Jim Bathurst is the man behind Beast Skills, an incredible website featuring various amazing feats of strength and gymnastics skills, as well as user-friendly tutorials for all skill levels. The site, originally a blog started in November 2004, also features a training log, creative minimalist equipment ideas, pictures that will totally blow your mind, and suggestions on how to get started.

In addition to performing clapping handstand pushups and planches in his spare time, Jim Bathurst works as a personal trainer in downtown DC. I was lucky enough to get him on the phone at the end of October to ask him some questions.
Continue reading ‘Anatomy of A Beast’

MICHAEL JACO, originator of the first ever Hand to Hand/ Combat Fighting course for the Navy SEAL teams, holds 3 Navy Commendation Medals, 6 Good Conduct awards, and too many other ribbons, medals and awards to name from his 24-year military career

MARC MACYOUNG, publisher of ten books on surviving high-risk situations grew up on the blood-splattered streets of Los Angeles and has worked as a bodyguard, bouncer, security guard and director of a correctional institute.

DIRT TIME managed to catch these two warriors on July 7, 2005, for a fascinating telephone conversation on ego, fear and combat. What follows is a transcript of the call, which began with introductions…
Continue reading ‘Warrior Talk’

Had a tremendous experience one recent Saturday morning while in the woods at Mt. Bijia Park near our school here in Shenzhen, China. A few days before I had discovered this power spot for birds. It’s along a foot trail up the mountain where a few different habitats merge. The travels and habits of a number of different species converge here and I decided to check it out more thoroughly Saturday morning. It’s a kind of ley line intersection for birds.

One reason I returned to this spot was that I thought I glimpsed an orange-bellied sunbird there the previous week. It is one of the most colorful local birds and a real gem of the forest. Spotting and communing with these things really takes you into a deeper relationship with “place.” I think birds connect our inner qi with the outer qi. Somehow they link our microcosm with the macrocosm. Their songs, when listened to receptively, help reshape our jing and align it with the external jing, or essence of the place. This is why bird language and concentric rings (the behavior of birds in response to changes in their surroundings) were so important to the Native Americans, and other primitive cultures around the world. It is how we communicate with nature, just as internal alchemical cultivation enables us to communicate with nature.
Continue reading ‘Birds Sing of the Tao’

(Names of the questers and guides have been changed for privacy)

The journey begins before the sojourner might anticipate—at a luncheon in Minneapolis, a fundraiser for some young women who completed a year’s worth of training in a Women’s Rite of Passage. They are raising funds to complete their final ceremony in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Still on my juice fast in preparation for my Vision Quest, I enjoy meeting these young women, and touching on a piece within me that calls me to be a teacher or mentor to more women coming of age, to look inside themselves for their power, not without themselves into pop culture.A potluck dinner follows that evening.
Continue reading ‘Living the Sacred Dream of Life: The Journey Shield Vision Quest’