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Building Body and Brain: Lessons From Martial Arts

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01.05.2026

All martial arts involve common core principles of body shifting, realignment, and attacking against threats.

Our daily lives share many of the same concepts and principles but in the worlds of words and reactions.

Understanding core principles underlying our behaviors and actions helps us to become who we are.

If you look at different martial arts and examine only techniques, each can look very different. If instead you look at different martial arts and try to perceive the core principles, they all look the same. Understanding this is a critical ingredient for success whether in physical training or our daily psychosocial interactions. A forest is a forest, regardless of the types of trees within, but applying what this means in daily living takes practice.

Core Principles in the Palm of Your Hand

My favorite thing as a professor was mentoring folks in research. A big part of this involved understanding how projects that were focused on discrete, seemingly independent research questions were actually just expressions of common themes within a lifelong research program. When discussing this with trainees, I would literally hold up my........

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