Spartan training for the Brain
Hey there,
Hmm...me thinks...I wonder if you could design a kind of Spartan 300 Training for the brain?
I like body weight exercises and am a big fan of Matthew Furey ... but just this week I discovered a whole host of other trainers than have impressed me.
Seems as though there are a lot of people out there searching for material on the training techniques used by the stars of the movie "300".
Check out this clip on YouTube to see just how hard they trained to sculpt the warrior physique look as seen in "300".
I found this great young guy Arnel Ricafranca who has produced a ton of free 'Spartan 300 training' videos and is cleverly marketing himself at: I want six pack abs.
And then I bought Ori Hofmeikler's book, "The Warrior Diet - How to take advantage of undereating and overeating." This has some revolutionary new ideas on diet and eating in it that I look forward to exploring and testing out....
Think the one that gave me the greatest "man buzz" (what the hell??) was getting Anthony Bova's Spartan Health regime... which really lays down the no-BS Spartan path and calls upon all your long-buried manly virtues of stoicism and sticktoitness (and those warrior queen virtues of all you Amazon kick-ass women reading this).
THE SPARTAN MINDSET
So all these training programs focus mainly on building physical health and super-fitness. But what about your mind? Could we incorporate Spartan principles in training your intelligence or for unleashing creative mindpower? Well, the Spartan's believed in 'a strong mind in a strong body' and are said to have had a devotion to the intellect as well as the body.
Anthony Bova lists 3 basic Spartan principles in his Spartan Health Training manual:
1. Take what works for you and reject what doesn't.
Essentially this means adopting an experimental approach to life and the accumulation of knowledge. Test things out in your own experience. Dump what doesn't work for you. Dump what doesn't add any value to your life. Bova says a similar idea is the military motto of 'adapt, improvise and overcome' and he encourages you to really put the effort into your reading to suck the maximum juice out of what is on offer. Take the value out and combine it with other knowledge you value to create new understandings and distinctions.
2. 80% of conventional wisdom is wrong
This Spartan principle means you should never accept anything without questioning and testing it our for yourself. Go after the truth (not the comfortable version of it). Use Socratic method of thinking to examine the truth of what you are being told. You know if you watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" you get one side of an argument, if you watch C4's "The Global Warming Swindle" you get another dimension of argument... and you get insights into the level of disceptions that can go on all sides of an argument. Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson's School of Thinking is a valuable resource for challenging your way of thinking and going beyond casual thinking where you are spoonfed beliefs and opinions by those who seek to manipulate you for their own profit and power.
3. Basics are best, always seek simplicity.
The very word Spartan has become synonymous with the most simple, stripped bare essentials. The Spartan way involves a diet of simple, wholesome, unprocessed foods. In martial arts, they would focus on key fighting skills. In travellling, they would keep baggage to a minimum. They focused on efficiency and effectiveness. For brain training and creative training, what might be the key skills that we could focus on? For me, I think brainstorming, mind mapping and image streaming leap immediately to mind. These are key skills for accessing the creative parts of your mind and boosting intelligence. I would add to that the practice of notebooking -- this is an essential idea-capturing, feedback providing portable system that is also so very simple most people ignore it.
Designing your own Spartan Training program for YOUR Brain
If you want to design a training program for your brain, you need to stick to the Spartan principles and keep it simple and effective. Just as the Spartans would train their bodies everyday in basic exercises like squats, push ups, chin ups and dips, and practice their martial drills, swordplay and wrestling ... so to you need to focus on key mental practices.
What's your target? What do you want?
Let's use your goal-seeking mechanism -- your mind -- effectively. You need to get clear on what you are training your brain for.
Do you:
Want to improve your MEMORY?
Then practice memory exercises every day. Get Dominic O'Brien's Quantum Memory Power or Kevin Trudeau's MegaMemory programs and do the exercises every day until you have a phenomenal memory. Then keep practising to make it even better.
Want to become more CREATIVE?
Then read Win Wenger's The Einstein Factor and practice ImageStreaming for 20 minutes a day. Get a notebook and jot down all the ideas, observations and thoughts that come to you every day. Mindmap like Tony Buzan has been showing the world for years. It's such an easy way to unleash your creativity. Get together with your family or friends for regular deep thinking brainstorming sessions. Put your creative mind to use, record your ideas and your creativity will soar.
Want to become a better CRITICAL THINKER?
Then join Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson's FREE School of Thinking program and go through the daily exercises he emails out to you.
Want to become a brilliant BRAINTEASER whizz?
Then learn the strategies of how to figure out puzzles, mental quizzes and problems and get yourself a pile of brainteaser books. Do puzzles and logic problems and maths test every single day until you become brilliant at them -- and keep practising to get better and better.
Want to become a skillful STRATEGIST?
Break out the chess or Goh set and play every day. Pit your wits online against other players or join the chess club. Play online strategy and wargames every day. You get better at any skill by doing it every day, over and over. The Tibetan's have a saying, which I shall have to paraphrase, which basically says that everything is hard/confusing until you have done it enough times that it becomes easy/familiar.
Whatever mental skill you want to develop, just find some exercise that utilises that skill and practice every day. Keep it simple. Keep it Spartan.
Wily
Hmm...me thinks...I wonder if you could design a kind of Spartan 300 Training for the brain?
I like body weight exercises and am a big fan of Matthew Furey ... but just this week I discovered a whole host of other trainers than have impressed me.
Seems as though there are a lot of people out there searching for material on the training techniques used by the stars of the movie "300".
Check out this clip on YouTube to see just how hard they trained to sculpt the warrior physique look as seen in "300".
I found this great young guy Arnel Ricafranca who has produced a ton of free 'Spartan 300 training' videos and is cleverly marketing himself at: I want six pack abs.
And then I bought Ori Hofmeikler's book, "The Warrior Diet - How to take advantage of undereating and overeating." This has some revolutionary new ideas on diet and eating in it that I look forward to exploring and testing out....
Think the one that gave me the greatest "man buzz" (what the hell??) was getting Anthony Bova's Spartan Health regime... which really lays down the no-BS Spartan path and calls upon all your long-buried manly virtues of stoicism and sticktoitness (and those warrior queen virtues of all you Amazon kick-ass women reading this).
THE SPARTAN MINDSET
So all these training programs focus mainly on building physical health and super-fitness. But what about your mind? Could we incorporate Spartan principles in training your intelligence or for unleashing creative mindpower? Well, the Spartan's believed in 'a strong mind in a strong body' and are said to have had a devotion to the intellect as well as the body.
Anthony Bova lists 3 basic Spartan principles in his Spartan Health Training manual:
1. Take what works for you and reject what doesn't.
Essentially this means adopting an experimental approach to life and the accumulation of knowledge. Test things out in your own experience. Dump what doesn't work for you. Dump what doesn't add any value to your life. Bova says a similar idea is the military motto of 'adapt, improvise and overcome' and he encourages you to really put the effort into your reading to suck the maximum juice out of what is on offer. Take the value out and combine it with other knowledge you value to create new understandings and distinctions.
2. 80% of conventional wisdom is wrong
This Spartan principle means you should never accept anything without questioning and testing it our for yourself. Go after the truth (not the comfortable version of it). Use Socratic method of thinking to examine the truth of what you are being told. You know if you watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" you get one side of an argument, if you watch C4's "The Global Warming Swindle" you get another dimension of argument... and you get insights into the level of disceptions that can go on all sides of an argument. Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson's School of Thinking is a valuable resource for challenging your way of thinking and going beyond casual thinking where you are spoonfed beliefs and opinions by those who seek to manipulate you for their own profit and power.
3. Basics are best, always seek simplicity.
The very word Spartan has become synonymous with the most simple, stripped bare essentials. The Spartan way involves a diet of simple, wholesome, unprocessed foods. In martial arts, they would focus on key fighting skills. In travellling, they would keep baggage to a minimum. They focused on efficiency and effectiveness. For brain training and creative training, what might be the key skills that we could focus on? For me, I think brainstorming, mind mapping and image streaming leap immediately to mind. These are key skills for accessing the creative parts of your mind and boosting intelligence. I would add to that the practice of notebooking -- this is an essential idea-capturing, feedback providing portable system that is also so very simple most people ignore it.
Designing your own Spartan Training program for YOUR Brain
If you want to design a training program for your brain, you need to stick to the Spartan principles and keep it simple and effective. Just as the Spartans would train their bodies everyday in basic exercises like squats, push ups, chin ups and dips, and practice their martial drills, swordplay and wrestling ... so to you need to focus on key mental practices.
What's your target? What do you want?
Let's use your goal-seeking mechanism -- your mind -- effectively. You need to get clear on what you are training your brain for.
Do you:
Want to improve your MEMORY?
Then practice memory exercises every day. Get Dominic O'Brien's Quantum Memory Power or Kevin Trudeau's MegaMemory programs and do the exercises every day until you have a phenomenal memory. Then keep practising to make it even better.
Want to become more CREATIVE?
Then read Win Wenger's The Einstein Factor and practice ImageStreaming for 20 minutes a day. Get a notebook and jot down all the ideas, observations and thoughts that come to you every day. Mindmap like Tony Buzan has been showing the world for years. It's such an easy way to unleash your creativity. Get together with your family or friends for regular deep thinking brainstorming sessions. Put your creative mind to use, record your ideas and your creativity will soar.
Want to become a better CRITICAL THINKER?
Then join Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson's FREE School of Thinking program and go through the daily exercises he emails out to you.
Want to become a brilliant BRAINTEASER whizz?
Then learn the strategies of how to figure out puzzles, mental quizzes and problems and get yourself a pile of brainteaser books. Do puzzles and logic problems and maths test every single day until you become brilliant at them -- and keep practising to get better and better.
Want to become a skillful STRATEGIST?
Break out the chess or Goh set and play every day. Pit your wits online against other players or join the chess club. Play online strategy and wargames every day. You get better at any skill by doing it every day, over and over. The Tibetan's have a saying, which I shall have to paraphrase, which basically says that everything is hard/confusing until you have done it enough times that it becomes easy/familiar.
Whatever mental skill you want to develop, just find some exercise that utilises that skill and practice every day. Keep it simple. Keep it Spartan.
Wily
Labels: 300, brain training, spartan training
