Pop culture shows meditation as a very relaxing and gentle exercise, but Shaolin meditation is different. This particular form is not about relaxation, but instead about strengthening your mind. Discipline of breathing is crucial, and these exercises can feel like you’re drowning; combined with vigorous eye and abdomen exercises, it can actually be quite an ordeal.However, many practitioners swear by it, with anecdotal (and, to a lesser extent, scientific) evidence that Shaolin meditation can reduce pain, symptoms of illness, or even injury. The psychosomatic effect of meditation can help you feel better, which makes it good to use in conjunction with professional medical treatments. And there’s no doubt that it boosts mental faculties and helps keep your mind sharp.

​Everyone has heard the saying “mind over matter”, but few people actually take the time to think about what it really means. Far from being an annoying mantra that means you should never feel down about anything, it’s intended as a guiding principle that will help you overcome negativity in a healthy and useful way.

To illustrate this point, let’s change gears for a moment and talk about an old folk tale. In it, a bedridden prince is stuck in bed with a mysterious illness, and nothing seems to help. One day, he and his attendants see, lurking in the corner of the room, a demon that seems to be at the root of all the trouble. Frightened and angry, they scream and they curse, but it does no good – the demon grows, every day, until it takes up most of the room. Soon it will be too late for the prince, unless they can think of a solution.

A lot of people focus on how they look and what their bodies can do, but less actually consider how they think and how it affects everything else. The old saying “mind over matter” can come across as a tired platitude about the power of positive thinking, but it turns out that there’s actually a fair amount of truth to it.

The first thing that a truly successful person understands about the mind is the role that the ego plays in it. This is, essentially, your perception of yourself and how you use that perception to interact with the environment – including how you see your own skills and abilities. Obviously, this is rather important for training in martial arts classes! Your ego, for example, plays a huge part in how you defend yourself: if your hands are down because you’re overconfident that you can react in time, you could be a multi-degree black belt and still get hit in the face by someone new.