The Instinctive Edge™

Balance in your life is essential. I have met people who became consumed with their training and by doing so they neglected other parts of their life. From family to work and more they simply trained too much. While there is a absolutely nothing wrong with intense training. There is and will be a problem if you neglect other parts of your life. Balance is essential! Train hard but always have time for your family, work and other hobbies. Do not become so consumed that you neglect all aspects of your life!

Are you really serious about personal protection? Way to many people that I come in contact with fantasize about real world self defense skills. However, when it comes time to put the work in and also invest in those skills they simply fail to follow through. If you want to have real world personal protection skill sets you will need to work very hard at it both physically and mentally. You will also need to spend money to acquire the skills through instruction and even more money to acquire the necessary tools such as firearms, knives, etc. This process is not cheap. For instance I recently received a couple of days of long range precision firearms training with a world class instructor. The equipment I used cost well over $6000 and instruction cost another $1000. However, this is an area I want to improve I. so I sought out the best instruction available and bought high quality equipment. If you want real world skills there is a cost that is quite often physical, mental and monetary. Nothing is free in life and especially not life saving skill sets!

Brian “Buzz” Smith passed away today. He was a friend, teacher, mentor, fellow competitor and one of the finest Filipino Martial Arts practitioners I have ever had the pleasure of training with. He leaves behind a large group of highly trained practitioners who will carry on his legacy of Maharlika Kuntaw! While all of his skills in the Filipino Martial Arts were excellent his Sibat was at a whole different level. I have not crossed sticks with a finer practitioner. I feel blessed to have known him!

Perseverance is one of those traits that is so important in the Martial Sciences. I have met many talented people who quit after training for a while or even years. They never reached their true potential and even worse their martial skills are perishable. Meaning, if you stop training physical skills they will degrade or diminish in effectiveness over time. So while they might have been effective while training, once they quit their skills will slowly erode. Do not let that happen to you! Instead persevere and stick to your training even during the tough times. Some of the ways that I personally use to stay motivated are watching action movies with martial arts in them. I read books that have martial skills in them. The family and I watch combat sports religiously. I set short and long term goals that I stick to. I incorporate martial movement into my physical exercises. There are many more ways to stay self motivated and persevere. If you want to have these skills you need to train and train continuously. You simply cannot stop! Not if you want these skills. So you need to find a way to stay self-motivated! Persevere!!!