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Samurai Mind Training for Modern American Warriors
Time ^ | 9-6-09 | Bonnie Rochman

Posted on 09/06/2009 4:30:06 AM PDT by kingattax

Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."

Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different — dare we say harder? — than pounding out the push-ups.

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
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1 posted on 09/06/2009 4:30:07 AM PDT by kingattax
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To: kingattax

I thought that is what hookers near the base was for, to ease mental anguish! But, I am for whatever helps reduce the stress associated with combat.


2 posted on 09/06/2009 4:33:01 AM PDT by MAD-AS-HELL (Hope and Change. Rhetoric embraced by the Insane - Obama, The Chump in Charge)
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To: kingattax
Repeat of a similar program run during the early 80s. It had mixed success and reviews.
A big problem was how to quantitatively gauge success.
3 posted on 09/06/2009 4:46:20 AM PDT by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus)
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To: MAD-AS-HELL

The thing is post traumatic stress is natural.

Your survival mechanism of your brain WANTS you to remember near death experience. It wants to remember so you don’t go to the place, or do the thing again that almost got you killed.


4 posted on 09/06/2009 5:00:09 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: kingattax
Samurais were aliens, because their swords could not be made by human methods.

I learned this after 9/11, when Rosie O'Donnell said that 9/11 was an inside job, because before that, there had never been a case in which fire had melted steel. So how then did Samurais make swords? Answer: they had to be aliens.

5 posted on 09/06/2009 5:18:59 AM PDT by Koblenz (The Dem Platform, condensed: 1. Tax and Spend. 2. Cut and Run. 3. Man on Man)
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To: kingattax

Sounds like the next step in political correctness philosophy.
I’ve been through it all and I do not want to forget any of the horrors experienced.
Escaping death once hones your ability to escape it a second time and a third.


6 posted on 09/06/2009 5:20:23 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Obama's New New Deal = The Raw Deal)
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To: kingattax
"This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class .. at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout." ... Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California.

Only a California female could consider navel gazing "a workout". So yep, I have my doubts about this 'program' as IMHO she's missing the whole concept of what a Samurai was.

(It was a way of life, not something the Japanese took classes in for a few weeks)

7 posted on 09/06/2009 5:29:12 AM PDT by Condor51 (The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits)
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To: kingattax

So when does the First Earth Battalion get activated?


8 posted on 09/06/2009 5:34:11 AM PDT by MadJack ("Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." (Afghan proverb))
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To: kingattax

This is the same Jedi Warrior garbage we went through as part of training for strategic Recon missions.


9 posted on 09/06/2009 6:05:08 AM PDT by Sarajevo (You're jealous because the voices only talk to me.)
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To: Condor51
Only a California female could consider navel gazing "a workout".

I LOL'd at this AND your profile page:)

10 posted on 09/06/2009 6:09:00 AM PDT by Sarajevo (You're jealous because the voices only talk to me.)
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To: kingattax
You must study Samurai Lapin, my brothers. Learn from the master and you will not know defeat.
11 posted on 09/06/2009 6:42:08 AM PDT by Sender (It's never too late to be who you could have been.)
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To: BuffaloJack

We dont get PTSD we give it.


12 posted on 09/06/2009 7:28:01 AM PDT by Milita volunteer
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To: kingattax

How come Chesty Puller and Audie Murphy didn’t need to crap?


13 posted on 09/06/2009 8:15:39 AM PDT by JimC214
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