Be of one mind, your own.

I finished the filming of the latest set of "2 Minute Breakthroughs" at Mission Training Systems on Tuesday. The videos will be appearing very soon on Breakthrough Combats' Youtube channel. The Filming part is the easy part and a huge thank you goes to the Strength and Conditioning coach Johnny Elliot for giving his time. He was very informative and natural on the camera. Johnny and I had a discussion about what I was trying to achieve and it was very simple for him to translate that into some practical exercises to try at home.

The whole point behind the videos is to give some inspiration and ideas for people to give it a go! The hardest part starts after you have done them! The scrutiny of others begins. The videos are not intended to be a "This is how it should be done" type of thing. They are a "This is one way in which you could try" type of thing, like advice, good or bad it does not need to be heeded. Whenever you do a technique based video it amazes me how much hatred it inspires in people. Of course I have seen some awful stuff out on Youtube, non functional or plain silly but never has it created so much anger within that I couldn't let it go. Like bad advice (and sadly some good advice) I just ignore it. I was surprised when Johnny said that he has also received some abuse for his Strength and conditioning coaching techniques. It's crazy that someone out there in the big bad internet would like to offer an uninformed baseless opinion about anything, about everything even!

Anyway this is not the case with the new series of 2 Minute Breakthroughs, Johnny did an excellent job and made it very specific to the Combat Arts. It all comes down to justification. My whole martial career has had a constant justification required. I am surrounded by peers, good friends and good Martial Artist, many of them higher grades than me. But their Martial Arts are not my Martial Arts. How they go about teaching or expressing what they want to do is no concern of mine, that sounds harsh but I mean it in the best way. I respect them and their opinions of course but we cannot become robots. We all have to add our own personality to it, that is how things evolve. Provided that the teachings do not jeopardise the students safety, be it through unsafe training methods or false information then it's all good. Each to their own. I am getting more experienced everyday and have grown tired of justifying myself to others. This is one of the main driving forces behind starting Breakthrough. It is scary to not have the security of others but the freedom it provides in teaching more than makes up for it. If I can justify it to myself and my students then that is all I need.

So go out and try something. If you enjoy it keep it up. If you don't then stop. You don't need to belittle or badmouth it. There are many options and most of us are out there trying to give a helping hand. So what should todays meditation be? I think it would be fitting if I said that is entirely up to you.....