The YAMA System

09/23/2026

Autumn is when nature begins to edit. The leaves fall, and summer cools as it prepares for winter. For over 20 years, Autumn workshops have been a favorite time to edit your mindset and prepare for the winter months.

Starting October 4th, Online Autumn Mindset workshops begin.
We start with Editing: letting the leaves fall from the tree.
A simple principle of "wisdom subtracts it rarely adds"

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A place to return to. Simple practices for movement, mindset, and longevity. It starts with one practice.

09/17/2026

I keep a dried sponge in my backpack because Yoda is unavailable
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08/11/2026

All this computer work has my eyesight go south. It's resulted in me sitting up front at some of these business seminars. It's all the same stuff though: limiting beliefs, "high-ticket", golf metaphors, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Headset mics, binders, nametags. It's like being backstage if the band was just an HR department. Playing their hit songs, "Thank god it's Friday" and "This place has great avocado toast."
Then a pop-up window came on the screen, and for the first time, it felt profound.
I wrote it down like it was a teaching. Finally, a bit of unique wisdom in this sea of cookie-cutter world of "authenticity."
It wasn't.
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08/03/2026

Have you seen my furrowed eyebrows? That's my happy face.

I was overwhelmed by beauty at a fitness club in Atlanta. So obviously, I blacked out and woke up in a cardio kickboxing class, where the gorgeous woman who had just asked me to spar was wearing a headset mic, saying, “Everyone welcome Matt today, it’s his first time!”

I couldn't just run, so I treated the class like a one-hour shadow boxing round. Throwing real extended punches and kicks.
Then came the line, “C’mon, smile, Matt.”
Sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone is saying, “No thanks. Hit me up after your class.”
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07/21/2026

New story just dropped! It's in honor of a conversation I had with an early martial arts master when I was a very emotional and angry child.
A fable about emotional regulation, but it never says stuff like, “emotional regulation.”
A boy learns to take every feeling to a secret lake, where it forms a stone at his feet. He throws the stone into the water, feels the ripples, and waits for the lake to become still as glass again.
Then he grows up, gets busy, and stops listening.
When he finally returns, the lake is full of jet skis, smoke, noise, and what appears to be a “good times gang” just consuming the lake.
The story is called Still Like Glass: When Listening Returns.
It is about what happens when we can no longer feel our own ripples, and what it takes to become still again.

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07/02/2026

I was 13 years old and drowning in dirty dishes on my first night at an '80s Panhandle restaurant. No motivational meeting was going to save me. What saved me was a juvenile delinquent named Ricky, who walked into the dish room in a spotless white shirt and blew out every dish in the place while trash-talking the whole time.
That was the day I learned the difference between being told how to do something and being shown. My martial arts teachers had a word for it: transmission. The lowest form of teaching is standing in front of people and telling them what to do. The highest form is transmitting through experience.
This piece is about the executives who pumped me up with hype and empty words, and the criminal who actually taught me. It's about why the paper awards and drink tickets given out at company meetings will never replace the moment a real practitioner shows you what excellence looks like. And it's about what I now call The Ricky Effect — the mark a true warrior leaves on you when he does the work in front of you and lets the transmission happen.
If you've ever sat through a self-development seminar that felt like hype without substance, or worked for a company that called itself a family while forgetting to pay you like one, you'll recognize both sides of this story. [link in comments]

06/09/2026

When I was about 15, I snuck into a jazz after-party in a city I didn't live in, pretending I knew about music I had no business talking about.
An old piano legend sat down and started playing. Drooling, sweating, snarling, and grunting along with whatever his hands were doing. I squeezed into a chair by the piano so I could watch as he put out more energy than most punk bands.
When he was done, he looked over at me and asked me two questions.
I'm still working on the answers.
New piece up — link in comments.

06/03/2026

I wrote a menu of ways to render a human unconscious.
There's the punch — a tap on the chin and the body goes down like a pile of skin-laundry.
There's cutting off blood or oxygen, courtesy of a bouncer I can only describe as a python in cargo pants.
There's the slow ones, where the vitals just quietly evaporate.
And then there's the method that got me into this whole thing: too much information. The truckload of wood dumped on a lit match.
Then there's the one happening to you as you read this.
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05/27/2026

At 6:30 pm PST tonight, I'm going live with a favorite mindset practice, which I personally teach and do at least twice a day: Clearing the Room.
Here's how you get it very simply
1. If you are a member and have the Yama Practice Library, log in to the Yama System [link in comments]. If you are not, get it. [link in comments] and sign up by clicking "begin here". It's free, and don't forget to check the newsletter box so we can communicate, and you can get links.
2. Go to "YOUR PRACTICES."
3. Scroll down to "YAMA PRACTICE LIBRARY" and click BEGIN
4. You will see a green button with the Zoom Link at the top of the page. CLICK IT and join us.
See you at 6:30 pm PST. Have something to write things down. This is a simple practice, and I promise the one thing I always promise: You will leave with something to practice. It's up to you to do that part.

05/26/2026

Clear Heads Sell Out Rooms

The kid stops by the old man's place on his way out of town. His band’s first real show. Opening spot, three states away, in front of people he’s never met.
The house smells like cardamom coffee, old books, tube amps, and leather that has played more shows with more bands than the kid even cares to know. There’s an area on the back porch where he grows mescal and pe**te cactus, though the kid doesn’t know what those are yet. The kid flops down on the couch and starts scrolling.
The old man asks, “You good? Is that important?”
“Yeah. It’s about this gig.”
“What's the gig?”
“Opening slot. I don't know anybody there. Nobody's gonna come out for us.”
The old man points at a framed flyer from a basement show in 1986. Not sold out; no one really came out.
“Good, enjoy these shows, and save the flyer.”
“Why is that one framed and not any of your huge sold-out shows?”
“Hipster high ground. The masses don’t know what’s good; they just do what they’re told. That flyer is to music as buying Apple stock in the 80s is to tech.”
The old man pours some tea.
“You know why you don't know anybody?”
“Because it's my first show out of town.”
“No. You don't know anybody because you're full. You care too much about who cares. Your mind is like a room that’s packed with other people and other s**t that you think is important.”
“I just want to do good. We got lucky on this gig.”
“Yeah, but you're not here right now. You're on your phone, stressing out, and you think you’re on my couch, but in your mind, you’re onstage already bombing. You got lucky; say thanks, but they did too. They found a band that’s willing to travel for free and just play for exposure.”

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