Checkmate Martial Arts West

Checkmate Martial Arts West The Home of Reality-Based Self-Defense At Checkmate Martial Arts West, we teach Small Circle Jujitsu, striking, ground and weapons defense.

08/06/2026

Miyamoto Musashi wrote in the Water chapter of the Book of Five Rings that the mind must be like still water.

Not fixed, not agitated, but present to the full picture of what surrounds it. He had studied this in the context of the duel, where the swordsman whose mind fixed on the opponent’s blade had already lost sight of the thousand details that determined the outcome before the first strike.

The disturbed mind narrows. It locks onto one thing while the rest of the situation moves freely around it. And in that narrowing, the man who was meant to see everything sees almost nothing.

This is not a principle confined to combat. The man under pressure, in any arena, suffers the same contraction. Fear narrows perception. Anger distorts it. Anxiety fills the field of view with the worst possible interpretation of every available detail and leaves no room for anything else.

The mind that is moved cannot be trusted to see clearly, and the man who cannot see clearly cannot respond to what is actually happening. He responds to what his disturbed state has convinced him is happening, which is almost never the same thing.

In Musashi’s world, the state of Mushin was the most active and demanding state available to a man. To hold the mind still while pressure builds, while the situation shifts, while everything around him is designed to provoke a reaction: that is the discipline. And the reward for it is not peace alone. It is precision.

The calm mind does not just feel better. It sees further, reads more accurately, and acts with a clarity that the disturbed mind can never produce regardless of how much experience it carries.

Possible new image for my martial arts school Checkmate West. Still playing around with some possible updated images...
07/26/2026

Possible new image for my martial arts school Checkmate West. Still playing around with some possible updated images...

Address

Classes Located At Epic Fitness/10 Market Street Unit D, Glenwood Springs Mall
Glenwood Springs, CO
81601

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Wednesday 7:30pm - 8:30pm

Telephone

(970) 989-3003

Website

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