Warriors Path

The Real Reason I Still Train

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After 47 years in the martial arts, people often ask me why I still train. The answer has very little to do with fighting. Over time, I came to realize that the martial arts are far more than a system of self-defense. They are a vehicle for physical development, self-education, personal responsibility, and lifelong growth. In this article, I share some of the lessons the martial arts have taught me and why they continue to play such an important role in my life today.

Training With Sensei Erik Paulson: Lessons From a Private Session at the CSW World Conference

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During a recent trip to Orange County, California, for the CSW World Conference, I had the opportunity to spend some private training time with Sensei Erik Paulson. In this session, we explored a series of highly effective shin locks and lower-body submissions while discussing the concepts, transitions, and details that make them work at a high level. This experience was a reminder that no matter how long you’ve been training, there is always something new to learn from great coaches and dedicated practitioners.

The Limitation of Perspective and the Search for Real Educators

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As human beings, we have enormous potential, but one of the greatest limitations placed on that potential is our perspective. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly drawing conclusions based on our background, ourexperiences, our conditioning, and the things we have been exposed to throughout life. This happens automatically. It is one of the natural functions of the mind. We compare, categorize, interpret, and

The Superpower of Selective Attention

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In today’s world, your attention is under constant attack. At any given moment, there are countless forces competing for your focus. Notifications, messages, news, social media, conversations, and problems are all pulling at your awareness, trying to redirect your attention away from what you are doing and toward something else. Most of the time, that “something else” has very little value.

The Longevity Blueprint

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There comes a point in every warrior’s life when the pursuit of power, precision, and performance gives way to a deeper question. How do I preserve it? After decades of training in the martial and combative sciences, I came to realize that longevity is not simply the absence of decay. It’s a skill. It can be trained, refined, and lived.

Timeless Tools

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I talk about developing timeless tools all the time, because I’ve watched the same story play out for decades. A student starts training, gets excited, gets strong, gets fast, learns a pile of techniques, and for a while, they feel unstoppable. Then life shows up. Mileage shows up. Injuries show up. Stress shows up. Work, family, travel, responsibility, time under tension in the real world. Somewhere down the road that same student starts saying the sentence that makes my eye twitch: “I’m just not what I used to be.”

Intermittent Fasting And Triggering Autophagy

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I have been doing various forms of fasting for the majority of my life. I was introduced to the concept by one of my Kung Fu teachers when I was in my teens, and it has been something I’ve followed ever since. It was never presented to me as a “diet.” It was presented as a practice. Discipline. Control. Clarity. The ability to operate without being ruled by comfort. Over the years, I saw something else too.

Flipping The ‘State’ Switch

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When people watch high-level performers, they often ask some version of the same question: “How do you just flip that switch?” One moment, you are relaxed, laughing, talking with friends. The next moment, your posture changes, your eyes harden, your breathing drops, and your whole presence shifts into a different gear. From the outside, it looks like magic. It is not magic. It is training.

Building Tools for Every Level of Force In The Encounter

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You should have answers and tools for every part of a combative encounter. If the only option you trust is your firearm, stress will pull you toward that single solution. When you build more trained options across the force ladder, you can solve problems at lower levels and reserve higher force for the moments when you have no other choice.

Less Talk, More Do!

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Opera, non verba, is starting to feel like a superpower, because the ability to act separates the serious from the spectators.

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