Tag: Mindfulness

Keep Calm and Spend Money

Written by Troy Williams on June 20, 2021. Posted in Self-Evolution. 1 Comment

Have you done it? Are you so addicted to your smartphone that you downloaded an application to help you meditate? I have, and I didn’t know there was real money in this nonsense until I did. Turns out, Silicon Valley tech investors have found a way to monetize you sitting on your ass and breathing, and Calm is the Mecca of cash. Monetizing mindfulness is not new. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Deepak Chopra, and Wayne Dyer have made millions out of the practice. But where the new age gurus of my youth had to produce hundreds of books, spend hundreds of hours recording audio programs, and countless hours in seminars and traveling the world, Silicon Valley did it with an application.

My Introduction to Calm

My introduction to this unashamed grab for your hard-earned cash came in the form of Dr. Leah Lagos’s appearance on the Star Talk Radio podcast. Dr. Lagos’s description of heart rate variability (HRV) intrigued me enough to give her program a try. I bought the book and grabbed the recommended application for my Android device. Two days later I was getting emails from the application developer to buy additional features and equipment from their website. I unsubscribed and deleted the application. The $30 pulse oximeter I had bought at the start of pandemic was a better aid for pacing my breathing than for the application.

The application had piqued my interest, however, and I started looking for other breath pacing applications. I remembered when I started practicing sitting meditation how difficult it was to keep my mind on the breath. As soon as I felt the breath, I would worry over upcoming bills, or how I could find more time to practice Tai Chi. If you think a breath pacing application will eliminate your mind effort, you are wrong. While they keep you breathing at a steady pace, they do nothing for your active mind.

Calm the Hundred-Million Dollar Mindfulness Scam

Calm, the billion-dollar application that inspired this post, claims to solve that problem with guided meditations. Before the smartphone application, everyone into mindfulness bought a guided meditation tape or DVD. We used most of them once or thrice, then forgot them. Having someone whisper affirmations at you were as helpful as having someone interrupt you every two minutes. Calm is the ultimate collection of those guided meditations, and they want you to shell out $15 a month to have a movie or music superstar interrupt your mindfulness session.

I bought a Fitbit for HRV exploration. I got the cheapest one on sale since it came with a year of Fitbit Premium. Premium includes mindfulness sessions guided by Deepak Chopra and other gurus from my youth. When my free trial expires, Fitbit intends to charge me $10 a month for these two- and ten-minute sessions They will reward me digital badges and congratulatory emails. Too cheap and automated to send me a sticker with a personal note.

As I will relate in my post on Dr Lagos’s Heart, Breath, Mind, Buddhist mantras have a few hundred years’ experience over the smartphone application for taming the mind, but a FitBit can be a powerful confirmation to your practice. I have removed the breath pacers from my phone. Counting in my head still works, and it doesn’t harvest my email address or ask me to purchase new equipment to improve my practice.

Violence, Fear, Hate, and the Modern Student

Written by Troy Williams on August 10, 2018. Posted in Self-Evolution.

The Modern Martial Art Student is not a fighter

Modern martial art students separate their martial art training from the rest of their life. Compartmentalizing it as an activity that they share with people they barely know. They go to work, watch television, attend events and family outings without integrating or considering their martial art practice. It is just another activity on a full schedule.

This was not the way for students in the past. Martial art training was one aspect of an individual’s education. Reading, writing, studying the classics of philosophy, history, and medicine were all taught with the martial forms.

Those times were different. Institutions resembling modern police were rare and were often worse than the criminals. Hospitals were rarer still; the notion of an ambulance coming to carry you to a doctor after an injury wasn’t even a dream.

My First Martial Art Training Rant

Written by Troy Williams on March 10, 2018. Posted in Self-Evolution.

I was digging through old notes, making a list of things to do, when I found an early rant about my martial art practice. With mass shootings a monthly occurrence, and Russian troll farms influencing American thought, it is time to revisit my steadfast belief in non-violence and skepticism.

Oral Training from the Nineteenth Century

Before the twentieth century, internal martial art masters taught their students orally. Most students, and probably most masters, could not read or write. Learning was through repetition of the forms and memorized stanzas. Students who practiced hard and served the master well passed the art to the next generation.

At the start of the twentieth century, some masters published books about Taijiquan, Bagu Zhang, and Xingyiquan. Publishing this knowledge was expensive, so only a few tried. Those that succeeded grew their schools, and their lineage survives to this day.

Personal Study of Yang Tai Chi

Written by Troy Williams on December 18, 2017. Posted in Self-Evolution.

After discovering Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming’s original, yellow Taijiquan book, practicing Taijiquan became everything to me. I moved outside, eating, drinking, and practicing under a Pin Oak tree. At heart, however, I am a skeptic, and seeing Taijiquan through the works of a single author did not satisfy my need to study more broadly. I later learned that the most ardent practitioners of Taijiquan suffer through the same phase.

My early passion with Taijiquan coincided with the earliest days of the Internet. There was little material online. The big box bookstores had a few titles, but for more detailed instruction, you had to search the pages of Tai Chi magazine or other martial art magazines for VHS videos.

Choosing Other Exercise over Taijiquan

Written by Troy Williams on December 10, 2017. Posted in Self-Evolution.

Choosing other exercise is encouraged with your tai chi practice.

In the Earth Dragon Canon Method of mindfulness martial arts practice, I shared how my early focus on taijiquan benefited me on multiple levels. I also shared how my related success led to pain from sitting with a computer for hours on end. My focus on taijiquan helped to create my success, and that success leads to the latter pain. That same pain leads to my intense study of baguazhang and exploration of isometric exercise to improve my posture.

The lesson I learned is that taijiquan alone is not a replacement for other physical movement. Despite the decades of teachers promoting taijiquan as a superior form of physical exercise, it is not. The general effects of taijiquan are the same as taking a brief walk, and that is only if you practice a long traditional form and include supplemental exercises with your practice.

Teacher, No Teacher, Teacher

Written by Troy Williams on February 17, 2014. Posted in Self-Evolution.

My process of learning Taijiquan is not unique. I know this because one of my earliest inspirations in Taijiquan study, Jou, Tsung Hwa, said so. Jou was not talking directly to or about me, but he shared his journey with Taijiquan in his books, and those stories spoke to me and my journey.

The title of this post paraphrases the Zen Koan: “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”

Learning a new art or skill is like this. First you see the mountain, and think others have climbed the mountain, and you would like to follow them. You start climbing the mountain. The trail goes up and down, back and forth. You are not sure if you are on the right trail, or even the right mountain. You think back to when you decided to climb the mountain, how beautiful it was in the distance, but now, when you look around, you cannot see the mountain because you are too close to it. Finally, you reach the peak of the mountain and, looking back, you can see all its peaks and valleys behind you.

What is Martial Art?

Written by Troy Williams on June 15, 2012. Posted in Self-Evolution.

Martial art practice is more than the study of physical movement. It’s an exploration of the body through the mind and the mind through movement of the body. Martial art practice can expose humanity’s worst instincts, or reveal an inner nature that desires harmony.

The greatest martial artist of the twentieth century promoted the martial arts to a world searching for reason in the torrents of blood spilled around the globe. From the worst of those conflicts, masters arose that sought to restore balance and civility.

Man has distorted the world’s religions for personal or national gain, leveraged religion for nationalistic fervor, and used religion to legitimize the murder of millions. The martial arts’ story is the same. Martial practice can become an instrument of violence, or it can be a tool for enlightenment.