Meditation for Warriors

I've been studying Martial Arts for around 30 years. I've gotten a couple of other books by Loren W. Christensen, mostly on training and diet. However Meditation For Warriors: Practical Mediation for Cops, Solders, and Martial Artists is the first one that focused on the mental aspect.This book is written as a practical guide to focus your mind, giving you a calmer demeanor, and allows you to stay cool, calm, and collected when the stuff hits the fan.I really like that while it's geared towards "Warriors" (Police, Soldiers, Martial Artists), it's a really down to earth book that anyone could read and get a better understanding of meditation. Part of the goal of the book was to give non-practitioners a real world view of the importance of meditation.The book is broken in to two sections. The first section covers the Introduction, the myths associated with meditation, the need, and "The Nuts and Bolts" of mediation. By the time the reader finishes the introduction, they have already been exposed to one type of meditation, and encouraged to use it.The second section of the book covers different types of meditations, and different scenarios. For example Chapter 4 is about calmness, Chapter 5 is getting ready to train. Chapter 6 and 7 cover mediation before and after fighting.The book ends with 3 1-minute meditations, for when the reader doesn't have time to practice the longer ones in the book.The only problems I have with the book are:Chapter 8, which I think is the weakest chapter, deals with PTSD. I like that Mr. Christensen says he's not an expert, and encourages people seek help, but I would have like to have seen a couple of specialized practices for people with PTSD. He reached out to soldiers, police, and martial artists for the book, having someone with PTSD talk about mediation and giving a couple of examples would have made the book stronger.Mr. Christensen repeats himself a lot, when telling people how to start the meditation. Each one has the exact same bullet points listed multiple times. I understand that it's for people using the book as a quick reference guide for the mediation they're after, or for the people skipping around the book, but it made the book longer, and he could have pointed to the page in the book that has that information for the first time, for review if needed.

I have never had the opportunity to meet Loren W. Christensen in person, but I have read, viewed and reviewed most of his books and training DVDs. I am also familiar with many of the same contacts in the warrior professions, having taught numerous officers and martial artists in my more than 50 years in the field as both a student and instructor. One of the many things I have always admired about Christensen's books and DVDs is his realistic and street wise approach to the topics he writes about. He understands the military, martial artists, and police mind-set because he trained and worked in those fields. This is one of the reasons he relates so well to these warrior professions.In this book, "Meditation for Warriors: Practical meditation for cops, soldiers and martial artists" he presents a topic that is often ignored in many warrior training programs, which is meditation and the role of the mind in the warrior arts. He explains meditation in a non-mystical and practical way in this easy to read volume. This volume is organized into two sections with ten short chapters. He covers the following material in section one: What this book is and isn't, Common myths about meditation, Why warriors need meditation, Nuts and bolts. The second section he introduces meditation methods, achieving calmness with meditation, using meditation to prepare for training, Meditate to prepare to fight, Meditate after the fight, Post traumatic incident meditation, Meditate to induce sleep and Three 1-minute meditations.In conclusion, having taught and used most of the methods in this book I can vouch for their effectiveness. I have used combat breathing methods numerous times when responding to tense incidents in the past, especially the 4-count breathing technique that has become the most popular method used today by warriors. I highly recommend this book to my fellow warriors. A must have for your personal library. Live Bushido!Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: The Samurai Soul: An old warrior's poetic tribute)

Bought as gift for family member who has read so many martial arts books can be critical but he found the book really informative and enjoyed it, so would recommend.

I found this book very easy to read with good descriptions on how to do the various meditation methods explained. I have since reading the book incorporated a number of the different methods into my daily training and I have recommended the book to friends.

With anecdotal stories from military personnel, martial artists, police people and including brief scientific overviews as to why meditation works this book delivers what it promises.When I was in my late teens, 16 upwards to 21 I would practice meditation and self-hypnosis. I always preferred self-hypnosis as a means to do whatever. Over the years I would look at the one Meditation book I had left on my shelf. I'd keep looking at it and looking at it but would never really take it down to read it. Why? I don't know, maybe I'd grown away from the wide-eyed excitement and mental acrobatics of meditation in my earlier years. This book changed all of that at the age of 44.I'd bought a few kindle ebooks written by Loren Christensen and so whilst perusing for meditation books I thought I'd give this a go.Brilliant! No BS, no proselytising, just plain simple meditative instruction with a number of meditation exercises that can be practiced whilst sitting in solitude, at work, in the car, whilst walking, including instruction for overcoming traumatic events or entering potentially traumatic life-threatening situations.Section 1 dispells myths about meditation and explains what meditation is and why warriors need it. I felt the first section does have a few too many quips to lighten the subject of the book but it was written for people from strongly macho vocations and with this type of delivery the author does seem to be trying to put them at ease. It's not a real detractor.Section 2 is strictly business getting straight into the Meditations and is written in a clear manner. Simple exercises to develop calmness, awareness, rehearse stressful situations mentally and even one to induce sleep.Easy to do, and I've been practicing them daily at any moment whilst at work, home and after training in the morning.Glad to have it in my kindle collection.

Having read a lot of books about meditation I have to state that most books I have read impose a great deal of procedure upon one. However this book is different. Christensen introduces a set of pragmatic meditation techniques which help one to relax and calm one's mind in nearly every environment. Although his focus is more on martial artists and law enforcement the big takeaway for me was that you can nearly find a way in every environment to meditate and enjoy the benefits of meditation. Working in a big office which is sometimes very noisy and hectical the techniques from this book help me to keep a cool head and focus despite the constant noise around me.

I had a surgery recently. And I used some of the stuff in this book to calm down before it. The meditations in the book are arranged in categories like: before training, before a fight, after a fight. And a fight is by definition a struggle with unknown outcome, just like a lot of events in life. The stuff in the book is very useful in other contexts of life. If you're able to see the possible places to transfer the idea of a fight to, you'll have more than enough information in this book to find something matching to your situation. No woo woo esoteric stuff. Handy little exercises simple enough to be used by everybody, but not too simple to work well.