The Yielding Warrior: How Meditative Arts Build Awareness, Strength & Flow with Jeff Patterson

In this episode of The Daring Well Podcast, I sit down with Jeff Patterson, founder of the Northwest Fighting Arts Academy and creator of The Yielding Warrior Method. With over 36 years in meditative and martial arts, Jeff shares how his journey began in an unexpected place — a boxing gym — and ultimately led to a lifelong mission to help others cultivate clarity, presence, and performance through the meditative arts.

We explore the three pillars of yielding — physical, mental, and emotional — and how they help us navigate stress, conversations, relationships, burnout, and even high-performance environments. Whether you're an athlete, entrepreneur, leader, or someone seeking deeper peace, this episode offers practical tools to reconnect with your body, regulate your energy, and build a sustainable inner practice.

From the seven-link system to the five paths of meditation, Jeff breaks down big concepts into accessible wisdom that anyone can apply. We end with the unforgettable Stonecutter Story — a powerful lesson in consistency and transformation beneath the surface.

🔑 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How boxing unexpectedly led Jeff into meditation and Tai Chi
• The real definition of yielding — and why it’s a strategy, not surrender
• The 3 pillars of yielding: physical, mental, & emotional awareness
• Why high performers burn out — and how meditation helps regulate energy
• The five paths of a meditation journey (performance, therapeutic, medical, philosophical, spiritual)
• What it means to tap into flow state — and how to access it
• Why morning rituals are more powerful than routines
• The Stonecutter Story — a metaphor for consistency and unseen transformation
• How meditation helps you reconnect with who you truly are
• Ways to begin your own meditation practice — with purpose & structure

🧘‍♂️ The Three Pillars of Yielding - What It Teaches

Physical Yielding | Body awareness, breath, balance, responsiveness
Mental Yielding | Communication, negotiation, emotional intelligence
Emotional Yielding | Inner regulation, response > reaction, clarity

📌 Quote Worth Remembering

“It wasn’t that strike that broke the stone —
it was the thousands of strikes before it.”

— The Stonecutter Story (Jeff Patterson)

🔗 Connect with Jeff Patterson

Visit: https://theyieldingwarrior.com/
📚 Free book :https://book.theyieldingwarrior.com/new-free-plus-shipping
🎥 Online programs + two-week free trial
📍 In-person academy located in Portland, Oregon

💭 Reflective Question for Listeners

What might change in your life if you started each day with presence instead of pressure?

🧭 Episode Timestamps

Time          Topic

00:10:58 | Jeff’s boxing story & surprising advice
00:13:30 | What is a Yielding Warrior?
00:19:10 | Burnout & high performers
00:22:15 | The five paths of meditation
00:24:05 | Flow state explained
00:27:00 | Morning ritual benefits
00:34:47 | The Stonecutter Story
00:39:01 | Final wisdom & encouragement

🎧 Listen,

Transcript

00:00

Jeff's Meditative Journey

Welcome to The Daring Well Podcast with Rita Mercer.

Dalai Lama once said that everybody should meditate for 20 minutes a day, and unless you're too busy, then you should meditate for an hour. And, you know, we all owe it to ourselves to stay connected to who we really are.

And this is one of those things that helps us do that.

Well, welcome, Jeff. Thank you so much for joining The Daring Well Podcast. I'm so glad for you to be here today.

And for our listeners today, I want to introduce Jeff to you. So Jeff Patterson, he has over 36 years of experience practicing and teaching the meditative and martial arts.

So he's also the founder of the Northwest Fighting Arts in Portland, as well teaching Tai Chi, the Tai Chi Academy and also The Yielding Warrior. So a lot of accolades, but again, welcome, Jeff. Thank you so much for joining.

I'd love for you to give more about your expertise and your background and also your why before we jump into today's talk. Yeah.

First of all, thank you very much for having me here. But you know, I was introduced to the meditative arts in a bit of a roundabout way in that as a young guy, I was very much into Western boxing.

And I used to go to a boxing gym just a few blocks down the street here from my academy in Portland.

And at a boxing gym, for those of you that aren't familiar with the traditional style boxing gym, they run a lot different than your normal fitness style classes in that it's not one teacher up in front of a group of students running a class.

There's usually a handful of coaches running around, and each one of those coaches will have a few fighters that they're working with. Well, at this one particular gym, one of the coaches there was an extremely well-known coach.

He had created champions on both the amateur and the professional arena, and I really wanted to get to spend some time with him, but he wasn't looking to take on any new athletes.

So I would always show up at the gym when I knew he was going to be there. I'd work hard. I'd try to get him to notice me.

After following him around for about three or four months, he finally started giving me some tips and showing me a few things.

And after about two weeks of having him help me out, he said something to me that changed my life forever, and that he said, you know, if you really want to be a good boxer, you should start doing meditation and Tai Chi.

Now, here I am, this 19 year old kid thinking that Tai Chi was for old people in the park, and had no clue of anything about why I would do this. And I took on the practice because I knew he was trying to help me.

And not only have I witnessed it change my life in many ways throughout the years, but I've had thousands of students through the years come through my academy and through my online programs.

And I've heard hundreds of stories of how the meditative arts has positively influenced people's lives.

And that's what makes me so passionate about writing my last few books and creating my online programs and just trying to help as many people as I can with the practice.

Yeah.

3:26

The Yielding Warrior Defined

Yeah. So started out very young, your interest in the meditative arts.

Yes.

And so fast forward to today, as we're talking today about being the Yielded Warrior. So I think even before we kind of, I guess, set the stage and the tone for talk today, can you share more about like, what is defining the Yielded Warrior?

Because I think some of the questions will seem off place if we don't kind of define like, what is the Yielded Warrior?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, so many times through the years, when I talk about yielding, people get the wrong interpretation of the meaning behind it.

You know, they think of yielding as giving up or just being passive. And yielding is very strategic. In fact, it's used in athletics and wartime strategy all the time.

And you know, it doesn't get more aggressive than wartime strategy, but they're using the idea of yielding in how to strategize and how to defeat people on the combat field.

And so within yielding, to kind of give you an idea, we break it down into three main categories. We have physical yielding, mental yielding, and emotional yielding.

Physical yielding, the basic idea is that we learn how to have a good foundation, how to relax the body, how to be more present, how to be in tune with our breath, and how to be aware of all of the things that are going on in the body.

And in doing this, it allows us to be more responsive. And the basic idea is that, say I push you, you push me, whoever is the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage eventually is going to push the other person over.

But with yielding, instead of us trying to see who the bigger meathead is, when you push me, I get out of the way of that force, and now I can respond with less effort.

And in doing this, in training and doing these meditative practices, because of our heightened awareness and our ability to see these things more clearly inside of ourselves, not only does it allow us to be more strategic and more successful on the

physical front, but it also starts helping us with our strategy and our thoughts, and this is where we start moving into mental yielding. And mental yielding is the idea of how we can use this in conversations, in negotiations, in sales.

And I mean, there's so many applications on how we can integrate mental yielding.

And, you know, if you and I are having a conversation, for example, and I say something that unsettles you, and I pick up on it right from that first sign of imbalance, it's a lot easier at that point to adjust the conversation and keep us on a

harmonious path. Then if I'm not paying attention to that, and pretty soon I'm so far off track, you want to knock me upside the head.

And so learning how to use yielding and paying attention to these subtle imbalances that happen every day in communication allows us to navigate and guide these waters and lead conversations, lead relationships, lead interactions to a positive

outcome with the least amount of resistance. You know, and this is beneficial in so many different areas in our life. And then we move into what we call emotional yielding.

And this is similar to mental yielding, but with our own interpersonal conflicts. So, you think about oftentimes, something will happen to us, and we'll respond, and we'll go down this path.

And we might get an hour, a day, a week down the road and realize maybe that wasn't the best choice. But with yielding and our heightened awareness through doing these meditative practices, we're able to stay more present and sit back.

And when these things happen, not let our emotions get involved, and make a more educated decision, so it'll save us a lot of heartache on the other side.

And so, you know, within these three pillars of yielding, you can see how they can be applied in many different areas in life. And you know, I've been explaining this idea of yielding now for many years.

I've been running my academy for 30 years here in Portland. And one of the most common things I'll hear people say is, yielding makes a lot of sense. And in fact, I do yielding all the time.

Well, I would agree in that I think everybody does some degree of yielding all the time.

However, it's kind of like if you or I were to walk into a crime scene with a detective who's been on the job for 30 years, I guarantee you that person would see things about the series of events and the timeline that I know at least I would have no

clue of. And the meditative arts helps us see things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that I truly believe most people will go through life and never have any clue of without a practice like this in their life.

And that's how one of the many ways this can be so valuable.

8:39

Meditation for High Performance

Wow.

Wow. Thank you for walking through those three pillars of breaking down, like, what is the yielding warrior from a holistic perspective? So the physical, the emotional, the mental, that's powerful.

And just how it can show up in our interpersonalized and intrapersonalized conversations, relationships, even at work. So I think let's think about that too.

So when you think about high performers, when they are struggling with like burnout and not tuned into themselves or tuned into, as you say, conversations or relationships, how do high performers, how do they burn out?

And like, what's a better way for them to unlock a new path for growth?

There's so many professional athletes these days that are turning to the Meditative Arts because they help with a number of different things, burnout being one of them, but also teaching them how to get into that place where they're in that flow

state. The Meditative Arts expands that awareness and sensitivity so we can perform on a more clear, higher level and elevate that energy in our practice.

One of the basic systems that I have people follow is the Seven Links system that teaches people how to establish the foundation, get correct alignment, relax the body. From the relaxation of the body, we go into the breath.

From the breath, we go into how the energy circulates in the body and then into the mental control and then into the spiritual elevation of energy. And so with along these seven links of practice, they help us, one, be more in tune with the body.

They help us perform at a higher level. And from the sense of burnout, you know, a lot of times people get over exhausted and you know, they're just grinding all the time and they don't spend any time to recharge physically and mentally.

The meditative arts is one of those things that helps us see that inside of our bodies, physically and mentally and spiritually.

And by having a more heightened sense of awareness in these three areas, we're able to control and regulate these things and know when we need to recharge and know when we need to kind of settle down and put the phone away and not be looking at

screen time and have those moments where we can stay connected to our true purpose and who we really are. You know, there's so many benefits of the meditative practice. This is just kind of touching on one path of the development.

Within meditation, I find that people come to the practice for many different reasons. And I've kind of broken it down into five main paths that people will follow with their meditation journey.

And one would be the performance side, which we're kind of touching on. Then there's the therapeutic side, that help with our overall health and longevity and mobility.

There's the medical side, which, you know, all of Chinese medicine is based off of Qigong theory, which is a meditative practice and has been around for thousands of years.

Then there's the philosophical side of the practice, which is always been something I've been very passionate about because I love how it opens up your peripheral vision and helps you see things from multiple angles, which allows you to be more

strategic. And then lastly, we have the spiritual side of the practice, which is very profound as well. And so, as you enter into a meditation journey, you might resonate more towards one of those five paths than the other four, and that's okay.

We start integrating whatever it is of all the stressors and things that they have to do during the day.

The morning time is one of the most valuable times I feel in the meditation practice, in cultivating a lifetime journey around meditation, in that it's one of those times where your mind is the least distracted.

So take advantage of that time, and when you get up, don't reach for your cell phone.

Get up and do some breathing, do a movement practice, do some stretching, work some positive affirmations, and train the mind to think about things in a strategic way.

You could have different mantras that you say, or different sayings that you memorize, or even just positive affirmations that you go through. Because, you know, the mind is like a muscle.

And if we get up, and the first thing we do is we start thinking about all the stresses that we have to do all day long. We start getting in this reactive state that causes us to bleed over into every moment of the day thereafter.

But if we start training ourselves consistently to get up in the morning, think positive, think about all the things that are going on that are on the lighter side, reconnecting with who we are, being present in the moment, and tapping into maybe

some breath work or a movement practice, this could be a huge game changer for a lot of people because I think a lot of us are missing that connection. You know, and the Dalai Lama once said that everybody should meditate for 20 minutes a day, and

unless you're too busy, then you should meditate for an hour. And, you know, we all owe it to ourselves to stay connected to who we really are.

And this is one of those things that helps us do that because, you know, we get so caught up in the day-to-day activities and things that we have going on. A lot of times we kind of lose track of who we really are at the core.

And having meditation in your life helps you stay connected, stay rooted, have that foundation, be present, and respond with clarity instead of a reactionary defensive response.

That's powerful, Jeff. Yeah, because I think so many times you said we're always reaching for the phone. We're already ramped up as we're thinking about the things that I gotta get done for the day, the busy list.

But just pausing and just to reset as you're starting your day, starting with positive affirmations and using it as a way to, as you say, stay connected, I think that's really powerful to who we really are. That's powerful.

So one of the benefits sounds like, of many benefits of Meditative Arts. Yeah.

15:27

Starting a Meditation Practice

Cool.

Cool.

As we wrap up today, I've definitely enjoyed our conversation. It's been so rich to learn more about the depth of Meditative Arts and the benefits of Tai Chi, the benefits.

We actually really talked too much about Tai Chi, but actually, would you like to share a little bit about Tai Chi?

Yeah. Tai Chi is one of the many Meditative Arts.

So, you know, whether it's a movement practice like Tai Chi or Qigong or yoga or still practice like sitting meditation, standing meditation, breath work, studying philosophical ideas, all of these things are part of the meditation practice.

And so when we start to cultivate a practice and integrate meditation into our life, we're going to pick things from all of these areas that fit our journey on whatever path that we want to do.

And, you know, through the years, one of the most common things I'll hear people say is, I've tried meditation, but it just didn't work for me. I couldn't quiet my mind or I don't have time to meditate.

You know, I feel like if you're thinking about taking on a meditation practice, it's really important to approach it with the right mindset.

And for me, teaching over 30 years, one of the most difficult things that I've found is, how do I get a new student to see the value in this practice so they use it and benefit from it and see all of the, you know, the many treasures that it has to

offer? And so I've come up with three considerations that I like to teach people when they first come to the practice. And I find that if they do spend time in these three areas, that they're so much more likely to be successful with the practice.

The first one is thinking about what is it that's inspiring them or drawing them to start a meditation practice? Is it that they want to stay healthy into their later years to watch their grandkids grow up?

Or maybe they have a stress disorder and they want to use the practice so they feel more comfortable in their own skin? Or maybe they're an athlete or a performer and they want to improve their performance.

And once they have this idea, then I like them to take it a step further and think of 10 or 20 things that will be positively influenced by them accomplishing this goal and doing this practice.

Maybe it's their interpersonal communication, their relationships with others, their improvement at work, their improvement in their performance, their overall mobility and health, whatever it is, and they'll go through and they'll magnify this list

and come up with 10 or 20 things that help it have more depth and value. Then I like them to flip the coin and if they don't do this and they don't take on this practice, what are 10 or 20 negative things that will be influenced by them not taking on

this practice? And in doing this, it gives them the fuel for those days that we all see when the alarm goes off and we don't want to get up and do the practice and we're tempted to hit the snooze button.

It starts changing our mindset to look at our meditation practice as something we get to do versus something that we have to do or a chore. And when you can make this mental shift, it's very powerful.

The second consideration, and this is probably the most valuable idea when it comes to starting a meditation practice is the importance of consistency. And there's this old Chinese story that I really enjoy that illustrates this idea very well.

And it's about this old stonecutter who is very well known all over China for his sculptures of animals and landscapes and his ability to create this work that's just extremely unique and detailed.

And anytime anybody sees his work anywhere, they just know it's his. And because of this, he'll have people from all over the country that will want to come stay with him for a few years at a time to study with him and learn the trade.

Well, every day, the stonecutter goes down to the river and begins his day with a meditation session.

One day after his meditation, the stonecutter is walking along the river, and he has this profound vision of this big, six-foot-tall mystical Chinese Jade Dragon.

And he's so taken by this dragon that he just knew that this has to be his next project. So, he spends the next few months traveling all around, looking for the perfect stone for his new piece of work.

Finally, when he finds the stone, he takes it back to his place, and he spends the next period of time, day in and out, just sitting with the stone, feeling the energy and trying to envision how this dragon is soon to appear.

One day, he picks up his chisel and his hammer, he carefully places it on the back side of the stone and starts tapping away, hundreds if not thousands of times to the exact same spot, but no change.

A few days went by, hundreds and thousands more times back to that same spot, nothing.

A few more days went by, repeating every day the same process, and finally some of his princesses started kind of second-guessing him and thinking maybe he should try something else.

A few more days went by and thousands more taps to the chisel, and finally he hits the stone, and this big three-foot section of the stone separates and creates this smooth, slightly curved line.

One of his apprentices who was watching said, how did you know that that strike was going to break the stone? And the stonecutter said, it wasn't that strike that broke the stone. It was the thousands of strikes before it that broke the stone.

Wow.

And with a bit of a discouraged tone, the apprentice said, but I've been watching you, and there was no change.

Why not try something else? The stonecutter got down on one knee, and he felt the smooth line that he just created. And he said, each strike was not wasted.

The stone was changing beneath the surface. And not only was the stone being formed, so was the one who wields the hammer. And the reason why I resonate so well with his story is that this is the meditative journey.

We're studying these breathing strategies and these movement practices and studying these philosophical concepts. And we don't always see the change happening day to day.

But through our consistency and our effort, we're laying the foundation to benefit from the fruits of our practice for the rest of our life. And so having a good grasp on this concept is extremely important when you begin.

And then the last pillar is understanding that you need to find a guide. This is an extremely deep journey in practice. I've been studying for 36 years and I'm still just a student learning all the time.

And if you think that you're going to sift through the millions of videos out there on YouTube and read books and figure out how to get any depth in your practice, you're going to waste a lot of time.

And in fact, you know, I've had students come into the academy that have been self-taught. Some of them have trained for 15, even 20 years.

And, you know, they're barely scratching the surface on what they could have done if they would have just been pointed in the right direction.

And so if you think about your why, understand consistency, find a guide, have somebody in your corner that can help point you in the right direction, you're so much more likely to reap all the benefits of this practice and have a great journey in

I love that you walked us through those different pieces because I think it's important to understand when you're starting a new practice, a new healthy habit of like having a structure around it and having a deep meaning for it.

Because otherwise it's just like here today, gone tomorrow, kind of like a New Year's resolution, nothing that sticks. But I love that you gave that story that will forever be etched in my mind. That was powerful.

So as we wrap up, Jeff, what are some words of wisdom that you would like to lead the listeners with before we wrap up today?

I think if you have any inclination at all to want to start a meditation practice, or even if you don't, if you can find the inspiration and the motivation to do it.

If you just devoted 20 minutes a day, which everybody can do, and you keep that up every day for a year, I guarantee you, you'll do it for the rest of your life, because you'll see so many benefits from the practice, it'll be one of the best things

you've ever done for yourself. And so I can't recommend it more, and that's why I'm out here doing these podcasts, because if I can just influence one person to take on the practice, then it was worth my time doing it.

Okay, okay, yeah, I definitely have learned Tai Chi, but as you said, I've been learning from little pieces here and there, and just trying to bit piece it together. So I love the way that it sounds like your system is structured.

So share more about how people can connect with you if they want to join the academy, if they want to learn and go deeper in either performance. Let's see, what was the other tabs that you said?

Paths, performance, psychological, medical, philosophical, spiritual. Did I hit all the five paths?

Yeah. So yeah, so you know, we have a physical location here in Portland, Oregon. I have my website, theyieldingwarrior.com.

There you can get access to me. I also have a two-week trial up there where you can check out one of our online memberships there for a couple weeks and kind of get introduced to some of these strategies and concepts.

Right now, I'm giving away a free copy of my most recent book, The Yielding Warrior. If you just go to theyieldingwarrior.com/book, just pay for shipping and handling. We'll send you out a free copy.

And if you don't want a physical copy, you can download a free digital copy off the website.

And my stay tuned for my new book coming out here later this year called The Yielding Athlete geared around performance and the flow state as we touched on and different strategies and methods that you can use to enhance your performance.

Cool. Well, I'm excited to definitely get the book. And so I'm curious about like, will people actually be able to work with you directly or will they just be working with one of the people that you've trained like one of your apprentices?

I'm curious just for me. I'm asking for me.

So it's all with me, but it's pre-recorded content.

Okay.

So it's a system that teaches you how to navigate what path you want to follow, what practices you should integrate, going into some of the philosophy and how you can start to build an evolving life practice.

And I've got over probably 20 years worth of content recorded up there. So there's endless content that you can get into from the program.

So the listeners can binge on your information and go at their own pace. I think that's really beautiful too. Sweet.

Well, awesome. Well, thank you again, Jeff, for joining The Daring Well Podcast. I'm so grateful for just having this conversation, learning how to increase performance, awareness, and just how to just stay grounded and rooted.

And so in the meditative arts and such, I love that today. So for listeners, thank you again for listening. Thank you for tuning in.

Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe wherever you're listening to this episode, wishing you a fabulous day. Until next time, keep living, keep loving, and keep daring well. Take care guys.

God bless. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of The Daring Well Podcast.

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