Meditation is a crucially important practice for martial artists. It enables you to gain control over your state of mind, your level of arousal, and above all teaches you to be able to direct your attention. I have been teaching meditation in one form or another for many years, but never before over the internet. I began by running a live class over Zoom for six weeks, then took the insights from that and created a complete online course. Interested?

In this course I will teach you four different types of meditation, beginning with a simple awareness of breathing, then the body scan, using mantras, and moving meditation. This will enable you to make informed choices about what kind of meditation you want to include into your daily life.

Awareness of breathing meditation is the foundation practice, in which you learn to pay non-judgemental attention to your breathing, and to return your attention to the breath when it wanders. This improves your ability to direct your attention.

Body Scan meditation is the practice of paying attention to one part of the body at a time, moving through the whole body, noticing what is going on without interference. This is helpful for many reasons, not least it can make you more aware of the side-effects of our other training.

Mantra meditation is the practice of using a short phrase, repeated over and over. This can be a way to enter a meditative state, and also serve as positive self-talk leading to better outcomes.

Moving meditation is the practice of moving mindfully. It can be extremely helpful for learning new techniques, as well as for smoothing out and improving any kind of movement. The class includes moving meditation while seated, for students who are unable to stand.

The course includes some very short meditations (the shortest takes only six breaths), which are useful on their own and can plant a seed that may grow into a solid practice habit.

The course is organised into six weeks of practice (which may take longer- there is no rush- but should not be compressed into a shorter timeframe unless you are already quite experienced). Week 1 is for Awareness of Breathing; week 2 for Body Scan, week 3 is for consolidating our practice so far; week 4 is for introducing mantras, week 5 for introducing movement, and week 6 for consolidation and revision. At the end of the six weeks you will have an informed base from which to create your own meditation practice, suited to your mind, your body, and your needs. Once you have bought the course you own it outright, so you can keep using the content forever: six weeks is just the minimum normal time to work through the whole course. All of the content is available straight away, so you can survey it all before you begin, if you like.

Meditation is a very subjective practice, and its effectiveness can only be judged by the practitioner. If you practice for at least ten minutes a session, five sessions a week, for two weeks, you should experience an improvement in your state of mind. If you have done the practice and are getting no results, then I invite you to apply for a refund, no questions asked, and no offence taken. I do not expect this course to work for every mind, but there is good reason to believe it will be helpful to many minds.

You can find the course here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/meditation

This raises the thorny problem of what and how to charge for it. On the one hand, meditation is too useful, especially to people in stressful situations (such as, oh I don’t know, a global pandemic), to keep it behind a paywall. On the other hand, I have to feed and clothe my children, so I need people to actually pay for the things I produce. Here’s my current solution:

1)  I have put the first section of the course in the free Body Maintenance course. This way everyone can get started, regardless of income. Go, meditate, it’s good for you.

2) I will also be adding the complete meditation course to the Solo Training course curriculum in a month or so. Anyone who has bought the Solo Training course (which can still be had at a 95% discount (look for the Corona price), or free if you email me and ask for the code) will get full access to the meditation course then. 

3) It will also be added to the Mastering the Art of Arms subscription plan (which gives access to every course I have, for a monthly fee) in due course.

4) In the meantime, if you’d like to buy the course, and have the funds to do so, please do! It’s only $129 (plus tax if applicable) payable as one lump or as 6 monthly payments of $21.50 (plus tax), and comes with the usual 30 days money-back guarantee. You can find the course here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/meditation

See you on the course!