Words to Live By!

 

     I wanted to share with you the principles I have taken and incorporated into my life. I use these as my guide, my moral compass, my code of conduct.

1. One Life. I understand that we have one life and one chance to live it as fully and with joyful purpose as we can!

2. Lead by Example. Let your actions, not your words do the talking!

3. Responsibility. I am responsible for living my life as fully and with joyful purposeful as I can each and every day! 

4. Accountability. I am responsible for my actions and decisions! 

5. Educate Yourself. Take time to learn something new every day.

6. Challenge Yourself. Take time to do something that scares you, that pushes you out of your comfort zone every day!

7. Forgive. Learn to forgive others as well as yourself, we are all only human after all.

8. Standards. Set high standards of conduct for yourself and those around you.  

9. Give Back. Empower, uplift, support, encourage, mentor others! 

10. Attitude of Gratitude. Appreciate your life and that you have the love and support of those around you!     

Changing The World Through Martial Arts

      If your a martial arts instructor, school owner, and your goal is anything less than transforming the lives of your students, then you're in the wrong business! In fact, I look at it as my personal obligation to not only transform the lives of my students but members of my community, and the world as a whole!   

     This may seem a bit far-fetched, and far-reaching but for me, that's exactly what the martial arts are in a position to deliver. You see, what sets martial arts apart from most other activities or sports is that it is not just simply a form of exercise or recreation, but rather a way of life. The benefits it offers are far-reaching and comprehensive.

     Not only can it be used as a form of self-defense, but as an excellent way for students to strengthen their bodies, and keep physically fit. Beyond what is traditionally thought of as the benefits of training, discipline, focus, self-confidence self-control, resilience, the martial arts goes much deeper. Through their training, students learn a variety of other valuable life skills. 

1. Responsibility. Teaches students to take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

2. Perseverance. Students must spend hundreds of hours perfecting and honing their skills.

3. Values. Students learn to respect themselves and others, as well as to have compassion, and empathy for others.

4. Positivity. Teaches to look at life and its challenges with a positive mindset, that you have the ability to adapt and overcome

5. Goal Setting. Teaches how to set short, medium, and long-term goals and achieve them.

6. Work Ethic. To succeed on any level requires hard work, sacrifice, and preparation.

7. Wisdom. To truly understand a particular system you are training in requires more than simply learning the techniques themselves. One must also understand the history and culture of the people from which your art originated.

8. Courage. The martial arts are all about stepping out of your comfort zone, working past your fears, becoming comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

9. Creativity. Teaches students to think outside the box, to take new approaches to novel situations.

10. Leadership. Martial arts encourage a leadership mindset of improving one's community and the world. Martial artists learn to value and respect others, understand their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as thinking outside of the box.

11. Open Mindinesss. Learning that you don't have all the answers, and to be open to new concepts and ideas.

12. Mindfulness. Learning to live and be in the moment.

13. Situational Awareness. Learning to be alert to what is going on around you and understanding how certain situations, physical objects, and actions may affect an outcome.

14. Action. Teaches students to be active participants in their lives, to work toward improving themselves, as well as empowering, uplifting, and supporting those around us.

      As you can see no other activity, sport offers its participants as many mental and physical benefits as does training in the martial arts!    

                 

      

Should community service be a requirement for belt promotion?

 

     My school curriculum is a bit unorthodox in that I require all of my students to perform some type of community service in order to be considered for promotion. The project a student chooses can be quite simple and does not necessarily have to be either big or complex. The idea is to get out there and doing something that's positive, empowering, and supportive for members of your community.

     I first began to piece together the idea of martial arts and community service when I was training in Karate back in the early 90s. At about the same time I began to study and become interested in Japanese culture. What I found to be of particular interest was the ruling warrior class of feudal Japan known as the Samurai. I was amazed to see the number of diverse roles they played in their society. 

     The men and women, who made up the ranks of the samurai were multifaceted in that they were extremely fierce warriors, but also highly literate and artistic. Unlying all of the samurai actions was the notion of bushido, a moral code of conduct that served to give guidance to samurais behavior, duties, and responsibilities. The thing that intrigued me most about this concept was the idea of loyalty and selfless service to those you served.

     Those sets of principles, loyalty, and selfless service started me thinking about the role of martial arts and service to others and how they relate to one another. I soon started to view my role as a martial artist as someone who not only seeks self-improvement but looks to build up those around me. This notion of helping and supporting others soon extended beyond those with whom I only trained with. 

     When I finally opened my school I saw it as my obligation to not only transform the lives of my students but the lives of the community whose members I serve as well. I felt it my duty to ensure I continued this notion of service through to my students. To be a student of the martial arts is to be a student of life and serve as a role model of moral and ethical behavior for all to follow.      

Consistency is King!

 

     Consistency is the main ingredient needed if we are looking to learn, improve, and grow at anything we do in life. If you're consistent in your attendance, attitude, and effort, improvement in whatever activity you're engaged in will surely follow.

     Consistency is needed whether the discussion is jiu-jitsu, homework, baseball, basket weaving, or self-improvement. There are simply no areas of our lives where consistency's positive impact is not felt. Consistency's influence in our lives can be felt in a number of significant ways.

1. Consistency is the cornerstone of improvement

2. Consistency is the foundation from which all habits are formed

3. Consistency produces forward momentum.

4. Consistency creates opportunities 

5. Consistency opens up possibilities

6. Consistency allows for creativity

Consistency can be viewed as synonymous with improvement, and therefore indispensable if one is looking to make any type of positive, lasting change in their life.  

      

     

How Your Health Affects Your Training!

 

     I just had a conversation the other night with a group of students about the importance of taking care of their bodies. I reiterated the fact that their fitness was vital, not only to the overall enjoyment and performance on the mats but to their quality of life outside of training.

     When I first started out in jiu-jitsu there were little to no discussions on the importance of taking care of yourself, or how one should go about doing that. I don't remember doing any kind of stretching or conditioning really, outside of the requisite push-ups and sit-ups. If you weren't already doing something like that on your own then you were out of luck. In fact, the prevailing attitude at the time, and one that persisted for many years as you weren't really training if you weren't getting the crap beat out of you. I can't recall hearing my instructor, coaches, or other students talking about the importance and benefits of rest and recovery as well. 

     After a number of years of hard training with little to no body maintenance work done, my body began to break down, and the injuries started to accumulate. Accompanying my body's physical breakdown came a sort of mental burnout as well. I became increasingly frustrated with constantly being injured, in pain, and not being able to train as I wanted. At one point I had to step away from training for a couple of years to heal up and mentally recharge my batteries

     It was during my time away from training that I began to see the importance of having some type of program that addressed my strength, conditioning, mobility, and nutrition. As I began incorporating a diet and exercise routine into my life I could immediately see its mental and physical benefits! As I strengthened both body and mind I was soon ready and able to resume training.

     From this experience, I drew the conclusion that there was a definite need to incorporate mobility and strength training, along with stretching exercises into a warm-up routine. These exercises should be simple to use, time-friendly, and most important, help reduce the incidences and severity of injuries. As soon as I open the doors to my own school I began to incorporate just such a program into our curriculum. I can see a definite benefit to my student's overall health, with no serious injuries, and their subsequent enjoyment and performance in their training.

     

     It can not be overstated enough the importance of taking care of yourself with proper diet, excercie, rest, and recovery. One of the primary objectives of your training is to be able to do it for a lifetime. In order to accomplish this, you need to ensure that your taking proper care of yourself by maintaining your health!                                

Building a Martial Arts Community

 

     Providing your students and their families a place where they feel accepted, empowered, valued, and supported is essential for developing a student's fullest potential. A martial arts school, academy, dojo, should be more than merely a place to train. It should be a place where families come together to share in fellowship and community with one another. 

     To affect significantly positive and lasting change in your students they must first feel as though they belong to a community. A community that is positive, reaffirming, and whose members push, encourage, and mentor one another. A place where students hold themselves and each other accountable, and not enablers of each other's dysfunctional behaviors.

     Developing a culture of community within your school and among your students, families, and teaching staff is not just necessary, but an obligation. The true measure of a school's success is not simply in its student's technical prowess. Rather it is the caliber of human being that walks out your door!      

      

              

To compete or not compete? The role competition plays in a students martial arts training.

 

     In my 28 years of teaching and training, I have come to firmly believe that competition is essential to a student's overall development on and off the mat. Competing is a unique experience that challenges students and their self-perceptions, in ways that are hard to replicate in any other setting. 

     I, like most people, was first drawn to the martial because of its self-defense aspects, I had no desire whatsoever in competing. The first person to really explain to me why I should compete and how it benefited me was my old karate instructor Sensei Tanabe. He never pushed us to compete but did encourage us to try one or two tournaments just to see what we thought. After about a year of training, I thought I would give it a try and decided to compete at the next tournament. I went out and competed in both kata and sparring and well frankly, was not feeling the who competition thing. That ended up being my first and only attempt at a karate competition and I was ok with that. 

     In 1997 I began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after seeing Royce Gracie compete at UFC I and witnessing firsthand the effectiveness of it as a self-defense system. At this point, I still wasn't a huge fan of competing and didn't see its true value. for some inexplicable reason though, I decided to compete in my very first bjj tournament after only attending 10 classes. Needless to say, the outcome was a disaster with me sustaining a serious should injury that kept me away from training for the next 2 years. After a 2 year hiatus, I returned to training having sworn off ever competing again! That lasted all of about a year when I decided to again compete. While I avoided any serious injuries in this one I did however completely freeze and go into a defensive shell the entire match. Looking back I was still haunted by the events of my first tournament and allowed those thoughts to completely overwhelm me. After that dismal showing, I didn't even entertain the idea of competing for the next 21 years.

     Fast forward 21 years to 2015, which found me still teaching and training in my beloved art of jiu-jitsu. As an instructor of my own students, I adopted a similar philosophy of competing as that of Sensei Tanabe. I never pushed my students but did however encourage them to at least try a couple for experience sake. At this point, 2 factors played a major role in my decision to give competing one last try. I began to feel like a hypocrite encouraging my students to step out of their comfort zones and compete when I wasn't. The other factor was that I had allowed fear to completely immobilize me in my last match. Again, I couldn't very well encourage my students to stand up and face their fears when I wasn't prepared to do the same!

     In 2015 I entered my first tournament in 21 years, and the first as a black belt. Because of my age, I was limited to competing in international tournaments if I wanted opponents of similar age and rank. This brought with it its own set of unique challenges. I soon found out that I would be competing against former World and Pan American champions, men who had been actively competing for many years! To my surprise the first couple of tournaments I entered I placed 2nd twice and 3rd once! I have not quite been able to match or better those results since, but I have a new found joy and appreciation for competition and hope to compete as long as I am physically able  

     Needless to say, I have fully embraced the importance of competing in my life and the lives of my students. I have learned so much about myself and what I thought to be my limitations through competition. It has been a source of some of my greatest joys and deepest heartaches. Throughout it all, I have come away with the understanding that I am far more combable and resilient than I thought possible.