Effort over talent – ALL DAY LONG!
I had this student here years ago and his name was Matthew but we all called him Matty P. Matty was a great student, not a great athlete, but a great student. Achieving every belt was a great effort for him but as he went up through the ranks and the challenges became more intense,…
Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness
Last week a student came to class and we got talking about his training. He’s a student that I really like a lot and am always excited to see in class and so when I discovered that he hadn’t been sparring because he was scared of it, I instantly wanted to help him get over…
A 10 year-old reminded me of some great advice.
A student came to class last night to work on her kata. She had recently been half-striped, she wanted her full stripe and so she came to do a private lesson with the goal of receiving the other half of her stripe. During her lesson, she performed her kata and when she finished, Jacob and…
Education is continual
ht I come from a line of really amazing women. My grandmother was an amazing artist that sewed, knitted, played sports with me and taught my mom how to ride a bike even though she had no clue. My mother is a nurse in her 60’s that finished her basement by herself. Top to bottom…ALL…
Make mistakes!
For all of us, undoubtedly, our greatest learning moments come when we make mistakes. When we make mistakes, screw up, drop the ball, as long as we pay attention to what’s happened, we will learn from it. This week’s message of the week is… If I had to live my life again, I’d make the…
Nature provides exceptions to every rule.
When I was young, I would daydream about my life as an adult. I designed a lifestyle where every decision was easy because everything was black and white. Everything fit perfectly into their spots. As I got older, I realized more and more that that’s not how life works. Not everything is black and white.…
The importance of caring.
A funny thing happened to me in class once and it made me realize something really important. A student was trying for their first stripe, they didn’t meet their physical requirements and so they didn’t receive their stripe. This doesn’t happen often, but it certainly happens. Afterwards, we talked about some options they had, how…
Why do we all do this? It doesn’t make sense.
There’s a funny thing that happens in the martial arts. Ask any martial arts teacher and they’ll back me up on this… In fact, even if you’ve never trained, I guarantee that you’ve done it too. As instructors, we see people all the time, become their fittest, most confident, absolute best self, achieve their Black Belt…and…
What REALLY determines what we are is…
I remember hearing an idea once and it totally changed my life. It was so simple and it offered me infinite hope. Just a few days ago, I was reading Harry Potter with my daughter and Dumbledore recited nearly the exact same thing and I thought that if Dumbledore is going to offer similar wisdom,…