Here are 9 daily routines to magnetically attract Positivity Into your Life.
Practice being more respectful, you become more respected.
Practice looking for the good in others, you begin to attract more of what you look for.
Noise vs. Silence… What’s The Difference for Your Brain?
Posted: January 04, 2024
I believe life is to be lived fully at the highest level possible! I live a very active lifestyle; I am around lots of people every day and Karate Ki’s (yelling) is a part of my daily experience at least 6 days per week. I love what I do and feel blessed to impact the PBK families the way I can, but, like everything we all need to understand the balance in our life. What do I mean specific to noise vs. being silent? Did you know that chronic noise can contribute to high blood pressure, increased rates of sleep loss, heart disease and tinnitus (ringing in your ears)? Did you know the activation of noise also triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol?
Contrast this with what research studies on this topic of embracing daily silence have uncovered. Researchers have found not only a lessening of stress, but that silence provides the brain the opportunity to regenerate itself. In one research study, two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus the brain region related to the formation of memory. As one Duke University researcher noted, “silence calms the body, turns up the volume of our thoughts and attunes our connection to the world.”
If all of this is compelling enough to help you see the value in this practice, here’s 3 tips to set you up for success so you can put Embracing Silence into daily practice.
Think Your Day Before You Do Your Day
Posted: January 04, 2024
Have you ever seen the comedy movie starring Bill Murray called Groundhog Day. In the movie Bill Murray’s was forced to continue to relive a single day until he got it right. How many times did it take him to get it right? In his case, it took him 12,395 times before he learned the life lesson which were critical to his character having a successful outcome on that one fateful February 2nd. Again and again and again he kept getting it wrong by going through the day without the forethought about what was important to him, what was the outcome he was after and how he treat the people he came across.
My background in martial arts is based in a sport which requires you with great precision to go as fast as you can for a 2 minute. There is nothing slow about point fighting, it is one of the fastest forms of combat in the world. And while speed and quickness are essential what is more important is having a calm mind that can see things happening as if the punches and kicks are being performed in slow motion.
Part of what enables the best athletes in the world to access this “flow” state comes from their practice of visualizing the performance in their mind over and overusing different scenarios until they feel confident they can perform it in reality as well as they can see it in their mind. Finally, when it is time to actually perform, the traditional feeling of nerves fall away and a familiar calm falls over them as they enter their ideal flow performance state.
Q&A with Master Rappold
Posted: December 20, 2023
How can I get my martial arts skills to be more automatic?
Believe it or not, one of the best ways to help your martial arts skills become more automatic is to slow down the execution in your personal practice and be attentive to the details of each movement. Contrary to what most people think, which is to speed up, try slowing down and feeling the balance, power and movement from start to finish. Allow your body to feel every movement from its start to its completion. Gradually build up speed as your body feels ready.
The Quieter You Become the Better You Execute the Really Great Ideas!
Posted: December 12, 2023
While this may be hard to digest as a truth, think about this. The more you are speaking to other people, watching TV, surfing the internet etc. the more you are getting advice from everyone but yourself. Truth be told, other perspectives are valuable, especially when they are different from your own. Many times, though what happens is we hear something that sounds logical and immediately say, “that makes sense, “I will do that” without taking the time to be quiet and fully thinking through what is best for you and will fit your present situation. When this is done often what is missed is the unintended consequences of a decision we make.
For example, imagine you hear a great idea about a new morning working out routine you can do in your home. You know that you need to lose a few pounds, so you decide that you are going to follow the advice and act. The next morning you wake up start the workout and proceed to wake everyone else in the house up! Aside from that you end up hurting yourself because the workout was too intense for you. The unintended consequences of doing this was you woke up your family and hurt yourself. Was the idea wrong? No, the execution was flawed because you didn’t take the time to embrace the silence and sit with the idea allowing for your thoughts to enter in to make the correct implementation of the idea.
Two things you can do to help prevent this from happening.