Rodney King On Life, Martial Arts & The Future Of The CMD-MA Life Program!

Thank you for visiting the home of the CMD® Program

MY STORY

Like all of us I have my own story of trials and tribulations.

Growing up on the South Side of Johannesburg in government housing, I was severelyrodney_ma_life_approach.png bullied both in my neighborhood as well as at school.

Growing up in a single parent home with an abusive, alcoholic mother did not help matters much either. My mother was unsupportive of my martial arts training and I had to sneak out just to go and train.  I spent most of my childhood years alone, too embarrassed to bring anyone home in part because my mother was often drunk, but also because I grew up relatively poor.  Just shortly after my 17th birthday I was kicked out of the house and found myself roaming the streets and sleeping on the proverbial park bench.

When I was young I lived with uncontrollable fear.  In later years I learned to stand up for myself and my fear turned into anger and rage.  I spent well over ten years fighting at any and every opportunity.  If it wasn’t in the ring, it was in my own gym or outside the doors of some of Johannesburg’s roughest nightclubs as a doorman.

Several years ago I had what you could only describe as a transpersonal experience.

What went before this experience forced me to ask some very hard but profound questions of myself.  I couldn’t answer these questions immediately.  In fact I fought them as hard as I could.  It was a few more years before I was truly able to answer these questions with humility and honesty.

One of the most profound questions that arose was this:

“If my body is the outward manifestation of my consciousness, what does it say about me that out of all the things I chose to do, I chose martial arts?  An activity that in reality - and no matter how nicely I would like to explain it away as self-defense, sport or otherwise – is ultimately about physical dominance over another human being?”

The answer to this and many other questions helped me redefine my role both as an athlete and as a coach in my martial art practice.

I overhauled my entire Crazy Monkey Defense Program to be first and foremost about taking the positive lessons learnt in the gym or studio out into the client’s life and career.  I call this the Martial Arts-Life approach.  

I removed all hyper-competitive structures and stressful environments from my studio.  I developed the Wisdom Environment GAME instead.

I began to encourage both myself and my clients to look at our bodies as the metaphors of our lives. To realize that the way we expressed those bodies said a lot about who we were, at our core.

Since then my entire martial art philosophy has done a 360-degree turn.

What has emerged can only be seen as a miracle.

open_coaches_blog_button.jpg Once I was on a spiraling road to destruction.  Now I find myself working with world champion athletes to become the best they can be in the ring.  I have consulted with Special Force Military Units to teach them mental skills and help them implement a a winning performance mental game for the battlefield.  I have acted as a performance coach for countless CEOs, business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs to find their center of power, to manage their fear, anger and frustration and to help them develop into Embodied-Warriors for the boardroom.

 Through the Crazy Monkey Defense Program and a Martial Art-Life approach I now offer a unique program of Warriorship tools, grounded in training the body to refocus the mind.

I  am really excited to share my experience with you. As one of my friends once asked me, “Would you be where you are today without those hard times?” Most likely not!

Those time were my teachers, for better or for worse.

You too can learn from your life experience – and learn how to transform it.

I invite you to join our program: to take up the opportunity to work with me and CMD Performance Coaches across the world to co-create and develop a unique martial arts program.  A program that’s defined by what you most need in your life.  A program that’s designed around you.

No matter your background, where you come from or what you have been through in your life - you can make it in the CMD Program.

I thank you all for your continued support.

Namaste!


Rodney King

Performance Coach & Registered Somatic Movement Educator