
TRAINING

Video Channel Name
VIDEOS COMING SOON
OUR TRAINING PROGRAMS
Jiin Senshi Do draws mainly from Western Boxing, Muay Thai, American Freestyle Wrestling, Tae Kwon Do, Systema, Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun, Gymnastics, Functional Movement Training (Physical Therapy and Quadrupedal Movement), Christian Monasticism, Mindfulness Practice, the Japanese Samurai, the Jedi of Star Wars, the Boy Scouts of America, and the U.S. Military.
Personal (One-on-One) and Group Training
I offer 60-, 90-, and 120-minute personal and group training sessions. I'm able to train you (and your team) in my home gym, at your home, at your place of work, or even at another space of your choosing. Regarding my fee schedule, which you can see below, I offer a sliding scale to accommodate the financial resources of a wide variety of individuals and groups. In addition, as has long been my custom, I train pastors and ministry leaders for free.
Tier 1 (Annual Income: $0-50,000): Free
Tier 2 (Annual Income: $50,001-75,000): $75/Hr
Tier 3 (Annual Income: $75,001-100,000): $100/Hr
Tier 4 (Annual Income: $100,001-150,000): $150/Hr
Tier 5 (Annual Income: $150,001 or Greater): $200/Hr
I recommend basing your annual income on your previous year’s gross income (as reported on your Federal 1040). I will not check this, as it really is none of my business; instead, I will simply trust you to inform me of which tier applies to you. Also, please take note that the costs for personal and group training are exactly the same, irrespective of the number of participants. The tier used to determine the hourly rate for group training should be based on the highest tier in which one or more team members fall.
Weekend Training Intensives and Group Retreats
I offer personal weekend training intensives as well as group retreats that can be held at your home or at a venue secured by you. Training will typically consist of multiple sessions that cover various aspects of The Training Trinity. Training is spread out over the course of three days: Friday evening (two hours); Saturday (seven hours); and Sunday afternoon (four hours). Based on the above tier system, the weekend fees are as follows:
Tier 2: $900 (+ expenses)
Tier 3: $1,200 (+ expenses)
Tier 4: $1,600 (+ expenses)
Tier 5: $2,400 (+ expenses)
Free Seminars
I offer free one- to two-hour seminars for local businesses, small groups, and organizations throughout the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. These seminars can be tailored to the specific needs and desires of your group. I've conducted some with just a handful of people and some with upwards of almost twenty participants at a time.
Instructor Training Certification
I offer one-on-one training for those specifically pursuing trainer certification in Jiin Senshi Do. The training lasts for a period of approximately three years and involves weekly one-on-one training sessions as well as weekend training intensives about every six months.
If you desire personal or group training (and you live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina), send me an email (using the online CONTACT form below), and I'll get back to you shortly. If you live out of the central NC area, I may still be able to accommodate you (especially, if you're interested in a weekend intensive or group retreat). Again, please use the CONTACT form below, and I'll get back with you as soon as I can.
Video Training (Coming Soon!)
The principal composite of web-based training programs offered by Temple Marital Arts Training is The Temple Elements Video Training Program. The Temple Elements is comprised of six progressive sets of training evolutions. Each set includes the presentation of anywhere from 6 to 8 evolutions intended to help you evolve as a person and as a warrior. A brief description of each set is provided below:
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Set One: "Developing the Boxer Within." Here we begin with the basics of striking...with the hands, the feet, and the knees.
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Set Two: "An Introduction to Self-Defense and Life-Preservation." Here we start to look a little at the psychology of violence. While some combatives are presented, the emphasis here is on first learning effective ways to best avoid, deescalate, or escape a violent situation.
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Set Three: "Self-Defense II." Here we get more into the meat and potatoes of engaging with a physical threat.
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Set Four: "The Return of the Boxer." Returning to the combat sport arena, here we begin to add more depth and intuitive responses to our emerging striking repertoire.
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Set Five: "The Temple Warrior." Mixing things up a bit, in Set Five we add take-downs and a few more strikes to begin the "rounding-out" process. Ultimately, we become not just a striker, but a warrior who, when necessary, is able to take things to the ground.
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Set Six: "The Temple Warrior II." In Set Six, we continue to "round-out" the warrior's striking and ground-fighting abilities, while introducing some advanced elements in evasive maneuvering and counter-striking.
Training in The Temple Elements should be approached slowly, mindfully, and methodically. It's recommended that each set be trained in daily for at least four- to six-months (or longer!) before moving on to succeeding sets. The emphasis here is on the development of quality through highly focused quantity. Bruce Lee once famously said, "I don't fear the man who's practiced 10,000 techniques one time; I fear the man who's practiced one technique 10,000 times." Again, the focus should always be on quality by executing a high quantity of mindful repetitions of each technique. When moving on from one training set to another, it's recommended that training in all previous sets be continued such that, by the time set six is completed (after two to three years of total training time), the practitioner (or Jiin Senshika) is training multiple times a week in all six sets. Approaching your training in this organic manner will yield the greatest benefit.
In the future, Temple Martial Arts Training may create other online training programs that provide additional (yet still simple) training in particular arenas of martial arts practice. Specifically, we envision providing additional training in boxing, leg strikes, elbow strikes, primal fighting, and women's self-defense.
THE OVERLAPPING ARENAS OF TEMPLE MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING
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Life-preservation (Self-protection): The skills of preserving and protecting life through mindful awareness, the avoidance of violent contexts, and the disarming or de-escalation of aggression in oneself and others.
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Self-defense: The skills of combat practiced to thwart an attack and, it's hoped, escape to safety. Like everything in life, there are no guarantees: Injury may or may not occur; death may or may not occur. This is a reality we must all face. Learning to no longer fear death is the ultimate self-defense skill.
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Combat Sports: The skills of sport fighting, where participants abide by previously agreed upon rules for safety, fairness, and competition within skill levels and weight- and age-classes.
In Temple Martial Arts Training, we incorporate all three arenas into our training. The "sweet spot" is that zone wherein all three overlap.
THE TWELVE PRINCIPLES OF TEMPLE MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING
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Train constantly, recognizing that training is not so much something you do as it's something that flows in and through everything you do.
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Be present with yourself, those around you, and your assailant/s (threat/s or opponent/s). Assume your assailant means either to end your life (and the lives of those around you) or cause you (and those around you) great harm. Assume, too, he's heavily armed with multiple weapons (a knife, a firearm, fists, feet, knees, etc.) and that he intends to use all of them if necessary. But don't go for his weapons—go for his mind. Look for the holes (the openings in his personhood), disrupt his "diseased" plans, and short-circuit his cognitive ability to regroup and improvise. This is all about being present, paying attention to what's happening in the moment, and not fixating on any one thing (say his left-handed grab [while he's thrusting an unseen knife into your side]).
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Be mindful of your surroundings, and use your environment to your advantage. If you've placed yourself (unfortunately) in a dangerous situation, recognize that you've placed yourself there, and take responsibility for it.
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Learn first to move healthily; then, to move often. When under attack, don't stand still—move!
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Simplify, eliminate the non-essentials, and eradicate extraneous and counter-productive movements.
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Relax, with focused and visualized intent.
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Intercept your opponent's attack.
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Systematize your responses with impulsive, whip-like, wave movements ("Spaghetti Man [or Woman]").
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Be target-centric in your responses, seek to create first-injury, and then stack your responses right on top of each other until you (and those around you) can escape to safety.
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Go hard, fight dirty, be nasty even....but strive for greater and greater humaneness in your responses.
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Winning (or submitting/tapping/destroying your assailant) is not the aim; not being there is. As I wrote above, if you've placed yourself (unfortunately) in a dangerous situation, recognize that you've placed yourself there, and take responsibility for it. If you can't avoid being there, deescalating the situation is the aim. If you can't fully deescalate the situation, escaping is the aim. If you can't escape (without first disabling the threat), disabling the threat and then escaping is the aim.
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Pray for yourself, your assailant, and any victims of said assailant.
TAKING A TEAM APPROACH TO TRAINING
There's nothing like training with a small team of like-minded people. While training individually will do you wonders, training with a team of similarly motivated people will enable you to accomplish things you never dreamed possible. It's what I like to call "Team Legacy."
Team legacy is created when you, as a part of a team, "put-out" not just for yourself but for your team. As you put-out, you inspire your teammates to put-out; and as they put-out, they inspire you to do the same. Through such team-inspired synergy, each person as well as the entire team pushes each member to train at his (or her) limits. This is what enables each of you to extend your personal limits and experience lasting transformation.
In your training, create a team. Look for like-minded and similarly motivated people who will inspire you to become more than you are today. Train together, put-out for them, and be inspired as they do the same for you.
THE TRAINING TRINITY
MARTIAL ARTS PRACTICE
Training should always begin with the body. Through physical training, we attune to our senses and learn how to move in more healthy, sustainable ways. From there, we learn to move often and progress to moving as often and in as many ways as we can. The practice of martial arts is first and foremost a practice of expressing the human body. While all martial arts are stylized in combat forms, they are, nonetheless, rooted in the ancient arts of moving and blending healthily with nature—one's own as well as that in which all life exists, grows, struggles, and thrives. Everyone, even the elderly, can benefit from martial arts practice. At Temple Martial Arts Training, we take a balanced, organic approach to such movement practice. Both new and experienced practitioners are encouraged to begin with Set 1, "Creating the Boxer Within," of The Temple Elements program. This first set of combat evolutions lays the foundation for mastery not just of the martial arts, but of movement—even life—itself.
HOLISTIC DISCIPLINE
As training progresses, it becomes imperative to look at all aspects of our lives. Here we begin to clear out old ways of thinking and pursue habits that honor God and the temple He created us to be. While such training is largely ascetic in nature, it's driven principally by the desire to find "the middle ways" of selflessness and non-attachment, and of becoming that which we're doing in the moment. While a human being is, anthropologically, comprised of a material and immaterial part, he (or she) is also an event. A holistically disciplined person doesn't just live in the moment; he becomes it.
MEDITATIVE PRAYER
Training is, first and foremost, a work of prayer. As "temple warriors-in-training," everything we do is pursued mindfully through deep connection with God Almighty, ourselves, other people, and even nature. Through the practices of meditative prayer (or prayerful meditation), we get to know God and ourselves. By that, I mean, we get to experience our humanity, both individually and corporately, as it's known intimately and loved through and through by God. In this connection with the Divine, this communion of wills, God invites us to live in to our belovedness and fundamental goodness as His children. These inherent qualities are intended to leaven every aspect of our lives...from how we live, to how we move, to how we operate interdependently as valued members of the human family.
