Building Warriors: The Life Skill Training of a Dedicated Martial Arts Instructor

By Graham Wardle

A powerful and passionate look at the perils and pitfalls of the modern world, and the mental skills and strengths required to navigate it successfully

In a society that is increasingly demanding and potentially treacherous for young minds, the development of a strong mentality and the ability to manage one’s perspective has never been more important. In Building Warriors Graham Wardle walks us through the mental and philosophical training he has developed over his career as a martial arts instructor, to help his young students develop the psychological skills necessary not just to survive, but to thrive in a fast-paced and unforgiving world. As any adult knows, you never know what’s around the corner; but equipped with the empowering perspectives and mental skills described in this book, you can develop the robust mentality necessary to navigate the unpredictable ups and downs of adulthood and create an enjoyable and exciting life of purpose and fulfilment.

Building Warriors is structured as a series of monthly life development skills, broken down into weekly examples, analysis and practical application, which allows teachers and instructors of all kinds to adopt this training for their own students. But anyone, young or old, can read and learn valuable lessons from this book, and its ingenious format allows each reader to make his or her own choice as to whether to follow the monthly structure, or simply develop their skills as they see fit, using the book as a guide.

Building Warriors is packed with life-changing information that will benefit anyone who reads it, whether they be young or old, instructor, teacher, parent, or adolescent. Graham has been an obsessively passionate student of both self-development and philosophy for most of his adult life, and has developed an unquenchable hunger to pass that knowledge on to both his students and anyone who wishes to listen. Graham’s students and their parents have already seen the remarkable effect the skills he teaches can have: this book is your opportunity to develop the same powerful mentality.

Graham’s understanding of life skills and how they fit into everyday life is second to none.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Wardle
• Release date: Jun 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838420826

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I thought I had better start by introducing myself. My name is Graham Wardle, and I am the founder of Valley Martial Arts (VMA), which is a martial arts and self-defence school in Clitheroe, Lancashire, that first opened its doors in January 2014. Prior to founding VMA, I had spent many years both training and instructing, including 5 years’ full time instructing at another highly regarded martial arts academy. VMA prides itself on not only teaching high quality cutting edge martial arts and fitness, but also places a huge emphasis on teaching juniors the mental and emotional life skills necessary for them to go on and enjoy a successful life.

At Valley Martial Arts we take great pride in the mental and emotional training we give our junior students, as well as the physical fitness and self-defence training. Martial Arts is a great vehicle for building the character of young people and we take our responsibility to do so very seriously.

With mental health issues such as depression and anxiety being so prevalent in modern day society, it is becoming increasingly vital to teach people, in particular young people, how to look after their minds.

We have a system in place that we use to educate our juniors that is continuously improving as we learn more and get better at what we do. Personally, there’s nothing I find more satisfying than seeing a young child or teenager brimming with confidence, socially adept, and just generally happy and enjoying their life. This book explains how we facilitate such results so that other martial arts schools and similar settings can replicate our success their own way.

I’m a long-term believer that an adult’s personality is made up of their experiences as a child, so the more positive and wholesome information you can feed into a child’s mind the better. All the character education systems in my Academy have been designed with this in mind.

I also don’t believe this has to be exclusive to martial arts schools, although martial arts is indeed very conducive to learning these types of skills. I believe any junior activity can adopt such a system to some degree. All’s it takes is practice by the instructor to be able to implement them during training, and 3 – 5 minutes at the end of each class to explain the life skill, why it’s important, and how it pertains to life.

As an instructor or teacher of any kind it is exceptionally rewarding not only to be teaching a physical skill that the child enjoys, but also to teach them mental skills that will greatly increase their chances of having an enjoyable and productive future.

As far as I’m concerned, the more children we can help grow into powerful, confident, and emotionally balanced young adults with strong moral convictions, the better it’s going to be for the future of our planet and our species. I wholeheartedly believe that martial arts, and indeed any sport, can help to achieve this if the physical training also incorporates the type of mental training described in this book.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

That being said, this book isn’t specifically for instructors, coaches and teachers. It is aimed at anyone who wishes to benefit from the mindset outlined in these pages. It can be read simply as a book, or as the aforementioned instruction book for teaching these skills to children as a teacher or parent; or, simply for anyone who wishes to learn some mental skills and improve their ability to live well.

It is also aimed at children themselves, although I would suggest it be read by older children if reading on their own, as younger children may struggle to absorb some of the content without help; but hey if you’re a young child and you fancy having a go, then don’t let me stop you. I am often stunned at how far ahead of their years children of all ages can sometimes be, although if you are under eleven or twelve years old I would highly recommend reading it with an adult to ensure getting the most out of it.

Thirdly, it is also aimed at other adults who may wish to read it to or with their children, or maybe even just for themselves, as there is a mountain of life-changing information in this book that will benefit anybody who reads it. I have lived and breathed this stuff for many years now, and it has had such a profoundly positive impact on my own life that I can’t help but shout it from the rooftops, this is why I do what I do for a living, and this is why I’m writing this book.

How to absorb the information as a reader:

The VMA character education system is structured as a series of monthly life-development skills, broken down into weekly talks discussing a certain example of that skill, along with its practical application to everyday life. As an instructor, I tend to spend a whole week of classes doing the same talk to help the students really absorb the information. To truly understand anything to a deep level you obviously need to hear it more than once. By the end of the week my students are usually explaining it back to me. That shows me that they’ve taken the lesson in and understand it at least to a degree, and even if some of them don’t, they will over time as we continue to reinforce them throughout their years with us.

These powerful seeds that we’ve planted in their mind will grow with the students as they mature, and by the time they become adults they will be ingrained, habitual, honed life skills. These skills will then be available for them to use as and when they need them, as they navigate through the often treacherous ups and downs of adulthood.

With all that in mind, you may want to read this book the same way. Read each talk every day for a week, or every other day for that week, before moving on to the next one the following week to really absorb the information.

Obviously, if you really wish to, just read the whole thing like a book, and then refer back to the skills as and when you need them. It’s your learning experience and it’s up to you how you go through it. This book is designed to be a life-long friend and guide, so you may find yourself reading it several times in several different ways.

I recently began reading a book on philosophy that my nephew Alfie bought me for Christmas. It’s an outstanding book based on the Stoic philosophy of some of the most famous philosophical figures in history. The idea of the book is to read one page a day for the whole year, and spend the day thinking about and absorbing the contents of that one page. By the end of the year your mindset and general outlook on life will have significantly improved as a result. It’s a great idea and helps the reader really get the most out of the contents. Once you have been through the book, you repeat the process the following year. This book can be read in a similar way. You can spend a week absorbing each skill as detailed in the book, before moving on to the next. This will help you really absorb the information to the point where it becomes a helpful tool in enhancing your everyday life. This would mimic for the reader how the information is taught in class by an instructor.

The Valley Martial Arts Student Creed:

The Student Creed is an incantation / affirmation that our junior students recite every single lesson from white to black belt. They say the first 3 lines for a 3 month period which at VMA is a grading cycle, and then the second 3 lines for the next 3 month grading cycle, and continue in that pattern. At VMA there are fourteen x 3 month grading cycles that a student must work through before he or she is eligible to grade for their first degree black belt.

As a junior recites these words week in week out, and combines that with the life skill and character education they will also receive as part of their training, it maximises the chance that they will thoroughly absorb the information and subsequently grow into mentally strong, emotionally balanced, assertive, and confident young adults. This is our ultimate goal for all of our students at our Academy and we are beginning to see some excellent results. To explain this in practical terms, we are regularly seeing both older children and younger adults, who have been through our system for 4 or 5 years, who are so brimming with confidence, emotional balance, and just seem so sharp for their age that I just cannot wait to see them go out and make their mark on the world.

As someone who passionately believes in helping young people reach their potential, and preparing them for the rocky up and downs of life, I figured I would write this book so others could use the information I have garnered over the past 11 years, to spread this powerful and positive mindset training far and wide.

The Valley Martial Arts Student Creed goes as follows:

•I will respect my parents and treat them with courtesy.

•I will respect my body and keep myself fit and healthy.

•I will respect my teachers, my instructors, other people, and their property.

•I will be kind, considerate, honest, and always act with integrity.

•I will develop focus, self-control, and always give 100% at home, school, martial arts, and to everything I do.

•I will be a black belt.

Juniors: You could do a lot worse than to have these words on your wall and repeat them every day. As you grow up and your brain develops, your regular habits are also forming. Reading our Student Creed daily alongside the contents of this book, will help you develop powerful and positive mental and physical habits, that will be conducive to your future success and happiness.

If you don’t practice martial arts then change those words for whatever it is you do practice, or something you’d like to achieve. For example: I will develop focus, self-control, and always give 100% at home, school, football, and to everything I do. I will be a great player. Or something along those lines.

Throughout this book you will notice I will repeat myself several times. This is deliberate and will help to drive the most important points home. The more you hear a piece of information the more it sticks in your mind, and the more it will influence your future decisions. Whenever you learn a new piece of information it creates a synaptic neural connection inside your brain, and each time you relearn the information that connection becomes stronger, thicker, and more rooted into your memory. If you learn a piece of information just the once and don’t think about it again, the synaptic connection it created in your brain will break up, and the knowledge will disappear from your conscious mind within hours. As with any skill you truly wish to master, repetition is key.

Bruce Lee, one of the most revered martial artists in history, once said something to the effect of: Fear not the man who has practiced 10000 techniques once, fear the man who has practiced one technique 10000 times. What he meant by that is if a person has practiced 10000 martial arts techniques only once, the chances are he won’t remember any of those techniques and will be practically harmless, with maybe slightly improved coordination. However a man who has practiced one technique 10000 times, will be able to execute that technique at a moment’s notice and with deadly efficiency. In order for you to learn the powerful mindset described in this book, there are certain ideas you will need to hear more than once.

So with all this in mind, throughout this book you will notice certain themes that keep coming up, such as honesty and doing your best; this is because in order for someone to really absorb a piece of information to the point where it becomes useful, they need to hear or read it several times. This book is designed to mimic the development programme that I teach in person to my junior students, but in much more detail.

Things to consider while reading this book:

As mentioned above this book is not just for instructors, coaches, and teachers who want to help their young students develop into powerful adults. It is for anyone who wishes to benefit from its contents, including adults who just want to learn and deploy the mentality building content the book provides. The information in this book will benefit literally anyone who wishes to consume it.

Instructors: If I’m talking directly to instructors and potential deliverers of this information, I will write in this slightly smaller text, so you know who the information is aimed at. However, these little sections might still make for interesting reading even if you don’t intend to teach it to anyone, so don’t let it stop you reading them if you wish to.

Spare talks section:

Towards the back of this book you will find the spare talks section. This section covers the subjects that didn’t fit in to the monthly structure, but are still interesting and highly useful skills to know, either for yourself as a reader, or to discuss with and teach to your students as an instructor. The talks I give to my students are constantly evolving as I continue to study and learn more.

Instructors: From an instructor’s perspective, my drive is simply to be as useful to my students as I possibly can be, and to help them develop the mental, emotional, and physical skills I feel are necessary to navigate life with strength and confidence. This is of course a subjective opinion, which is why I’ve tried to cover as much information as possible and give you plenty to choose from. You may find that the subjects in the spare talks section are as useful, if not more so, than the talks in the main section. It’s entirely up to you. I occasionally choose talks from the spare section, and sometimes I will write completely new ones, depending on what I feel will be most useful to my students at that time.

Vocabulary:

While I was writing this book I did consider the idea of scaling back on the vocabulary I was using, in order for it to be more readable for children. However, in the end I decided against this on the basis that firstly, this book is designed for both children and adults, and secondly, children need to be challenged, and who am I to decide on the limits of what they can or cannot understand? So if you are a child or teenager, or even an adult reading this, and you come across a word you are unfamiliar with, please check the definitions at the end of this book, and if you can’t find what you’re looking for there, take the time to look up the word in a dictionary. We live in an era where you can just type the word in to a search engine, or even ask out loud and a device in your house will give you the full definition. Never has there been a time in history, in which development of your mind and cognitive potential has been as easy as it is now. I suggest you take full advantage.

The benefits of a solid vocabulary:

A myriad of studies have been done on the link between having a good vocabulary and succeeding in life. This book is designed to not only teach children (and adults) life skills, but also to encourage them to develop their vocabulary, which in turn will improve their ability to read, write, and speak – all of which are heavily linked to achieving your high-level goals in life. There is an index of words at the back of this book containing definitions and usage examples of any words you may not yet know. Please use it. Any that may not be in there please take the time to look up elsewhere. Building up a solid vocabulary and grasp of your language will give you a firm edge in life, this I guarantee!!

Parents: If indeed this book is a little too much for your child to understand on his or her own, try reading it with your child, and then you can discuss each life skill together and what it means, and even give your own thoughts as a parent on it. The more you discuss a piece of information, the more you relate it to your own experiences, the more likely a child will understand it, to the point where they are able to begin consciously using it in their every day life. If you are a child reading this and you’re struggling, ask your mum or dad or an adult to read it with you, and then spend a couple of minutes discussing what you’ve read so you understand it.

Instructors: Please note that I have gone really deep on the skills in this book. Obviously during a 3 or 4 minute life skill talk you will struggle to cover anywhere near the amount of text I have highlighted, so just pick the bits you feel will benefit your students the most. If they want to go deeper, they can always read this book themselves. I have gone deep to not only give you plenty of material to choose from for your talks, but also to make it enjoyable and useful to read as a book.

A note for instructors and coaches. When delivering talks to students:

I have highlighted what I would use for the talks in a different font (this one). As I’ve just mentioned, and as I’m sure you’ll realise as you read through the book, I often don’t get through all of the information highlighted during my talks as there just isn’t enough time, especially as the students will be responding. It is important to realise that this doesn’t matter – it’s far better that the children engage with what I’m saying and really take it in than that they sit in silence, hear every word and then forget it ten minutes later. Even just one or two key points of positive powerful information going into a child’s mind will be of benefit. You might even just use one paragraph, again that doesn’t matter. The children will respond and give you feedback, and that’s what you want, as it means they’re thinking about and absorbing what you’re saying. The talks are about regularly giving their subconscious mind something nutritious it can feed off as their personality develops.

Remember, an adult’s personality is made up of their experiences as a child, so the more positive and powerful information you can feed into a child’s mind, the better – I constantly feed powerful information to my students throughout my classes, because as I’m sure you can tell by now, this is something I feel very passionately about. Building strong children for the future and fortifying their minds as much as possible against mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, as far as I’m concerned, is of the utmost importance.

Anything that is not in the above font is for the readers or instructors benefit and intended simply as useful and enjoyable information to read, however, as an instructor you may feel it fits well in a talk, and that’s fine. Everyone’s different, everyone’s unique, and that should be celebrated and encouraged. So feel free to use whatever information you feel is appropriate for your talk.

The more you read the book, and the more you absorb the knowledge, the better you will become at elaborating on the key points. You can read to your students from the book if you wish, in fact I recommend you do so to start with, especially if you’re not used to teaching this type of information. But I find it comes across as more genuine and heartfelt if you get to know the information to the point that you can elaborate in your own words, and it gets the points across in your own speaking style. Over time you will become increasingly proficient at explaining the life skills in a way that your students understand, even the youngest ones; not only because you are improving at delivery, but also because they are your students, you know them, and they know you and your speaking habits. The more you practice this the better you will become, and you will find yourself over time becoming quite an accomplished communicator, which is a very valuable skill to have.

Little Ninjas section:

Towards the back of this book you will find the Little Ninjas section. This section details the talks I use for the youngest children in our academy. Our Little Ninjas class consists mainly of 3 and 4 year olds, and was formed because we were getting a lot of parents who understandably wanted to get their children involved at as early an age as possible. Unfortunately, for the most part, children under 5 just don’t have the concentration skills to keep up with our deliberately fast-paced and action-packed family classes, so our solution was to form a class especially for them, a class that’s more development-based and less concerned with the details of the physical techniques. The talks for this class are shorter, with a tamer vocabulary, and I’m a little more animated and loud when I deliver them; they are, however, designed with exactly the same goal in mind.

The aim of this system is not to be perfect:

The idea of this book is not to be perfect. Trust me, I’m very far from perfect myself. We all have our flaws. I’m a work in progress just like everyone else. I make mistakes practically every day. That tends to be how I learn, and learn from them I do. I embrace my failures and improve because of them. I never dwell on them. The aim of the system described in this book is to develop a positive, ethical, and robust mindset that never gives up, despite the circumstances that life presents.

What is your vocation? To be a good person - Marcus Aurelius.

I love the above quote. So simple, and I have found adopting it very helpful in my efforts to make good decisions on a day to day basis. It has also inspired me to write my own version which is the following.

Just remember, that wherever you are, whatever task you have at hand, or whatever situation you find yourself in; your first purpose in life is simply, to be a good human being…

Don’t be afraid to fail:

One of the big lessons I want people to absorb from this book, is don’t be afraid to fail. It’s ironic that many people fail in life simply because they fear failing, which makes them afraid even to try, but as we all know if you never try, you never get. There is no shame in trying and failing; so fail often, fail big, the more you fail the more you learn. Life rewards a trier; if you keep trying, despite