Here’s a great article by Mr. Dave Kovar (a long time martial arts instructor).  He talks about being inspired every day by your student’s victories.  This is something I just went through yesterday (and then found the article today).  I have two students who made huge leaps yesterday and I celebrated them immensely.  Doing things like this make it entirely worth being my student, and more importantly makes it entirely worth being their instructor.  Sometimes you wonder if you can make a difference, and now I know I can.

I just want to congratulate all my students on their victories this cycle, and I’m looking forward to seeing them excel in the new year.

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That headline was the joke between me and my best friend for years.  Still is.  I don’t know that we ever understood it as more than just a rambling that someone was told by their grandfather, but it came up yesterday.  During a staff meeting, my boss told us that there are THREE types of people in this world: Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs.  As a martial arts instructor it is my duty to create sheepdogs.

I had never heard that before, but it sounded so perfect that I’ve been thinking about it since.  As leaders, martial arts students are there to keep the wolves at bey while we protect the sheep.  Then I had a student tell me that is exactly what she had just done.  It was the most exciting moment of my day to know that one of my students had a positive effect on someone else’s life.  With all the commentary and tragedy lately because of bullying, this girl chose to make a friend and potentially save a life.

Later on, I found out that another student (who used to be extremely shy & reserved) has been on a mission to raise money for charity.  Again, trying to protect sheep.  We had a campaign for breast cancer in October, but this young person decided to bring it to the next level.  Just by going door to door there was more than $1000 in the envelope I got handed.  Amazing!

When you teach, you learn something new every single day.  Some days it’s just something tiny.  Other days, you learn about the possibility that lies in your students.  I have never been so proud of my sheepdogs as I was yesterday… every single one of them.  I have also never been so honored to be their instructor.  Now think about what your role is.  Are you a sheep? A wolf? Or maybe one of the sheepdogs?

Plug: If you’d like to have your children join our group, visit http://www.macblackbeltacademy.com or follow me on Twitter @OldBridgeATA

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Check out this video.  Some of the falling, and all of the jiu jitsu transitions are great.  Makes me want to start training harder.  Next week, the fun begins again.  Who wants in?  Email or call me if you want to help me toward my next goal.

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Check out a new kids show that was done by a great friend of mine & fellow ATA instructor. Coming soon to a TV near you:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley

P.S. World Championships are coming and I’m ranked. Here we go. Time to train.

This is where I went wrong.  The kid was bored and wondering why he had to be isolated.  He didn’t understand that the noise he kept hearing was simply the door bell.  And he certainly didn’t want to sit and learn how to say the oath.

A very bad experience in general for both of us.

What I should have done is to invite his parent in with us.  I can’t get around the fact that this student joined more than half way through the cycle, but I can prepare him for future classes – and Mom or Dad can help with that.  I can also remember that standing and just performing the technique (the way I learned) is no longer the best way to do things.  I need to make it fun…which means pads or a BOB dummy.  Last, if I remember that what he is learning in his first classes does not resemble martial arts in any way to him, I might stand a chance of doing this right.  For him it was all about having fun, so that’s how it should be for me.

We all begin at white belt.