"Warrior Mind" meditation training

[Flea]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599192075300

Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."
Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different - dare we say harder? - than pounding out the push-ups.

 

[nelsonkari]

Interesting!

I wonder what method they are using? Is it related to the mind control stuff the CIA and others have been doing for years?

 

[Flea]

Mind control? :idunno: I have no idea where you get that.

Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home.

 

[Carol]

As far as the style, it sounds a lot like Kundalini Yoga, or something with significant Kundalini influence.

 

[Xue Sheng]

It’s simply meditation....kinda sorta.... nothing more.... no mind control.... no CIA

But, IMO, it is not so much meditation as it is sitting and listening to music. IMO meditation is done all by itself... no music or thumping beat necessary... to me those are distractions to help someone focus on the music and/or the beat and avoid focusing on the internal or thoughts.

 

[Tez3]

It’s simply meditation....kinda sorta.... nothing more.... no mind control.... no CIA

But, IMO, it is not so much meditation as it is sitting and listening to music. IMO meditation is done all by itself... no music or thumping beat necessary... to me those are distractions to help someone focus on the music and/or the beat and avoid focusing on the internal or thoughts.

Ah the young today can't do anything without loud music lol!

 

[Chris Parker]

Agreed, but the use of a constant, unembelished beat for someone to focus on is just another way of inducing an altered state. And that appears to be the method used here. That makes sense, as the military would want something that can be repeated in multiple locations with little to no variation, as that allows them to control the results. The repetitive beat takes over the conscious mind focus, allowing it to be more successful with a range of different subjects and amounts of mental discipline/control (note: self control, not CIA).

This concept is often used more in hypnotic "trance induction", but can work just as well in meditative ways (which is basically a form of hypnotic trance/altered state anyway). And it can help get those soldiers that are possibly a little more resistant to the idea of meditation get past the self imposed stigma by allowing them to just listen to the music without feeling like they are "meditating" (like a hippy...).

There's a reason this type of music is called "Trance"... and that reason also has a lot to do with the little coloured paper and pills associated...

 

[Bill Mattocks]

It sounds very much like what we currently practice in my dojo.

Our sensei has us sit cross-legged on the floor, arms relaxed and extended palms up across our knees.

Then we close our eyes, breathe in deeply, hold, then 'swallow' the air down to the tanden. We then forcefully and deliberately expel the air while turning over our palms and emphasizing pushing by contracting the tanden, not contracting the lungs.

We may also visualize a light in front of us, which we also at times visualize as representing our problems, current woes, worries, etc. As we repeat the breathing exercise, we contract the 'light' we visualize to a bright dot in front of us, then we dim the light until it also vanishes.

This is supposed to help us relax so that we can think only of our martial arts training while we work, and so that our bodies are relaxed as we work through our kata.

We don't do it that often, but from time to time. I find it useful.

 

[Tez3]

I have an excellent meditation CD by a martial artist called Ian Fox, it's called "Unleash the Warrior Within", it's available as a download or CD. Works for me ( some here might say stop using it lol)

http://www.foxmartialarts.co.uk/warrior-audio.html