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.

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Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: So the subject that I’ve been talking about this week quite a bit is this idea of, the word that I use for it is resistance. Another word that might be appropriate would be the word friction. So you can kind of imagine, like on a physical level, what does friction look like? Well, friction is anything slows a technique down, that keeps a technique from being as fast as it can, and there’s a couple of places where friction happens. The first place, and probably the most common, is sometimes called an unclean technique. So it’s kind of like if you’re watching diving. When somebody hits the water, if there’s a big splash, they take points away for the big splash, because what’s causing the big splash is the edge of the foot sticking out, or maybe a hand sticking out, or maybe not entering the water at exactly the right angle. And the divers work really really really hard so that they get everything eliminated that’s not necessary. So extra movement is really what causes us to slow down in our technique.

The second place that we slow down in our technique is focusing too much on being quick and not focusing on being smooth. So what happens is when you slow down, you make your technique smooth. When your technique gets smooth, you begin to eliminate all those unnecessary things and then suddenly your technique gets fast. The elimination of that which is unnecessary creates speed, and smoothing up your technique makes speed. Make sense?

Students: Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: But the mind works the exact same way, and that’s kind of the point that I really wanted to make tonight in addition to this physical part of the martial arts. So a simple definition for what elimination of resistance is, or what puts us in a position where things flow to us or come to us easier, is making sure that we’re mentally practicing the behaviors that we want to experience. So that sounds so obvious, but most of us do the exact opposite.

So let me give you a couple of examples to kind of make this a little bit clearer. So some time ago—It used to be on Netflix. I don’t think it is anymore, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re fascinated by this kind of thing— There was this really great documentary called Man on Wire. I think it was called Man on Wire or Man on a Wire, did anybody see that, know what I’m talking about? There was this French tightrope artist— I think his last name was Petit. Petit was his last name?— And he did the most incredible astonishing feat. Back when the Twin Towers were still standing, and they were the largest buildings in the world, he and his crew snuck up there in the middle of the night and ran a wire from one tower to the other at 110 stories. And he walked the wire.

Now let me just get a glimpse of what this really means. Those buildings were so far apart, it wasn’t like they were from me to the edge of the mat. They were more like from me to maybe The Gap. That’s how far those buildings were apart. Not only did he walk the wire at 110 stories, he got to one side, felt so confident about it he walked back. Then he felt so confident about that, he went out to the middle as the sun was coming, and people were looking up from the streets and all the camera crews were there, and he started doing tricks, somersaults, laying down in the middle of the wire at 110 stories! You have to imagine, if you’ve even been up that high, the wind itself is frightening. The sag, they say, because of the distance between the two ends of the wire, was something like 25 feet. In other words, from one end of the wire to the other end of the wire the middle was 25 feet lower than either end because of the distances that were involved. Superhuman!

So then a few years ago, Sifu had, as part of his retreat, he would kind of end his retreat, and he would do this high ropes course. And on the high ropes course, he would have some logs— and this is all professionals that do this. Has anybody in here ever done a high ropes course? It’s a lot of fun— You’re up maybe 30 feet in air or something like that, and you’re in a safe harness, and there’s a log, and you get up on the log, and you’re asked to just walk across to the other side with a safe harness on. And guess what? You do what we call the butt scoot most of the time, most of the time.

So what’s the difference between this master of acrobatics and average person? And the truth of the matter is very simple, just practice. Just practice. Just doing it over and over and over and over hundreds of thousands of times until he got to the point where a wire to him was easier than a log and a harness to you and me. Does that make sense?

So this is what we do that messes up our lives with our mind. We practice one thing up here, and then expect to experience something different out there and therefore create internal angst and create resistance. So here’s an example of that. I engage in a conversation. I like Mike; Mike’s a friend of mine. He’s a wonderful staff member as well, and I get a little frustrated with somebody. Maybe somebody really deserves it. They did something that was really wrong, and so I engage in this conversation with Mike him. I talk bad about him; I tell him what my frustration is. Maybe I get on Facebook and talk about how bad they are and how things aren’t going as well in my life as they could be if it wasn’t for that person. I engage in blame for that person, and as I engage in blame for that other person, what I’m doing is I’m practicing something that I don’t really want to experience.

You say, “What do you mean?” Well, I say, Well, it’s very [sic] simple as this. Do you want to be the kind of person that walks through life blaming others? Almost nobody in here would say they do. Do you want to want to be the kind of person that’s angry towards others? Absolutely not. Do you want to be the kind of person that’s hateful and resentful towards others? No, you don’t. Does it make you feel good when you’re angry and hateful and resentful towards others? No, it doesn’t. So you’re practicing something that you don’t want in your life. Then you run into that person at a party, and you feel this terrible feeling inside you and this anger toward the person.

Do you know where that anger is coming from? It’s not coming from them. You practiced your way into it. But if you’re like me, or at least the way I spent the majority of my life, you would go, “But Sensei, you don’t understand. What that person did to me was real! I’m not making it up. That person really is a dirty rotten scoundrel.” And my response to that is I know, but how long do you want to be controlled by a dirty rotten scoundrel, because the only one that controls your mental practice is you. Does that make sense?

Students: Yes, sir.

Sensei Joseph Hurtsellers: So, to wrap this up, what’s the solution for eliminating mental resistance? Any time that you think a negative thought that’s not supporting where you want to go, you’ll know. You’ll know it by the same way that when you take that first step on the high ropes course, you feel that fear or that angst inside of your body, you know it. The moment that you feel a negative emotion it means only one thing and one thing only. All negative emotion simply means that, at that exact red hot minute, you’re practicing thoughts that are adding resistance to your life.

If you will spend as much time working on your reverse punch and on your rear naked choke on practicing only thinking thoughts that are supportive, that supports your inner self, your life will get a whole lot better. Then you’ll have those magic days where you just go through your day and people—one of the great compliments I get, one of the kids to me yesterday. It was the greatest thing. It just really pleased me. He said, “Can I ask you something?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “How come all you do is walk around smiling in this dojo?” I said, “Well because I’m happy in this dojo. It’s not a fake smile. It’s happy.” You practice your joy, and as you practice your joy your life gets better and better.