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249: Self-Defense Strategies with Sensei Ando Mierzwa

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“Your smile is your shield and your sword.” That’s just one of many wisdom gems from today’s guest and longtime Pivot advocate, Sensei Ando Mierzwa.

He’s sharing many of the principles from his free self-defense basics course on turning intuition into action, the importance of projecting (and feeling!) confident, ignoring social niceties when it comes to making “bad guys” uncomfortable, and how to maintain a zen state even in tense situations. I hope you love this conversation as much as I did!

Ando’s Free Course: Self-Defense Basics

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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/249

More About Ando Mierzwa

Ando Mierzwa has been training in Martial Arts for over 30 years. He shares his experiences on his podcast Fight for a Happy Life.

Along the way, he's earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do (his first art) and an 8th-degree black belt in Kung Fu San Soo (his main art for over 25 years).

His has also dabbled in BJJ, Systema, Aikido, and Karate, but at this point, he can just say he's a martial artist.

For the last 14 years, he's served as Program Director at Dawn Barnes Karate Kids in Los Angeles. The kids call him “Sensei Ando” and the name stuck. (And if there’s anything more rewarding than teaching kids to stand up for themselves, he haven’t found it!)

Topics We Cover

  • [2:58] Self-defense is for everyone; anything you do to improve your health, your safety, your happiness — another branch of self-reliance

  • [6:07] Why do we avoid learning self-defense?

  • [6:20] The power of a smile. How to take a "punch". Fighting is not a dirty word.

  • [7:09] No one has a right to shrink your personage - you have a natural right to fight for yourself

  • [8:32] Self-defense is about love

  • [9:52] Prevention/avoidance is the first, most important part of self-defense

  • [15:19] Stress is an alarm

  • [16:28] Turn your intuition into action

  • [18:56] Train yourself to take control of high-risk situations by taking control of low-risk situations.

  • [21:33] Good things happen when you smile first - tool that projects a signal into the world that you're confident, secure, have strengths, accepted life, in flow, creative, can see and feel more

  • [25:57] Idea is to have a full spectrum, every option available to you — problem is when you are reactive, start a cascade of consequences out of habit

  • [27:14] If you always just do one thing, it's a coin flip

  • [27:24] Floating in a zen state, seeing things as objectively as I can - have the wisdom in the moment, ego out of the way, to choose the right tool at the right time

  • [29:51] As a professional human being, you should be prepared for any situation

  • [33:00] Real bad guys are making you uncomfortable on purpose, it's a tool in their toolbox, it's a strategy

  • [50:08] There is no losing, there is no failing; only learning and empowering ourselves moving forward

  • [53:47] What is important? What do you need? What do you want?

Resources Mentioned

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