"Stoic Aikido: Calm Is a Superpower"

Fawn: [00:00:00] Welcome back everybody. MATT: Hello. It's one Fawn: of those Frisbee rounds or whatever rounds. I'm gonna throw a ball in the air. Matt has no idea what I'm gonna talk about. How about what? Okay. We were, we've been talking about stoicism in the house. In the house for over two years now. Matt has, I'm not stoic. MATT: Yes, you are. Fawn: How am I stoic? I don't think so. I don't care what you say. Huh There. Oh, there you go. I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm learning. But I was thinking about, um, stoicism and I don't know how I came to this conclusion, actually. I, but I was on such a rule. I'm like, oh, this is such a brilliant concept. And I wrote it down and I'm like, of course I'm gonna remember what I was thinking. Ah, but all I wrote down on this piece of paper is this. Stoicism and Aikido. Dun, MATT: dun, dun. Fawn: Go. Matt, what do you think? Do they go [00:01:00] together? Because how did I come to this conclusion? I'm like, of course, I'm gonna remember what I meant by this. And quite frankly, I don't remember Stoicism and Aikido. MATT: Well, we've talked about it before. Fawn: It's about not caring. It's about, MATT: oh, sensei Wood walk. He's the founder of Aikido Wood Walk. People would try and abstract, Fawn: would walk like Boardwalk. MATT: He, he would walk, oh, he would be walking, okay. You know, in his hakima going grocery shopping anyways. And people would try and stop him. People would try and attack him. People would try and do bad things to him and he would, with a minimum of motion, send the flying. Fawn: This is for real. The first time I saw, 'cause all my friends who were martial artists, I was cross training, they always told me I should be, um, practicing Aikido. I should go to a Aikido dojo and learn. I'm like, no, it's so stupid. It's fake. And you know, [00:02:00] I I, because I had seen some of the videos too mm-hmm. Of O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, O Sensei. Okay, so this old, frail looking, skinny man, short, and these big, tall, burly, burly men are like charging at at full speed and he literally just lifts like his index finger and they end up flying across the room. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, like one after the other. It looked so fake. It looked fake until it was done to me, and I was like, oh wow. It is incredible. It is. It is metaphysical. What is it like? It is, it is phenomenal. Aikido is something else, so I, I, I was sold. MATT: Right. Well, it was, it was con it, it's not stoicism from the viewpoint of [00:03:00] you're still connecting, you're connecting with the person. And a stoic doesn't necessarily care what anybody thinks or feels about what they've done and what they, what they say and what they, whatever. You know, but however they have their goal in mind, whatever that goal is. 'cause we all have goals in mind. You know, I wanna make a million dollars by the time I turn 30, or you know, I wanna be the youngest, blah, blah, blah to ever blah, blah, blah. I wanna live forever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. We all have goals, right? Vocalized or not. Fawn: And you have these jerkies coming at you in all directions MATT: and you have people coming at you from all directions. And so Fawn: you are not going to let them take you off your path, MATT: right? You're not gonna let them take your center. Yes. You're Fawn: not gonna let them take your center path. You're gonna MATT: take their center. You are gonna walk your path. And you, you're not Fawn: gonna engage MATT: with a minimum of whatever you are going to minimum of Fawn: force, minimum of you're gonna take MATT: care of. They're, you are gonna remove them as an obstacle. [00:04:00] Fawn: Right. MATT: Right. Sounds an awful lot like stoicism and Aikido Fawn: I wanna say martial arts then in in general, because when I was cross training, so I would go to Aikido at night and train with you guys, but in the mornings I'd be with mixed martial arts and we were sparring. And when we would spar, we sparred. Like it was fast and furious. And quite painful. I was sparring with a black belt and I was not a black belt. She kept hitting me on the head. Every time she did, I became more energized and was like ready to pound her back, and every time she hit me and then I got more energized. I mean, I'm saying I was energized. She would say, aha, you're losing. I'm like, no, I'm gonna get you. She's like, no, because every time I get you, you're getting angry. And she was right. I think it was anger. I was using that as my fuel to keep going and to punch her back. And she was like, every time you get [00:05:00] angry you lose. It's on many levels. That makes sense. I was, um, I was releasing, I was losing, not releasing, I was losing energy. I was letting my energy dissipate. Instead of remaining calm and unattached. If you remain calm and you're not caring, and you keep a soft eye and instead of getting all emotional, because when you do, you're spending energy dollars. Mm-hmm. But if you pull it all together and move as little as possible, have as little emotion as possible. Like don't get angry, MATT: right? Fawn: Then you are in it. You're not losing. It's like a balloon. You're getting deflated every time. You get angry, MATT: you get, you get deflated every time. You get angry, every time you get frustrated, every time you get scared, every time you get anxious, every time you. You Fawn: lose focus. Yeah. MATT: Yeah. Fawn: So [00:06:00] that's so in a way that is being stoic in not getting attached to all of that. And you keep going your path, right? You keep, don't let a blow, you keep going your path, get you right. Don't engage. MATT: From the karate kid, Daniel LaRusso, he's fighting in the tournament and he's losing the final match and he's getting all anxious. And Mr. Miyagi is like, doesn't matter if you win, it doesn't matter if you lose. This is you've already earned their respect. You have won. And then in a later one where he's getting pummeled, karate kid three, where he is getting pummeled. It's like, he's like, uh, I can't, I can't do it. I'm scared. I'm scared. And, and he's like, this is a tournament. You're at a tournament. And when you, you win, you lose. It doesn't matter. What matters is what's in your heart. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Fawn: Don't let the [00:07:00] turkeys get you. Yeah. Calm is a superpower. MATT: Calm is a huge superpower, Fawn: and I think we should all remember that. Short and sweet today, guys, calm is a superpower. It could be someone trying to attack you. It could be things that you're hearing on the news trying to distract you. Our friend Vanessa was telling me the other day, the word entertainment is entering into detainment. What is entertaining you, it's detaining you. Focus on calm and what you can control in your own circle, in your own home, your thoughts, the way you wanna create your life, the kind of friendships you want, the relationships you want. That's it, guys. MATT: Sounds good. Fawn: Have a beautiful every day MATT: be [00:08:00] well.