Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple O' Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. And for those of you listening, not watching, I am in a dojo, because it is a great place to You know, think about things and practice martial arts, which we're going to get into today when people think about meditation And relaxing and stress management.
They don't typically think of martial arts Some people who are more on the fitness and athletic side might say yeah I love running to you know, burn stress or to lift some weights. Uh, but for most of us out there We don't think of martial arts fighting whether that's sparring or just taking some of the techniques and mindsets from it Uh associated with with meditation or stress management, and we're here to talk about how they're all connected.
In fact, meditation is a great practice for anyone in any kind of, you know, athletic environment, whether that's wrestling, martial arts, or Anything else? And great for just day to day life. Uh, you know, for some of us it's meditating once a day. Some of us it's three times a day. But we are here with Jeff Patterson to talk about both of those subjects as well as a variety of other related topics.
And I'm excited to get into it. Mr. Patterson, would you please go ahead and introduce yourself for us? Hello. Yeah. Jeff Patterson here. Uh, thanks for having me on. Uh, look forward to the conversation today. Yeah. And, uh, for those of you just listening, not watching, there's a bunch of awards on the background and Mr.
Patterson's wall. And I'm interested in what those are. Those are certificates for a Brazilian jujitsu, uh, black belt certificates. Awesome. Yeah. I know a lot of military members really get into, uh, Jiu jitsu. Uh, we talked about her prior on that episode with Dr. Brian Laquernon, who practices, uh, jiu jitsu when he's not.
His full time occupation is dealing with, uh, addicted loved ones. Uh, but on the side, he likes to compete and he talked about how jiu jitsu was a place for military members to kind of find some resemblance of the brotherhood and sisterhood that they felt in the military. Would you say in your years of practicing, do you feel like there's that kind of family connection there?
For sure. You know, I think the nice thing about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is that it builds that strong sense of community and camaraderie. You know, you put yourself in these vulnerable positions where you kind of have to trust your training partner. And, um, I think being in those situations really brings some pretty close relationships.
And, and I I've seen a, uh, a lot of students through the years who have. Been like family to me. You know, I always tell people when I'm out and doing things, this is my second family here at the Academy and, and, uh, really just a lot of great people coming in here for sure. And I think also you have that discipline you need to practice, to train on the days you don't want to and all that.
And in some way, it's kind of like the military where you have that discipline where you do things, whether you want to or not, you got to go ahead and get it done. and you know, consistent training is so important. But what I really want to talk to you about is you talk about the yielding warrior method.
Now, what's interesting is when people think of martial artists, when they think of fighters, when they think of strong people, typically they think of an unyielding spirit, uh, never yield, never surrender, but you have the opposite. So I'd love for you to dive into that and really, uh, you know, explain that to our listeners who are scratching the back of their head, saying, What am I yielding to?
You know, it's funny that you ask that, uh, because so many times through the years when I start talking about yielding, I get the same response, thinking that especially when, you know, you're talking about a uh, boxer or an athlete who has that, you know, type A personality and they're very driven. You know, you talk to them about the idea of yielding and they think, ah, I don't want to give up.
That's not, that's not my nature, you know, and yielding is the furthest thing from giving up. Yielding is a strategy that helps us get the outcome we want to get. With the least amount of resistance so in yielding, I've broken down, I've broken down three yield or yielding into three categories. We have physical yielding, mental yielding, and emotional yielding.
Physical yielding is the idea that You know, I push you, you push me, whoever's the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage eventually is going to push the other person over, but with yielding, instead of us trying to see who the bigger meathead is, when you push me, I get out of the way of that force and now I can respond with less effort.
So I'm not trying to button heads with you and see if I can just manhandle you and overpower you. Now, this is all. Obvious how this is beneficial in any kind of athletic event or combat kind of situation because there's many times where you're going to come up against other athletes who are bigger than, stronger than you.
And if you don't know how to get around that force, you're going to lose. And so in order to be good at physical yielding, a lot of things have to come into play. You need to be well rooted. The lower part of your body needs to be strong and flexible so you can change your central equilibrium without getting tight.
The body has to be relaxed. The breath has to be calm and the mind has to be present. Now, this is a lifetime journey to get to a high level of this. However, from day one, by integrating the meditative arts into your life, you start to become more in tune with these skills and see these things. Inside yourself more clearly now, and this is where it gets kind of interesting because not only do you see these things more clearly inside yourself, but you also start to notice these things more clearly in other people.
And now we're moving into what I call mental yielding. So say, for example, I say something that unsettles you and I pick up on it right from the beginning, that first sign of imbalance. Well, if I do and I can make that adjustment from the beginning, it's a lot easier to. To guide the conversation to a positive outcome, rather than trying to butt heads with you and force my will on you to get where I need to go.
And so this is beneficial in our relationships and business and sales and negotiations. I mean, there's so many ways that we can use this idea of mental yielding. Then we also have what I call emotional yielding and emotional yielding is very much like mental yielding. But with your own interpersonal conflicts, so you think about oftentimes something will happen to us and we'll respond and we'll go down this path and we might get an hour a day a week down that road and realize maybe that wasn't the best choice, but with yielding.
If we could have recognized that when it first happened by being more present and more in tune and more aware of what's going on in the moment Oftentimes we can make a different decision that will save us a lot of heartache on the other side You know and i've been talking about this idea of yielding for many years I've been running my academy here in portland for over 30 years and one of the most common things i'll hear people say is Ah, yielding makes a lot of sense.
In fact, I do that all the time. Well, I would agree, and I think everybody does some degree of yielding all the time, but it's kind of like if you or I were to walk into a crime scene with a detective who's been on the job for 30 years, I guarantee you that person would see things about the series of events in the timeline that I know at least I would have no clue of.
And the meditative arts helps us see things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that I truly believe most people will go through their life and never have any clue of unless they have this kind of a practice in their life. Yeah, I completely agree because I think so many people waste a lot of time and energy, you know, fighting battles they can't win or retaliating.
And I think when you talk about a strategic retreat to take advantage. of your opponent, whether that's an actual person in the ring or just a situation is so important. And so when did you realize all of this? Uh, I guess to say, when did you yield to all of this? You know, you know, I've been practicing the meditative arts now for over 30 years and, uh, a bit of a funny story, how I got introduced to it and that I wasn't looking to do a meditation practice.
I. Frankly, I had no desire at all. Um, I was very much into Western boxing and I used to go to a boxing gym. That was just a few blocks down the street here from my academy. And, you know, in a traditional style, boxing gym has run a lot different than most fitness oriented classes that you go to and that, you know, it's not one instructor up in front of a group of people.
Usually you walk into a gym and there might be three, four or five different instructors in there, or coaches, and each one of those coaches might have three, four or five fighters that they're working with. Well, at this one gym that I was at, one of the coaches there was a very well known coach. He had created national and world champion level fighters, and I was You know, really wanted to get to spend some time with him.
So I would always show up at the gym when I knew he was going to be there and work hard and try to get him to notice me and see if he would help me out with my boxing. Well, I followed him around for about three or four months and follow, finally, he started showing me a few things and giving me some tips and.
It was only about two or three weeks of getting to work with him when he said something to me that changed my life forever in that he said, you know, if you really want to be a good boxer, you should start doing Tai Chi in meditation. Now, at the time I was this 19 year old kid thinking, Isn't that for like old people in the park?
How's that gonna help me be a better fighter? You know, but I had a lot of respect for him and I took on the practice and it's changed my life in many ways and through the years, you know, I've seen hundreds of students come to me with stories of how the meditative arts has positively influenced their lives and that's kind of what's given me the motivation.
The motivation and the energy to write my last couple of books and create my online program and my teacher training program and really just try to get the message out there to as many people as I can. So what does yielding require? Would you say it requires humility? Does it require training? I mean, how does someone go about having this mindset shift?
By integrating the meditative arts into your life. You develop a higher sense of sensitivity and awareness and ability to be present. And in doing these things, it allows you to be strategic on how you decide to lead the energy, both inside your body and expressing it outside of your body. And when you have this awareness and this ability to see these small imbalances.
Now you're in more control of the outcome because if we wait, you know, if you and I get in an argument and we're both blowing up and screaming at the top of our lungs, it's kind of hard to walk away from that where we're both feeling good about it. Yeah. But if you know, we're having a conversation and I'm sensitive enough to pick up on something that's bothering you before you get thrown off center.
It's easier for me to kind of make some adjustments and keep us both feeling good about the outcome, rather than waiting until it's too far off track. And so the meditative arts helps you see things more, with more clarity, and that gives you the ability to have that strategy of how you want to, See the outcome.
So when we talk about the meditative arts, I know a lot of people are thinking, what is that? Is that just yoga? Is that just sitting with your legs crossed and your fingers in a certain way? And he's a breath exercise. And I know from talking to other guests on the show that there are many different forms of meditation and breathing control exercises out there.
So for for you and your students, I mean, what does that encompass? The meditative arts is a pretty broad term, and that's why that I refer to it in that way, and that you can use things from Tai Chi, from Qigong, from yoga, from sitting meditation, standing meditation, breath work, different walking practices.
There's many different forms of meditation. Now, When I look at the meditative practices, I kind of break it down into five different pillars. So you have more of the athletic side of the training where it improves your awareness and your ability, your timing, and, uh, your gives you ideas like yielding and how to apply that physically for athletics.
Then you have the therapeutic side of the practice, which is good for. Keeping the body healthy, working through injuries and that kind of thing. And then there's the medical side of the practice, which is a very deep topic. And, you know, all of Chinese medicine is based off of Qigong theory. Then there's the philosophical side of the practice, which again is a very deep path to follow.
And then lastly is the spiritual side of the practice. And so as somebody new coming to the meditative arts, They might resonate with one or two of those areas, and that's kind of their main focus. And then we would integrate things into our ritual active and philosophical practices that would help guide them down that path.
And when I talk about ritual practices, what I'm referring to is A time that you set aside every day, whether it be 20 minutes, an hour, or whatever that is for you. And maybe you do a Tai Chi form, or you do a sitting meditation, or some breath work, or whatever that is. And then active practices are things that you can integrate into your life.
Into your day and through other activities, you might do some of these when you're walking down the street, or maybe sitting at your desk or standing in line at the grocery store, and they could be as simple as counting out 10 deep belly breaths or doing some spinal rotations or a simple movement practice.
It doesn't mean that you need to retire to a cave and meditate for the rest of your life. But if you just integrate some of these things into your day to day activities, we can develop. the meditation way of life rather than using it as a hobby that we do once in a while. And that's where we really start to reap all the benefits.
And then the third pillar is the philosophical side of the practices. And these things can be integrated in both ritual and active methods. And I think once you have that basic understanding, then you can really find the right path for yourself. So for those of us listening and we're like, okay, maybe we want to give this a try and all that, but where do we start?
And you know, is the internet a safe place to gather information? Should we really go find an instructor in person? Or do you even have, you mentioned books and courses, should we go check you out and see what resources you have to offer? You know, I, I'm glad you asked that. And you know, there's, there's many good teachers out there.
I think that I've got a great program and so that's an option if you're interested, but it doesn't need to be with me. However, there, anytime somebody new comes to the, the meditation practice, I always have them contemplate three things and really spend some time considering these, because if you want to be successful with the practice, And not be something where you try it for two weeks and then give up on it, right?
I think you have to have some motivation and some kind of fuel to help get you through those ups and downs, especially in the beginning. And the first one is. Why are you being drawn to the practice? Do you want to stay healthy into older age and be more mobile and be able to watch your grandkids grow up?
Do you want to learn how to deal with stress disorders and deal with anxiety or panic attacks? Do you want to work through an illness? Are you trying to improve your performance on the field or in the ring? What is it to you that's really motivating you and driving you to the practice? Because without that idea, And I don't care who you are.
It might be tomorrow, next week, next year, there's going to be a time where that alarm is going to go off in the morning and it's time to get up and do your meditation. And you're going to be, ah, I'll just hit the snooze button. I'll do it tomorrow. And if you don't have that fuel to keep you going, you're really not going to ever get to where you're starting to live the practice.
Then. The other thing to think about is consistency and consistency is kind of the root of any meditation practice. We need to do it every day. You know, it's got to be something where, you know, it's like if, if I want an apple, I can't go plant a seed and this afternoon I've got an apple. I've got to water it.
I've got to nurture it. I've got to put fertilizer on it. I've got to Give it all of these things before I can reap the benefits of the fruit. And that's what this idea is about. And, you know, through this consistency, we develop discipline and integrity and perseverance. And these things start feeding over into every area of your life and your relationships, your work, your hobby.
And so. Kind of like the foundation of the practice. And then lastly, and the most important thing, I think, in coming back to your original question is you need to find a guide. You know, there's so much stuff out there on YouTube. There's a billion books you could go look at. And if you try to be self taught in the meditative arts.
It's a deep practice. You know, I've been studying this stuff for 36 years and I'm still just a student. I'm learning all the time. And I've literally seen students come into the academy that have been self taught and they've been practicing for 10, 15, even 20 years. And oftentimes they'll come in and they'll see somebody who's been doing the practice for 12 months and get a little discouraged because here's this person that's been doing it of the amount of time that's further along in their development because they've had somebody help pointing them down the right path.
And you know, life is short. Your time is valuable. Finding a good guide and somebody that can help you is, is essential. You know, I, I often tell people to think about, imagine that You've never witnessed the game of basketball. You don't know you're supposed to dribble the ball. You don't know the ball is supposed to go on the hoop.
And I take you to a basketball court and I say, Here's a ball, go play. You're gonna be horrible. You're not gonna know nothing about the game. But if I give you a world class coach and I say, Go work with this person for six months. You could cover some decent ground in six months and really get to where it's working for you and you understand the game and Meditation is no different.
You got to have somebody in your corner. You got to have somebody there helping you and pointing out these Realizations that they've spent their whole life on to really show you the shortest path to where you need to go Yeah, I know we just talked about those big questions that can help guide us. We talked about the importance of finding someone to guide us and And That's great.
But for those of us who are like, all right, so now I'm getting into the meditative arts and I know why I want to do this. I'm motivated. I'm ready to be consistent. I've got someone guiding me. And obviously those play as factors into what practice is best for that individual. But there's a lot of other things that affect that in a world, like we said, where there are so many different forms of meditation and breath work.
And so besides those big questions and having someone guide you, I mean, what are some factors that can play into knowing, uh, what practice is best for us or what series of practices? Well, and, and that's why you want to have somebody in your corner because when you can talk to somebody and tell them, these are what I want to get out of this practice and this is what I want to do.
They can make recommendations for you and point you in the right direction. If you try to do it all on your own, it's, it's, it's difficult, you know? So I think that, uh, Um, having somebody kind of hold your hand for a while and get to the point where, you know, eventually you write your own prescription, right?
But you got to have some, some time with somebody helping, helping guide you in the beginning. Yeah, for, for sure. And so what exactly do you personally meditate for? You've been doing it for, for over 30 years and obviously you found great success with it. I mean, what keeps you going and doing it?
You know, I've experienced many benefits myself. One of the things that really gives me energy and motivation is that, you know, I've had over 26, 000 students come through the academy and I've heard hundreds, I've heard hundreds of stories of how the meditative arts has positively changed these people's lives.
And that is my motivation. You know, I. I really want to become the best teacher I can. And so I can share this with as many people as I can. And, you know, every time somebody says that this practice took the stress out of their lives and now they don't have panic attacks anymore, man, that's so rewarding.
You know, if I can help somebody show them how to overcome these things, that's, that's where all my motivation comes from. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I'm sure that plays a role into your book, which I want to talk about. Cause we've had a great conversation on, on the benefits, on how to implement it into your life and all of that.
But I know there's a ton more information in your book, The Yielding Warrior. So who should check that out? What's going to be in there that hasn't been covered in this conversation, you know, and what can we find and expect? Yeah. So, you know, there's something that is. A core foundation in any meditation practice, and it doesn't matter if you're doing a sitting practice, a movement practice like Tai Chi or Qigong or yoga.
If you have these five fundamental pillars and you're cultivating them and integrating them into your life, You can be successful with meditation and you'll reap benefits across the board and everything you do. And I, I call these the five regulations and briefly I'll kind of talk about what they are.
The first one is regulating the body and regulating the body is the easiest one to see some immediate results from. And a kind of a simplistic example of this would be. Think about a time when maybe you're sitting down at your computer for three or four hours and you're feeling really depleted your shoulders around it forward, maybe your neck's getting sore and you're just.
really low on energy. And then another time when the most important person in your world walks in the room and your body perks up and you feel like you're on top of the world. Well, we're in control of these two different energetic States all day. Every day and how we choose to present ourselves to the rest of the world is in our control.
And so understanding how to maintain a good skeletal alignment and deal with the muscular tension in our body be huge in how our overall energetic expressions come out throughout the day. And this is kind of a basic level of regulating the body. As we get more into this, then there's Maintaining a certain amount of, uh, muscle tone in the body and maintaining flexibility and eating a healthy diet.
All of these things play a role in that body regulation. And then we have the next regulation, which is regulating the breath. And regulating the breath is a very deep topic and it's something that for those of you Diving into the meditative arts, you'll be studying for the rest of your life. In fact, Qigong is often referred to as the science of the breath because there's literally hundreds of different breathing strategies.
And because of that, we broadly categorize them into Yin methods and Yang methods, Yin methods are often deeper, more holistic style of meditations. And what I mean by Yin breath is. If you ever listen to somebody sleep, their natural breathing pattern is a longer inhale and a shorter exhale. And this is the body's natural way of bringing our conscious minds into our subconscious mind, which is where we are when we're sleeping and dreaming.
And so if we want to emulate this style of Breathing or this energetic state in our meditations, we can do longer inhales, soft retentions at the end of the inhale and shorter exhales. And this will help bring that energy inward, which is great for dealing with stress, anxiety, panic attacks. It's good for boosting your creativity.
There's a lot of reasons why we do this Yin side of the breath. Then we have the Yang side of the breath. Which is say, for example, you've ever had to push your car, you pick up something heavy, your natural instinct is to exhale, put tension in the breath, maybe even make the breath audible. And this helps generate energy and expand the energy outward.
Now, when we start learning how to use this. As a tool and in Chinese philosophy, they call this balancing the con and Lee or the water and fire. It gives us the ability to adjust our physical, mental, and emotional outcomes. You know, everybody goes through the day with emotional ups and downs. Some people are like a roller coaster.
Others may be a little more balanced, but when you start recognizing these imbalances and say, start to get excited. We could use the Yin side of the breath to help bring that level down, and when you start feeling depleted, we can use the Yang side of the breath to help energize and pick us up. And now when we have this strategy in our tool belt, we can maintain more balance and consistency throughout the day, which is very effective and very helpful in anything we do.
Then, The next regulation is regulating the mind. Regulating the mind is a very deep idea. You know, a lot of times I've heard people say, I tried meditation, but it just didn't work for me. I couldn't quiet my mind. Yeah, for sure. Meditation isn't about quieting your mind. It's about being able to control it and recognize those imbalances and bring yourself back to center.
You know, somewhere along the way, people got this. Idea that in order to be successful in meditation that we have to reach this state of nirvana and be in this blissful place and it couldn't be further from the truth, you know, I've spent my last 36 years of my life studying these arts and I've trained with some amazing teachers around the world that are very high level meditation practitioners and I've never met one that doesn't get distracted, you know, they, they all do.
And that's kind of the way of life, you know, we're human. And so having these tools helps us come back to center and find that balance. And if you get, if you're doing a, say a meditation and you sit for 20 minutes or you do a movement meditation for 20 minutes and you get distracted 50 times during that session.
Well, every time you get distracted you use your posture, your breath, your movement to help bring you back to center. Now you just got 50 repetitions of being out of balance and coming back to focus. And if you do that all day, every week, every month, every year, you start to become unshakable. And pretty soon it doesn't matter if somebody says something to throw you off your game, or you have a stressful day at work, you have the ability and the tools to find that balance.
You know, there's this, uh, Story that I enjoy about these two older monks and they're walking down this dirt road after a huge rainstorm and it's muddy everywhere. They come up to, they come up to this big mud puddle and on the other side of the puddles, this beautiful little girl standing there in a white dress and she's crying and the older monk, he yells across the puddle and says, is everything okay?
Can we help you? And she says, I need to be somewhere, but if I walk across this puddle, I'm going to get my dress all dirty. So the older monk, he rolls up his pant legs and he walks across the puddle and picks her up, puts her on his back, takes her to the other side, sets her down, and she's off on her way.
Well, him and the younger monk are walking a couple miles down the road and finally, the younger monk is just furious and he says, You know, we're not supposed to touch girls, but yet you did back there at the puddle and the older monk looks down and says You're still thinking about that girl. I left her back there at the puddle.
How many times in life Do we have to get two miles down the muddy road? Before we finally let something go. And so having this ability to regulate the mind and see these imbalances can save us a lot of heartache on the other side. Then the fourth regulation is regulating the energy and regulating the energy is a very deep idea.
And it's something that we could literally talk about for hours, but briefly. It's the idea that, you know, once we've got to a competent level in regulating the body, the breath and the mind, we now have the tools to lead the energy to do whatever we want in the body, whether it's through a circulation, whether it's by leading the energy inward towards the bone marrow, Or it's expanding the energy outward and having this ability can help us control our physical, mental, and emotional states in our practice and in our everyday life.
Then lastly, we have regulating the spirit, which is a very profound idea. And it's something that, uh, monks and meditation masters will spend their entire life working towards that ultimate stage of enlightenment. No, when you have these five principles and understand them and you're cultivating them and Working on making them have to where you have a deeper realization and understanding them They'll affect everything you do in life and they're the foundation of any meditation practice Wow, that's for me personally.
That was the most interesting part of the conversation I think talking about the breath regulation and energy And I think that was a great story you shared as well with the two monks and for I'll have it in the description below obviously your links to your website and your program and all of that.
But for those of us listening who are interested in your book, where is the best place to get that? So if you go to theyieldingwarrior. com forward slash book. I'm giving away a free copy of the book. You just pay for shipping and handling. We'll send you out a copy. Um, also if you go to the yielding warrior.
com, you can check out our online program that will teach you how to build an evolving life practice around the meditative arts. And we also have a teacher training program up there as well. Awesome. That's great. So ladies and gentlemen, we'll have all that information in the description below for you to check out.
But Mr. Patterson, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you sharing that information. And for y'all listening, I hope you learned something new or at least curious to check it out and do a little research. But Mr. Patterson, thank you. Hey, thanks for having me.
