Episode 1 - Welcome to Shaman Warrior

I just published the first episode of the podcast on Spreaker.  Hopefully in time I will learn how to get it onto other platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify etc.  But for now if you want to hear the first episode the link is just below

Shaman Warrior Episode 1

This first episode is really just an introduction into what the podcast and this blog is all about.

It's fairly simple really, it's about shamanism, and it's about warrior arts (martial arts), and how those two things intersect.

But nothing is ever simple is it? 

Shamanism is often misrepresented or misinterpreted or even appropriated as a term and used to describe things that are completely nothing to do with actual shamanism.  At the heart of shamanism is active experience with nature, experience that looks to gain insight, and ultimately which seeks for the practitioner to be entirely connected with nature so that they are undifferentiated from nature.  

Martial Arts can similarly cover a whole host of different subjects from self defence to military training and everything in between such as sport combat, hobby practice and personal development.

In many martial arts traditions there are aspects of training which could be said to be shamanic and this is what we are looking to delve deeper into.  These might include religious or meditative practices, rituals, symbols and more, they are often described as spiritual aspects or traditions and could include things like Qi Gong or Shen Gong in Chinese Styles, or various practices such as Mushin and Zazen in Japanese styles, and there will be more to look into from other regions and styles and traditions. 

I'm intentionally going to focus on practical aspects of training and experiences of training, myths and ideas within martial arts training, rather than look at lineages and history so much. 

I'm also going to keep episodes relatively short, under 1 hour certainly but around 30 minutes if possible. This should make episodes easy to digest.  Hopefully I'll be publishing a podcast episode every two to three weeks, and I'll look to bring in friends, students and those interested to tell their own experiences of the  spiritual, meditative and shamanic aspects of their training.