On the podcast, we often find ourselves discussing the synergy between student and teacher – how these two roles intertwine in the classroom, how they power the engine of growth and discovery, and how they’re frequently two sides of the same coin. Nowhere is this more true than with our guest this week. Sensei Gabriel Van Rel has been practicing Aikido, Judo and Tae Kwon Do since the age of seven. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, his focus on Shotokan karate took him to the North American Cup and the Gichin Funakoshi World Shotokan Karate Championships, and saw him as the youngest member of fi ..read more

photo by @sammytunisphotography It’s both a pitfall and a hallmark of jiu-jitsu practice that when it’s time to graduate to your next belt, you feel uncertain and insecure. You may say, “Uh-oh…am I really ready?”, or, “I don’t deserve this”, or, “there’s all these people who are better than me…”.  You may say, “Uh-oh…am I really ready?” Or, “I don’t deserve this”, or, “there’s all these people who are better than me…”.  It’s a common phenomenon at all levels of practice, so we need to be able to deal with it. What I’ve learned is that usually the belt itself brings you up to the next ..read more

photo: Jaime Gamez A lot of traditions, both martial and contemplative, say that there comes a time in your practice when you’re surrounded by doubt. It manifests as never being completely sure that you’re seeing the entire picture. It’s not exactly a matter of distrust, but a sense that we can question everything – down to the most fundamental components of what we do.  We start to get to this concept most clearly as martial arts practitioners when we dig into the work of “getting comfortable being uncomfortable”. We slowly become less afraid that we haven’t figured it all out. Once we’v ..read more

photo: Jaime Gamez One of the things I like to work on in my practice is acknowledging my teacher. Not just because it’s polite, but because in the Japanese martial arts tradition the student teacher relationship is is one of the most important relationships there is. It’s up there with the parental relationship. I want to honor that tradition in my practice, because I’m a martial arts practitioner rather than an athlete. I don’t see my teacher as a coach. Sometimes Mr Vizzio will give me a correction or give me a suggestion, and I find myself not acknowledging him. And when I look at why I do ..read more

Buzz Durkin is a 10th degree black belt in Okinawan Uechi-ryu Karate. For more than four decades he has led one of the most successful traditional martial arts schools in North America. A member of the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame, he has graduated hundreds and hundreds of students to the rank of black belt and beyond. He’s known around the world for the longevity of his students’ practice; on any given day in his dojo, you might find 3 generations of a family – a grandfather, a father and a son – all training in different classes.  –> Listen to our conversation here. But more than ..read more

photo: jaime gamez We encourage all practitioners to love martial art practice just for the practice alone. It happens that people start with this sensibility, but grow more short-sighted over time. They feel that they need an outside stimulus in order to motivate them to practice. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with this at first, but over time there’s a big problem: what happens when that outside stimulus is not there? There’s no recourse for motivation because we’ve been relying on an artificial aid the whole time. So as a remedy, we feel that it’s a better thing to insist on t ..read more

photo: Jaime Gamez When I’m with a partner that I’m not sure about, or that might be a little bit bigger than me, or younger than me, I always begin with inside control. That’s my primary strategy, the principle that I start with when paired with anybody I don’t know well. It’s a strategy that puts control first, which is a way of putting safety first – not only for me, but for my partner as well. It keeps everything where I can slow down what’s too fast and cool off what’s too hot (and I can also heat it up if need be). In that way, I know I’m always beginning in the right place. When I do th ..read more

On the podcast, we often find ourselves discussing the synergy between student and teacher – how these two roles intertwine in the classroom, how they power the engine of growth and discovery, and how they’re frequently two sides of the same coin. Nowhere is this more true than with our guest this week. Sensei Gabriel Van Rel has been practicing Aikido, Judo and Tae Kwon Do since the age of seven. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, his focus on Shotokan karate took him to the North American Cup and the Gichin Funakoshi World Shotokan Karate Championships, and saw him as the youngest member of fi ..read more

photo by @sammytunisphotography It’s both a pitfall and a hallmark of jiu-jitsu practice that when it’s time to graduate to your next belt, you feel uncertain and insecure. You may say, “Uh-oh…am I really ready?”, or, “I don’t deserve this”, or, “there’s all these people who are better than me…”.  You may say, “Uh-oh…am I really ready?” Or, “I don’t deserve this”, or, “there’s all these people who are better than me…”.  It’s a common phenomenon at all levels of practice, so we need to be able to deal with it. What I’ve learned is that usually the belt itself brings you up to the next ..read more

photo: Afrim Gjonbalaj In the martial arts tradition, we look to one another for support. Part of the benefit of having more experienced students around us is so we can reflect on our own experience. We get a gauge of how we’re doing. But we’re not looking to measure ourselves solely in relation to where we are in sparring or randori, but how we are progressing as practitioners overall.  If we’re not holding one another to account, sometimes we can lose sight of what the standard is. Of course our instructors are there to do this as well, but as partners and peers we have to do this servi ..read more