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When I started training Muay Thai a little over a year ago the first thing that struck me was how kind everyone was in the gym. There's something about training that hard that really starts to remove the ego. I've had a long standing, daily seated meditation practice, and it wasn't until I started training my body hard (first ashtanga style yoga, now muay thai) that the meditation practice really started to deepen.

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That's funny, I have exactly the opposite effect with meditation: in the last two years I have been following teachings with which I resonated a lot and helped my meditation deepen a lot, and I attribute my newfound sports skills to this deepening. I was able to run 20km 2 weeks after taking up jogging again after a few years break, which is a distance I never managed in the past. I can see how my meditative work helps me switch the perception of effort and push further than I ever thought possible. The work with pain, effort and strong emotions in boxing also has a lot of parallels with my seated meditation practice. There is definitely something to the stereotype of the martial artist meditating in a cave

For sure, they definitely feed into each other. The yoga practice got me to put that meditation practice into my body in a different way, as did the Muay Thai. Plus the physical practice opened and strengthened my body so I could sit comfortably in lotus for long periods of time. Before that my hips were tight and the first few years of daily seated practice were uncomfortable. I rarely if ever exercised previously.

Anyway, getting the meditation practice off of the cushion was what the physical practices taught me. It's like the story of the arrow making dakini [1], you've got to have the practice in all actions you take.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraha#The_Arrow_Making_Dakini

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