American Karate will be closed for the holiday season Wednesday, Christmas day until Monday January 6th. We wish all of our students and parents, friends and families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope that you come back with renewed goals and prepared to study and train harder than the year before.
AKMS BLACK BELTS DOWN BUT NOT OUT
Cristine Warring had surgery on her foot from a bone that had been free floating around her ankle for many years. She made it through well and will be recuperating and doing therapy for the next nine months. Kathy Marquez took a fall during a run which resulted in a torn rotator cuff and bicep. She will be recuperating and doing therapy for several months as well. We are happy to hear that they both made it through their surgeries and look forward to their return to class. In the mean time…..DON’T PUSH IT, Do what the therapist says.
YOUTH CLASSES COMBINED
During the month of January the Youth Novice and Intermediate classes will be open. It is my hopes that between the novice youth and their parents they will develop some goals. Karate can be fun and karate can be tedious but if they experience the more advanced students doing advanced kata, team and musical kata as well as weapons, they will understand the need for practice outside of the class room. Monday and Wednesday classes are from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.
GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR
2013 is over! Now is the time to reflect on your resolutions and accomplishments over the last twelve months. Did you accomplish a higher level of fitness or flexibility? Did you earn additional stripes or belt rank? Where did you excel? Where did you fall short? Goal setting is a powerful tool for thinking about your martial future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go with your martial arts journey. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you will know where you have to concentrate your efforts. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your attainment of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your journey. By setting clearly defined goals you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless chore. You will also raise your self-confidence.
You can set your goals on a number of levels:
- First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your martial arts journey (over the next 3-5 years), and identify the long term goals that you want to achieve.
- Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your long term goals.
- Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.
Thomas Williams, Instructor AKMS
GOING THE DISTANCE
A new book is coming out in January. It is entitled “What Makes Olga Run? The Mystery of the 90-Something Track Star and What She Can Teach Us About Living Longer.” While that might not be an appealing title to some, it certainly caught my attention!
The book offers six (6) lessons on living longer and staying sharp from the perspective of this nonagenarian track star. The following are her smart habits for a long, healthy life:
- Swap the Sudoku for Sneakers: Increasing evidence suggests that exercise works better than even those brain games touted to boost memory and function.
- Stay On Your Feet: Even a regular morning jog can’t compensate for being inert the other 23 hours of the day, research shows.
- Eat Real Food: Olga eats four to five times a day, and not much in the evenings. She won’t skip meals or scarf fast food. A balanced diet is sufficient.
- Be a Creature of Habit: Under stress, people tend to fall back on routines – whether healthy or unhealthy. Those small familiar actions cue the body that it’s “showtime.” Your muscles have a memory!
- Cultivate a Sense of Progress: We all need the feeling that in some small ways we’re improving – or at least not backsliding. Without those “small wins,” our morale craters. The trick is to reframe progress so that is becomes a relative measure, not an absolute one. In other words, “move the yardstick” as you age.
- Lighten Up: People get stressed out over the smallest things. The fact that Olga doesn’t is as much a matter of choice as temperament. Her response to stressful situations, “Honestly, I don’t have the time!”
Jean Gaeddert, AKMS Black Belt
URBAN SELFDEFENSE (A Definition) Part II of II
Also, where the time permitted me to react in a manner aligned with the situation at hand, I am sure my instigator couldn’t imagine what next was about to happen, when I unleashed a full dose of controlled rage upon them.
Daily in my walk of life, I put on the ‘Whole Coat of Armor of God’, as my belief, as it provides my foundation for my existence. I don’t knock those who do believe or not believe in God, which is their chose alone. Everyone is entitle to believe as their wish, and is not my place to ridicule them about it. However, should they become interested to know about my Savior, then I am more than willing to share this with them.
It is always my desire to make the right decision about anything, and take responsibility for my actions, whether they be, right or not so accurate. As, I have commanded thousands of soldiers, my instructions to them is to make a prudent decision about a situation. If, it’s right, then we move forward. Should the decision not be so accurate, and then we would make our apologies and corrections and move on, because people sometimes get it ‘not as accurate’ as others would desire it. There are mitigating circumstances to every situation, and I have had my share. We are human, and do not always get it right, which is the nature of being human. Also, it takes too much energy to hold grudges; you lose valuable time and relationships, etc. I experienced this with my earthly Dad. However, we made amends before he past.
I have had the privilege and opportunity to be part of; some great and some more challenging experiences. Plus, I have endeavored to learn from all experiences from everyone and everything. I will share a few of those noteworthy experiences in the explanations below. In my Women’s Conditioning Class was to teach the spouses of top CEO’s in physical conditioning and make the experience beneficial. I interviewed each participant to determine their training goals, physical and emotional limitations. Doing classes, I would observe each student to insure she was performing the techniques correctly and if they could not perform a particular technique, an alternative one was demonstrated. Doing my tenure as Assistant Director at the Ella Austin Outpatient Hospital in San Antonio, Texas; my front desk staff or receptionists were at times confronted with upset patients. I instructed the receptionist to do two things for loud and unruly patients who made them uncomfortable while attempting to help them. On a subconscious level, the mind will take in everything, and process it whether the individual is aware of it or not. My receptionist were instructed (if, they felt threaten) to take their car keys and place one of the keys between the fingers while talking to the patient. This reaction will create a reaction in the patient’s mind, on a subconscious level that they may be in ‘harms way’ with their behavior, and should calm down.
The other point of instruction to my receptionist when upon encountering a loud and rude individual, while they were attempting to answer their concerns, and the patient couldn’t hear the receptionist over the shouting is to ‘whisper’ what she was attempting to communicate to the patient. Two things will happen; one the patient will continue his/her very loud shouting and not listen to her, then the receptionist has no other course of action, except to call security to handle the matter. Or, secondly, the patient will pause for a moment to hear her ‘whisper’ of instructions. This is the opportunity to take control of the situation, and answer the patient’s initial inquiry. Subconsciously, the patient didn’t know he/she had been controlled with the ‘whisper’ method. Continue to use the ‘whisper’ method should the patient resume their shouting or contact security or a supervisor.
Dealing with problems is something no one can avoid for as long as they live on this earth. Whether the problem is big or small, significant or minor, one must attempt to deal with it, peacefully; initially. It is always my intentions to resolve any conflict peacefully by hopefully, providing a win-win situation for the parties involved. I don’t down rate any race of people. This is not my personae. I respect the value of people, because without people we wouldn’t experience emotions, free thoughts/ideas, fun, etc. You can’t do these things with machines. People are our greatest assets. Money, cars, property are all good, but without people, it just wouldn’t be the same type of enjoyment, learning, and fun. Therefore, I deal with people and issues as they present themselves to me, with respect, patience and value. Every problem has a solution, a learning factor/benefit, and requires people to assess it with all of the attributes a human possesses.
In the 911 Terrorist Attacks against the United States, I was commanding a response team in Somerset, PA. My team had to set up a BoO (base of operations) and needed certain materials and equipment to maintain operability and functionality, which we didn’t bring along, and had to procure on the civilian economy. The point I want to make is upon arriving at one of the vendors in the city, the sales person was so frighten about what had happened a few hours ago in their town, she was rattled beyond measure. The fear in her eyes and the lack of certainty in her voice is beyond any description of words for me to convey her feelings. As part of providing emergency management support to the State of Pennsylvania for a mortuary response, I also must provide ‘public affairs’ functions and consolement to the public we serve. My reaction to the sales clerk was to reassure her that everything is fine, currently no other attacks were foreseen, the government had as much of the situation under control as best as possible, and rest assured we would do all in our power to protect, preserve and recover what’s important to her and the community. We were there to help.
I remain to say, that Urban Self Defense can be defined in many ways, but I truly believe, it as a state of MIND. In My Opinion, what do you think? Feedback at www.youngsankarate.com; provide comments on the Feedback page.
H. James Young, Chief Instructor, Young San Karate
