The Warrior Priest Podcast

How do we define family and friendship? What are the consequences when we don't have people we can call on when we're in trouble and need? How can we create and nurture relationships that strengthen, encourage, and empower others?

Before we decide to go to war with the world, maybe we should take a hard look at ourselves...  https://anchor.fm/donavon-riley/episodes/26-Steven-Pressfield---Selflessness-e9talg https://anchor.fm/donavon-riley/episodes/23-Steven-Pressfield---Tribes--Gangs-and-Terrorists-e9dltn https://anchor.fm/donavon-riley/episodes/24-Steven-Pressfield---Tribes--Gangs-and-Terrorists--part-2-e9j183

The Great Reset, the morals of multi-national corporations, and the question, "Who's going to stand up and fight back against injustice?"

Very often people will ask me about the effects of body type on jiu jitsu. It appears that many people hold the belief that there is an optimum body type in jiu jitsu that confers advantage over other body types. Even a moments reflection will reveal that this is false. A look at the medal platform at the world championships will always show a wide variety of body types which are represented in no particular order of success. If I ask you to name for me the five most successful jiu jitsu champions of all time, I guarantee your list will show big disparities in body type. There is no dominant body type on the medal stands. There is however, a dominant body ETHOS. Champions always maximize the ability of whatever body they have been born with to perform the skills of the sport. Whilst there is no one body type that dominates the sport, there is a need on everyone's part to maximize what you can do with your body that will improve your jiu jitsu performance. Everyone's body has an optimal weight and conditioning that maximizes its performance for a given activity. It is your duty to find what that is for you and to maintain yourself close to that ideal (getting closer if competition is near). Thus any body type can win a world championship, but only one way of maintaining that body of yours will maximize your ability to perform the skills you hope to win that championship with. Here are three EBI champions. All three are very different somatotypes - Garry Tonon is a classic mesomorph. Gordon Ryan an ectomorph and Eddie Cummings an endomorph masquerading as a mesomorph. Yet all three have found a way to maximize their very different bodies to perform the skills they needed to win. Thus any body type can win a world championship, but only one way of maintaining it will maximize your chances of doing so. - John Danaher, Body type and BJJ.

When times are troubling, when people abandon us, and when we struggle to move through hardships, is there anything to be thankful for?

The foundation of a Nabeshima samurai should be in knowing this fact; in being deeply resolved to return this blessing by being useful; in serving more and more selflessly when treated kindly by the master ; in knowing that being made a ronin or being ordered to commit seppuku are also forms of service ; and in aiming to be mindful of the clan forever, whether one is banished deep in the mountains or buried under the earth. - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: Book of the Samurai

“Politics becomes even more of a magnet for self-aggrandizing sociopaths and liars than it already tends to be by nature, and men with no meaningful political power or authority waste their time and energy trying to convince complete strangers to convert to their way of thinking, even when those strangers have different group identities, different religious beliefs, and completely incompatible or opposing ideas about what is good or “best in life.”  ― Jack Donovan, Becoming a Barbarian

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.

The Empire sells superficial identities that are fleeting, synthetic, empty and unsatisfying. In a world of single, spoiled boys who have been able to walk away from any commitment or association — lifetime brotherhood is a radical idea. Collective honor is a radical idea. Working to help people you know and care about instead of strangers is a radical idea.

“You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time…You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, originator of the Stockdale Paradox