Most people that have trained in the martial arts for a time have had some type of external training - meaning training outside their typical location from people other than their typical instructor(s). These could be seminars or visiting another school, whether it's of a similar style or something completely different. There's a lot of value in learning different things, even the same things from different people. Everyone learns a bit differently and having another set of eyes watching over you can really hone your skills. This is why martial arts schools with several instructors (that are on the same page) often turn out better students than the schools with a single instructor. Along all of these lines is destination training. These opportunities can look very different - they may be a seminar series covering different topics or an intensive training focused on a single martial arts subject. The value here isn't just in getting other people to look over what you're doing - it goes so much deeper. When you travel for your training and stay overnight, it changes your mindset. You're typically with other people who are doing the same thing. Thus, everyone that is participating really values their training time. These events are rarely free, so you get people that have made a financial sacrifice to be there. Many of these events, maybe even most, are presented as a "camp" experience, either with people sleeping outside or in spartan conditions. Some involve sleeping in university dorms over the summer or in cabins. For many attendees, it's not the training that they find most valuable from these experiences but the relationships they build. When you get a group of martial artists together, they tend to talk about... martial arts. There's a lot of sharing that goes on outside the training space and this is just as much the reason everyone should attend such an event. For that reason we're hosting our own, held this year from July 8th - July 10th, 2016. You can learn more at MartialArtsWeekend.com Today's episode will talk about what we're doing, and why we're doing it, but it's not a commercial. Our format came out of a lot of discussion with martial artists about what they liked and didn't like from their destination training. Whether you have attended one of these sessions or not, or even if you have no interest in attending, you will still find today's episode valuable, so check it out.