MindfulNews

Podcast 41 Keiran Keddle - Double K Gym

Podcast 40 with
former world Mauy Thai Champion Kieran Keddle
 
Double K’s Keiran
Keddle joins the podcast to talk about the biggest show in Muay Thai to hit
London.  June 20th will set
the stage for the inaugural Muay Thai Grand Prix  Featuring the best of British:
 
Check out the
podcast to hear us talk about:
 
-Kieran’s amazing
career that begun at the age of 12
-Being world
champion multiple times
-Kieran’s life in
Thailand to becoming one of the top coaches
-How the
relationship began with Team Tieu and Simon Jays
-We talk about the
upcoming ‘Revenge and Repeat’ fights on June 20th
 -4 years on, the repeat match between
Sallah Kalifa and Josh Turnbull
-The revenge match
between Annabelle and
-The revenge match
between Jamie Whelan and
-The rematch between
David Tieu and Shaun Wieldman
-4 man, Full Thai
rules tournament for the great £2k prize

PODCAST 39: Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents. Sam Himelstein talks about his new book.

Sam Himelstein is the author of two fantastic books on how to use and teach mindfulness to troubled youth.  He joins Team Renaissance to talk about his journey since leaving the Mind Body Awareness project and about his new book, Mindfulness-based substance abuse treatment for adolescents.  He is a licensed psychologist, an author, trainer, and researcher and is currently a Behavioral Health Clinician at the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center. A former troubled youth himself (listen to podcast 23), Sam explains how his new role allows him to spend more time doing what he is most passionate about in the prisons working face to face with the inmates there.  To get a bit of perspective on the trauma suffered by these youth, when asked by Sam how many have witnessed a murder first hand, almost 3/4 raise their hand. What kind of detrimental effect does that have on the human brain?

PODCAST 38: Floatation tank / isolation tank - Team Renaissance visit Floatworks

Team Renaissance return to Floatworks in Canary Wharf for our second visit. My first visit dates back to 2013 and was a very relaxing and pleasant experience.  I have now been meditating for 4 months and my goal this time was to purely focus on the breath and see if I could repeat my daily 20 min practice for a full hour in the confines of an Isolation tank.  The Isolation tank (or floatation tank, or the Sensory deprivation tank) is a fantastic tool to create an environment that you can find nowhere else in the world.  The water level is about knee high and is set to body temperature so that after 10 mins, you lose the sense of where your skin ends and where the water begins.  The water is full of about 1000 lbs of Epson salts, allowing the body to float. There is no sound, no light, no smell - no distractions. Although this was my second experience, I was still slightly nervous about spending a whole hour with my mind.  I first found about the tanks on Joe Rogan's podcast and have to credit him for this great journey.  Anh and I reflect on the podcast on our experiences of that day, from his 'almost' mini anxiety attack and my battle with the silicon ear buds (to keep out the salt water) that I struggled with.  We talk about about the spiritual side of spending quality time with the mind and have a fantastic conversation about the positive take aways.We introduce listeners through a 30 second mediation to show how easy it is, and also to highlight that just sitting silently is not meditation.  We also discuss the benefits of continued meditation that is so powerful that it is something Anh and I do everyday.  For all this and more, click on the media player above, or download the podcast episode in iTunes.

Podcast 37: The return of the Mind Body Awareness Project

Podcast 37: The return of the Mind Body Awareness ProjectExecutive Director, Roger Miller and Senior Instructor Micah Anderson join us to talk about the significant advances they have made since our last talk in early 2014.  These are they guys that are going into the prisons and through their own techniques, find ways to reach out and make a huge impact on the lives of these troubled youth.

PODCAST 36 - We guide best friend Eddie through his first 2 meditations - reactions and questions ensue...

This podcast begins immediately after Eddie's first mindful meditation.  The very brief 60 second excercise was sufficient to trigger the interest that allowed for the rest of the Podcast.  Meditation is not sitting silently, nor is it praying or doing anything remotely religious.  Eddie is one of my closest friends and introduced me to Eckhart Tolle's amazing book 'the Power of Now' almost a decade ago.  Having said that, he had never formerly meditated.  We wanted to convince him that the daily practice is different than just understanding the concept. Co-host Anh and I use this Podcast as a revision of what we have been learning but also to put it into practice. With the help of YouTube videos featuring Russell Simmons, Eckhart Tolle and Sam Harris (videos below) we break them down with our own comments and thoughts.  We never intended this to be a Podcast, but the experiment of guiding a 'newbie' through a meditation would be a great learning experience all-round.When trying to explain Mindfulness, what better way than to refer to the videos that have inspired us?  Below are the time stamps for when we discuss certain topics.  I have also added the videos that we are referring to and I would recommend everyone to watch. -What are the benefits of daily meditation? why is there unnecessary unhappiness in my life? what is a thought? : 31mins22secs  -Eddie is guided through his second meditation - listen in as we discuss his experience: 18min45sec-Whats the difference between being religious and being spiritual? 43min -Oprah interviews Eckhart Tolle about the ego: we discuss this: 44mins-Are we separate from our thoughts, the dissolving of the ego - self identification with the stream of thinking :47mins25secsRussell Simmons: 51mins someone who has all the money he needs, explains why the most important thing is being 'present' and this is also where happiness comes from. The final part of the podcast was really fun for me and its something we will be doing more of.  We play a video and pause it regularly to reflect and discuss the bits we find fascinating 1hour34mins.  The video below is the full length film that we are basing our comments on.

PODCAST 35: Action for Happiness Director - Dr Mark Williamson

The biggest challenge we face as humanity is our belief that our progress is tied to perpetual economic growth and consumption of stuff...It's not just killing our planet, it's killing us.' -8 mins 45I was fortunate enough to get some time with Action For Happiness Director, Dr Mark Williamson over a beer, following a talk he gave late 2014.  Following several email exchanges we were honoured to have Mark join us on the podcast.Mark has been Director of Action for Happiness since October 2010. Prior to this he has an amazing resume of education with an MBA from IMD business school, holds a PHD and 1st class Hons degree in Electronics and communications from Bristol uni and is a Sainsbury management fellow and chartered engineer. Mark spent nine years as a management consultant at Accenture. and before this he also worked for Hewlett Packard Labs and Orange. After more than a decade of corporate life, Mark decided to change direction and is now using his energy and leadership skills to help build a better society.

Podcast 34 : Dealing with death

Losing a loved one is a very tricky thing to deal with.  Team Renaissance are in the house to talk about dealing with death.  My granddad passed away last week and we discuss the difficulties of trying to find happiness and mindfulness during these stressful times. The daily meditations that I was becoming so used to doing were almost impossible to do once I found out my Pappy had passed.   This has only encouraged me further to improve my mediation abilities, especially to prepare me for these extreme situations.   As we talk about death, we also play some of Sam Harris' video on this subject and we also play some of Steve Job's Commencement 2005 speech where he too touches on the subject of death and life.  ''If you live each day as if it were your last, some day you'll be right''  Turn death into a motivator and a driver to exceed in life. Listen to the media player above for the full episode and also take a look at the videos below for amazing inspiration. 

PODCAST 33: British #1 Christi Brereton -Chaos Gym

Christi Brereton is the #1 British fighter at 55kg's and she's just defended her Title with a mega 4th round TKO at Unleashed IV in Telford.  A lovely honest podcast with an amazing woman and champion who is paving her own path to achieve her goals of becoming World Champ again. For me, she is the next Ronda Rousey of Muay Thai and it's a fighter that I am always very excited to watch.  Her last 3 fights have been wars in which she was victorious against the former English, European and world champion Alexis Roufus and also French Champion Soraya Bucherie who was 54 -4!  On the 30th November, she defeated Helen Wilson of Headhunters martial arts academy.  

PODCAST 32: Double K's Charlie 'Boy' Peters

Podcast 31 and the first in a series of fighter podcasts - Following the success of the Team Tieu interviews, I have had requests from listeners to have more similar style podcasts and I have been fortunate enough to meet the best British and European Muay Thai fighters- Our guest today, fights out of Double K gym and has an incredible 42 wins and 7 loses.  He last fought at the SUPER MTC show, where he battled it out to take the victory against Team Tieu's Baby faced assassin Carlton Lieu.  He is a fighter that truly encompasses all the qualities of one of the greats both inside and out of the ringListen in as Charlie breaks down the pieces that have contributed to his amazing career.  He left school at 16 and worked full time at Toni & Guy. Was an avid Rugby player but had to sacrifice this at it clashed with the hairdressing job. He was taken to his first Muay Thai class at Semtex Gym and this path led to him moving to Thailand where he fought 16 times.  What a way to be thrown in at the deep end - RespectWe talk about the influence  that 3 times Muay Thai World Champion Kieran Keddle has on Charlie to this day.Charlies' next big fight is coming up in February 2015 in Portugal, so we will be following that closely. 

PODCAST 31: Super MTC with Team Tieu

Team Tieu join the Renaissance team to talk about what went down at the biggest Muay Thai show in the UK.  We talk about the highlights of the day and some of the lessons learned.  With 8 A-class fights, 6 International fights and 3 title fights, Koko's in Camden was electric and packed out.   This one is not to be missed!MAIN CARD-Davide Scacco (Italy) vs to David Sa -Team Tieu Referee stoppage, fighter unable to continue-Reece Thompson, Mungkondam (20-6) vs Joseph Lasri (Italy) Team Tieu-Soraya Bucherie BMTC France (54-4) vs Christi Brereton, Chaos Gym England (15-4)  This was the highlight for me.  This International title fight went the distance with Christi demonstrating why she is the best in England and continues her amazing streak following her last amazing win against Alexis Roufus.-Ryan Ward, Stars Gym (5-0) vs Michael Pham, Team Tieu (9-4)-Sam Gough, Shin Kicks (9-2) vs Ryan Li , Team Tieu (10-1)-Andrea Castiglione, Thai Way Union Italy (16-4) vs Jose Valera, Team Tieu (27-9)-IIyess Bouzerouata, France vs Ash Uddin, KO Gym (12-5)-Charlie 'Boy' Peters, Double K Gym (36-7) Vs Carlton Lieu, Team Tieu 13-3