I was feeling towards that semi was not going to be productive because I had a meeting that I was going to, and I'd be there in about ten minutes.  I didn't want to activate one of those sticks, and then bring that into the meeting because the meeting wouldn't have gone very well, right? So, what I did instead was I thought, how can I flip this around to find the right end of the stick.

I remember a few years ago sitting on this leather couch with my grandson, and we were watching a Christmas movie—and you've probably seen it—called Polar Express.  It's wonderful, and it's got Tom Hanks.  Tom Hanks plays this mystical train conductor, massive train, that goes barreling around every which way delivering packages and toys to the children, and I thought to myself, "I wonder if the guy that was driving that truck was the mystical Tom Hanks, and that really wasn't a truck, it was really more of a train engine.  And it was chock-full of toys that he was delivering, and he didn't want to be late because that was his journey."

Now I know that's radically ridiculous and silly and a little bit of a fantasy, but I got to tell you, I wasn't mad, I was happy.  I was grinning. I was smiling. I was laughing at this silliness of this simple thought, and less than ten minutes later I walked into a meeting, and I knocked it out of the park.  It was because of Tom Hanks, and his beautiful magic train. No, you get the point. It was because I chose to focus my mind where I wanted my mind to go rather than focusing on a reality because when you remember all those sticks that we talked about, everyone one of those sticks, the negative end was true- and the positive end was true.

The point is there's many different truths, but you can focus on the truth that is productive for you, and if you focus on the truth that is productive to you, it will lead you to better martial arts.  It will lead you to better relationships. It will lead you everything you're looking for. Seiza.