Transforming Life Through Meditation and Martial Arts Mastery - Jeff Patterson

Uncover the transformative world of meditation and martial arts with Jeff Patterson, a maestro of the meditative and martial arts disciplines who has refined his craft over 36 years. Jeff shares the captivating origin of his journey, sparked by a coach's advice that led him to explore meditation and Tai Chi to enhance his boxing capabilities. This pivotal moment not only altered Jeff's life trajectory but also empowered thousands of his students. Through the Yielding Warrior Method, Jeff unveils a holistic approach that weaves together ritual, active, and philosophical practices to elevate a simple routine into a meaningful life practice. By integrating mindfulness into everyday activities, this method promotes balance, personal growth, and enhanced awareness.

Dive deeper into the Yielding Warrior Method as we examine its core components—physical, mental, and emotional yielding. Jeff explains how strategic movement can amplify athletic performance, while mental yielding fosters harmony in relationships by rectifying imbalances. Emotional yielding, on the other hand, helps manage personal conflicts by nurturing thoughtful responses. Experience the profound benefits of meditation through the success story of Bill, an academy member whose life was transformed by these practices, resulting in reduced stress, improved health, and augmented performance. Jeff's insights illuminate the boundless advantages of consistent meditation, underscoring its role in cultivating sensitivity and awareness in both oneself and in interactions with others.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meditation and Martial Arts Transformation
• 8:49 Practical Benefits of Meditation and Yielding

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Sensuality is an enriching experience that transcends mere physical touch. It invites us to explore openness and vulnerability, creating deeper connections with others. By engaging in mindful touch, we enhance our awareness of each other's desires and boundaries. This practice cultivates intimacy, as it encourages honest communication and emotional safety. Each caress becomes a dialogue between bodies, transcending words and allowing us to connect on a profound level. Embracing the art of sensuality fosters trust, reigniting passion and curiosity in relationships. It's a journey of discovery, inviting us to celebrate the beauty of human connection through the transformative power of touch.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Hey there, everyone, welcome to Pleasure Principles. I'm your host, avik, and on this journey into discovering the principles that can help us all lead more fulfilling, balanced and empowered lives. So today we are diving deep into the transformative world of meditation, martial arts and personal growth, and joining us today is the true expert, jeff Patterson. Welcome to the show, jeff. Hey, thank you very much for having me Lovely, lovely.

Speaker 2: 1:27

So, jeff, before we start, I'd quickly love to introduce you to all of our listeners, dear listeners, jeff, who has over 36 years of experience in the meditative arts and martial disciplines. So his unique approach, called the yielding warrior method, combines meditative practices with physical and philosophical techniques to create a life practice that adapts and grows with you. So if you're curious about how to develop a life challenging or changing meditative practice that goes beyond the basics, then stay tuned. Jeff has some insights that might just change the way you look at meditation, balance and personal growth forever. So let's get started. Welcome to the show again, jeff. Thank you Great, great. So, jeff, how did your journey with the meditation and the martial arts begin?

Speaker 3: 2:28

I started martial arts as a fairly young guy and at about 19 years old. I was very much into Western boxing and I love the thrill of the sport. It was challenging, there's a lot of strategy behind it and I used to go to a boxing gym that was just a few blocks down the street here from my academy in Portland and at a boxing gym for those of you that aren't familiar, they run the training at a boxing gym a lot different normally than your traditional style fitness class, in that there's not usually one coach that's running a class or group of, say, 30 students. Usually at a boxing gym, there might be four or five coaches running around and each one of those coaches might have three or four fighters that they're working with. Well, at this one particular gym, one of the coaches had a very well-known reputation and it worked with high level amateur and professional boxers and I really wanted to get to spend some time with him. However, he had a pretty full schedule and wasn't looking to take on any new fighters, so I would always show up at the gym when I knew he was going to be there. I'd work hard and let him know that if he took me on, I would not disappoint him and I'd put all my effort into it. And so, after following him around for about three or four months, he finally started giving me some tips and helping me out a little bit.

Speaker 3: 3:56

And then 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 meditation and Tai Chi.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Now, at the time, I'm this 19 year old kid who didn't know much of anything, thinking you know, isn't Tai Chi for old people in the park? How's that going to help me be a better fighter? But I had a lot of respect for him and I knew he was trying to help me, and so I took on the practice. And not only has it changed my life for the better in many ways. Through the years I've been fortunate enough to see over 26,000 students come through my academy here in Portland hundreds of stories of how the meditative arts has positively influenced people's lives in multiple different directions. And that's what's made me so passionate about sharing the word and getting this message out there and trying to help people cultivate a meditation practice in their life, because I've seen firsthand so many lives being changed by the practice.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Wow, so also like you talk about creating a life practice. Wow, so also like you talk about creating a life practice. So if you can also explain that, what that means and how is it different from a regular routine?

Speaker 3: 5:16

Yeah, so you know, the meditative arts is meant to be a way of life. It's not meant to be a hobby that we do once in a while. And by integrating these practices into your day, you can find that they can influence anything that you do. And so I've broken down the meditation practice into kind of three main pillars. We have our ritual practices, our active practices and philosophical practices.

Speaker 3: 5:43

Ritual practice is when you set time aside every day and maybe you do a sitting meditation or a movement practice like Tai Chi or Qigong or whatever that is during that time, but there's no cell phones, there's no audios, there's no videos.

Speaker 3: 6:01

It's just time to turn your focus inward. Then we have active practices, and these can be done throughout the day, and the great thing about these are that you don't need to set time aside, you can do them in as little as 60 seconds store, and they're a way for us to integrate this training and this awareness into our day-to-day activities. Because you know it kind of makes no sense if you meditate every day and you feel peaceful and you feel really good when you're doing the practice, but then the rest of the day you're stressed out and worried about everything that's going on Well. These active practices help us come back to center and maintain that focus and that awareness throughout the day. And then the third pillar is philosophical practices, and these can be both used in the ritual methods as well as the active methods. And as you start to integrate these three different pillars into your day, you can see that the practice can affect really anything that you do in life.

Speaker 2: 7:08

That's awesome. I'd say so. In your view, how does meditation connect to the martial arts? I mean, why blend them instead of focusing on just one?

Speaker 3: 7:38

So there's five different paths of a meditation practice. The first path is what I call the athletic path, and this can be for martial arts, it could be for basketball, it could be because more people are open and understand the benefits of the practice. You'll see a lot of professional athletes these days turning to the meditative arts to help improve their performance. It makes them more in tune with the mind-body connection. It makes them more aware and have more abilities to notice the subtle changes energetically in the body so they can perform at a higher level. It helps them be more present and more in time.

Speaker 3: 8:10

There's so many different things that come by integrating these practices to help with our athletic performance. Then we have the therapeutic side of the training, which is great for our overall health and longevity. And then there's the medical side of the training, which you know all of Chinese medicine is kind of based off of Qigong theory, which is a big pillar in the practice. And then the fourth pillar is the philosophical side of the training and the fifth is the meditative or spiritual side, and you can really follow any one of these paths for the rest of your life. If you are starting a meditation practice. What I find is. A lot of people will maybe pick a couple of these areas and focus on them, but by doing this it can improve your performance in anything you do.

Speaker 2: 9:04

Understood, understood. So also, like some people think that meditation is passive, but your yielding warrior method suggests that it's active. So how does this approach work in deep practice?

Speaker 3: 9:19

You know a lot of people think when they hear the term yielding, that they're giving up. And yielding is very strategic. It's not that you're giving up, you know. It's kind of like. You know that old Chinese saying that says you want to be as soft as a dove but as wise as a serpent.

Speaker 3: 9:38

And in my most recent book, the Yielding Warrior, I've broken yielding down into three categories. We have physical yielding, mental yielding and emotional yielding. Physical yielding is the idea that 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 butt heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger than you. Now it's obvious how this can be beneficial in athletics, because no matter what sport you play, you're going to come up against other athletes that are bigger and stronger than you.

Speaker 3: 10:26

Now, 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 breath has to be calm and the mind has to be present. Now, while it may take a lifetime journey to really master these skills, from day one, by integrating meditation into your life, you start to develop a sensitivity and an awareness to these things that you never experienced before, and you start to see things more clearly, and this is where it becomes very interesting, because now, not only do you see things more clearly inside yourself, but you also see things more clearly in other people, and this is where we move into what I call mental yielding. So say, for example, you and I are having a conversation and I say something that unsettles you, and I pick up on it right from that first sign of imbalance. It's a lot easier to adjust the conversation and keep us in a harmonious place than if I'm not paying attention to that, and pretty soon I'm so far off track. You want to slap me upside the head, and so learning how to use yielding in all of our interactions is extremely powerful One. You know, we're just being more considerate, which is something that we could all do more of. And two, it allows us to be strategic in our interactions and lead conversations to a positive outcome with the least amount of resistance. This is beneficial in our relationships and business and sales and negotiations. I mean, there's so many different ways that we can apply this skill.

Speaker 3: 12:12

Then the third pillar of yielding is what I call emotional yielding, and emotional yielding is very much like mental yielding, but with our 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 by adapting a meditation practice into our life and being able to be more centered and present, a lot of times when these things happen we can respond from a balanced state rather than an excited or emotional state and we can make a more educated decision that takes us down a more positive path with a lot less heartache. You know, and I've been explaining this idea of yielding now for many years I've been running my academy now for 30 years and one of the most common things I'll hear people say is ah, yielding makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3: 13:18

In fact, I do that all the time. Well, I would agree in that I think everybody does some degree of yielding all the time. However, 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 and 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 life and never have any clue of if they don't have this kind of a practice in their life.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Exactly Understood. So listeners often want tangible benefits, so can you share a specific success story where someone's life transformed by using your methods?

Speaker 3: 14:15

Yes, you know there's been so many through the years.

Speaker 3: 14:19

You know, one story that I always think of is this gentleman, Bill, who has actually been a member here at the Academy now for 30 years and he started with me back when he was in his mid-50s.

Speaker 3: 14:32

He's probably 84, 85 right now, and when he first started he had an extremely high-stress career. He was as stiff as a 2x four when he came into the academy and he originally wanted to learn sword fighting and after a couple sessions with him back then I recommended that we do some meditation and Tai Chi because he was so uptight and had so much stress in his life. And a couple of years later his physiology 100 physiology 100 changed, his mindset changed and he's, you know, clearly still doing it 30 years later. So he must have seen some benefits from the practice. But you know, I hear stories like that for people who are dealing with stress disorders, anxiety, panic attacks. Maybe they have an, maybe they need to improve their health in some way or another or their performance on the field. You know there's so many different angles of why people turn to this practice and if you put the time in, it's endless the benefits that will come from the practice.

Speaker 2: 15:40

That's really awesome. And also people say that meditation changes you but others fear it may turn you start building core, fundamental, foundational principles in your life that help you approach things from a standpoint that you're meant to understand and you truly resonate with from your heart and soul.

Speaker 3: 16:21

You know, so many times, I think, that we get caught up in these stressful lives and we are responding to everything from an imbalanced state, and so I could see how somebody who thinks that that is the norm when they come to a balanced state and they start responding differently, how they could think that that would change them. However, I don't really believe that it's changing them. I think it's allowing them to tap into who they really are.

Speaker 3: 16:57

You know, in today's society we're so busy and bombarded with this thing and that thing. We've got our cell phones tethered to our hand. You know all of these distractions. It kind of makes us be where. You know we're wearing a mask around everybody. You know we're maybe not wanting to hurt their feelings, or maybe not wanting to say the wrong thing, or whatever the reason is maybe just trying to put up the barriers so we're not distracted by all these things hitting us. And I think that people get so used to this style of living that eventually they start looking at themselves in the mirror and they're still wearing these masks. And we need to have something like a meditation practice to help let these masks come off and stay rooted and connected to who we truly are, and so many benefits comes from having that ability.

Speaker 2: 17:55

That's awesome and also like for someone who is just starting. For someone who is just starting. What's the one small habit they can adopt today to experience more balance in the group?

Speaker 3: 18:12

You know I'm I'm going to. I'm going to list three things here because you know, as as a teacher for so many years, you know one of the hardest things I find is getting a new student to be successful with the practice, because they're not used to doing anything on a regular basis day to day and it seems like such a big commitment. And I find that if a new student will consider these three things, that they're so much more likely to find success in their practice. That they're so much more likely to find success in their practice. And the first one is really thinking about what your why is I mean, why are you drawn to investigating a meditative practice? Do you want to stay healthy into your later years so you can watch your grandkids grow up? Or are you dealing with a stress disorder, anxiety or panic attacks? Or do you have an illness that you need to work through? Or maybe you're an athlete and you want to improve your performance on the field? And then, once you find what that direction is for you, then think about all of the ways that, if you accomplish that goal, your life will change for the positive and all of the things that that will affect. And then also flip the coin and think about all of the negative things that will happen if you don't accomplish that goal. And by doing this, it gives you a fuel. So tomorrow morning, when your alarm goes off and it's time to get up and practice, you're not tempted to hit the snooze button. You're excited about getting up because you're doing this thing that's helping make your life better. On it is. It's meant to be a way of life, and you have to be consistent in doing a little bit every day. And it doesn't mean you need to retire to a cave and meditate for the rest of your life, but if you just do a little bit every day, you develop this discipline, this integrity, this perseverance that not only opens up in your practice, but it starts to open up in everything you do in life, and so this is very important.

Speaker 3: 20:24

And then the third and final thing to think about is you need to find a guide.

Speaker 3: 20:31

Meditation is very complex and there's so many different paths and directions that you can follow to think that you're going to be self-taught and go onto YouTube and watch one of the million videos out there, or listen to some audio or some app or whatever and take on the practice, you're really misguided.

Speaker 3: 20:51

Now that doesn't mean that you can't learn things from videos and learn things from apps, but having a guide will save you so much time. You know, I've been teaching for many years and I've had students come into the academy that have been self-taught and they've been training for 15, even 20 years and oftentimes they'll see somebody who's following the guidance of a teacher and they've only been here maybe six or 12 months and they're further along in their development than somebody else who's been doing it for 15 years, who's self-taught. Now you know, our lives are short. Our time is valuable. It doesn't take that much to find a guide and if it can save you years of training, it's way worth your time to invest a little bit with an expert who can help guide you down that path and you'll see so many more benefits and get where you need to go a lot quicker yeah, understood, totally understood.

Speaker 2: 21:52

Yeah, great, lovely, so, uh, thank you so much for such an inspiring story and sharing your insights on how we can build a practice that grows with us and for all the listeners who are listening. I hope that this has given you a fresh perspective on meditation as something more than just sitting still so. It's all about engaging with life on a whole new level, and if you are interested in diving deeper, definitely check out Jeff's resources, including the yielding warrior and his other teachings. So remember that creating a life, or a fulfilling life, is about making it your own, one mindful moment at a time. So thank you so much for tuning into pleasure principles and until next time, no-transcript.