During the summer, most martial arts schools struggle to make ends meet because enrollment dips. Students and their families go on grand Grand Canyon vacations and set their GPS destinations for Disney World and a dozen other theme parks. Today, I’m astounded when I see the enrollment numbers for the East Communities YMCA’s Taekwondo classes. We are not dipping in enrollment. On the contrary. There are waiting lists for two of the four classes I teach.
Chalk up one gratitude point.
Last year, I struggled to attract a diverse crowd to my dojang. Today, I’m grateful for the opportunity to inspire and empower students of all races, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds. I’m using what little Spanish I know every day. Funny, all I had to do was move my program a few miles east of IH-35.
Chalk up another gratitude point.
For five years, I struggled to find enough time to do all the things—besides teaching—necessary to keep a martial arts school running. Today, I’m grateful that someone else collects tuition; enrolls new students; sets up bank draft payments; pays the rent and utility bills; handles all the marketing and advertising; cleans the bathrooms, dressing rooms, and lobbies; cleans oily fingerprint smudges off the wall-to-wall mirrors; keeps the restroom stocked with toilet paper; replaces empty water dispensers; opens and locks up the building; cuts the lawn; sprays for mosquitoes; takes care of any minor flooding issues; and makes coffee for visitors.
Chalk up another big, bad gratitude point there, buddy.
But today, I’m exceptionally grateful for a little thing that’s made a big difference in everyone’s training. Tao of Texas Martial Arts Institute's original location was an open-air dojang. (Yes, I know. Crazy.) Every summer, I allowed students to wear school T-shirts from Memorial Day to Labor Day (or the first cold front). But let’s face it, people: no matter how many ceiling and oscillating fans you have going, between May and September in Texas, it’s incredibly, unmercifully, diabolically HOT. I had to constantly remind students to drink plenty of water. I had to disclose not-so-pleasant examples of whether their bodies were hydrated. ("If your pee is yellow, you're not drinking enough water. If it's clear, you're good to go.") I had to always be on the lookout for faces that turned dull and ashen. We never had anyone become ill because of the heat, but it took a physical and mental toll. For example, during black belt tests, candidates not only were concerned about performing well, but they also worried about hydrating enough the day before and day of the test. The joke was that if you had a "Barbie bladder" and woke up every hour the night before the test to go pee, then you were going to be O.K.
So today, I’m grateful for one big advantage of moving to the YMCA: They have AIR CONDITIONING.
Now, I know that one day very soon one of my longtime students will come up to me and complain that it’s hot and they’re sweating (even though perspiration is obviously one of the things you can expect to happen when you exercise). And on that day, I’ll be nice. Very nice. I’ll just look at them with all the seriousness of Yoda and say, “Take our class outside like at the old dojang, should we?”
To which they’ll say with a flat, ashen face, “Oh, uh ... no, ma'am,” and get back in line with a new perspective.
Gratitude.
Priceless.
Showing posts with label YMCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YMCA. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Students Break for Breakthroughs
There are four things that you should know about me:
1. I love to break things.
2. I love rituals, customs, and ceremonial rites of passage.
3. I love to help others.
4. I love to break things.
On Saturday night, all four things came together in a unique fund-raising event that will help East Austin youth gain self-confidence, physical strength, and spiritual peace.
My mother always frowned upon me breaking things when I was a child (big surprise). But now that I’m an adult, and a Taekwondo practitioner, I’m encouraged to break wood, tile, and brick—stacks of it, if possible—and I always gleefully oblige.
Some martial artists are known for fancy flying kicks, fierce sparring ability, impeccable balance, or the ability to knock an opponent into next week with a powerful punch or kick. I’m known for my breaking ability, but in order to feel complete, I had to find a way to turn my gift into a ritual that would help others.
“Breaking for a Breakthrough” was born in 2005, and it’s been a powerful source of fund-raising and transformation ever since.
“Breaking for a Breakthrough” is a physical, mental, and spiritual exercise that emphasizes board breaking skills as a way to break through problems and obstacles, and symbolizes how oftentimes we need the support of others to move through life’s toughest challenges.
Participants select a whitewood pine board (12 inches long, ¾-inch deep, various widths) and write on it a problem or obstacle they have in their life. Something that really eats their lunch. When they are ready to let that problem go, they hand the board to a nearby martial artist to break for them. Participants take the two halves of pine home and put it in a place where they will see it every day. The day they walk by it and realize the breakthrough is complete, they set it aside to burn at their next campout or on the next cool, fall evening—returning it to the earth.
Saturday’s “Breaking for a Breakthrough” Break-a-Thon benefitted the East Communities YMCA’s Partner of Youth fund, which ensures that every kid who wants to take a class at the YMCA can—regardless of the ability to pay. The Break-a-Thon was phenomenal in many ways. Financially, we raised $225 ($25 more than our goal). At $5 per board, that’s 45 white pines to smash through. It may not sound like a lot, but for our humble little martial arts group, it was a tremendous feat of feet and hands. Here’s why: Thanks to our breakers, there now is a spiritual crack—a ray of hope—at the center of some very stubborn obstacles that have kept many people from living in peace and freedom.
Our group gathered in a half-circle, sitting side-by-side on gray folding chairs, to root on individual breakers in the center. I explained how “Breaking for a Breakthrough” worked, and we got down to spiritual business.
Little 4-year-old Lev handed me a board that read, “I can’t break a board.”
“Is this your board or someone else’s?” I asked.
“It’s my board,” he said, almost hesitantly.
“Well, how about this: I’ll break your board if you break mine.”
I showed him a 3-inch-wide board that had “Uncertainty” written on it in red marker.
“O.K.,” Lev said, smiling wide.
Lev chose to break with a stomp kick.
He only had to hit my “uncertain” board twice before it snapped.
Crack!
The roomful of spectators cheered.
“You CAN break a board, Lev!” I said, holding up the two board pieces, one in each hand.
He grinned from eardrum to eardrum as I handed him the broken pieces, and then he ran to his parents for a big bear hug.
My students were not only challenged with bigger boards than they were used to breaking, but also tried by the oftentimes intense emotional/spiritual factor. This makes the boards even harder to break. Some obstacles are tougher to overcome than others, and when you participate in this kind of exercise, you quickly realize that some boards—though they may be identical in size and sap—are harder to break than others because of what has been written on them. We humans are capable of carrying around a lifetime of painful worries and fears in our souls. When dark energy has been in our cellular structure that long, it’s not that easy to free.
Still, many people were willing to let go of a lot of longstanding and heartbreaking obstacles on Saturday, and each breaker never quit. I was very proud of both parties.
One student in particular—a persistent, 7 year-old green belt—hit the mega-obstacle jackpot. He was breaking for someone who had written in black ink, “Fear of people, fear of failure, fear of economic insecurity.”
Poor kid must have hit that 5-inch-wide board with a side kick a dozen times before I stopped him. I could tell he was getting tired, but he never lost composure and wasn’t about to give up.
“Listen, this is a huge problem,” I told him. “It has nothing to do with whether you’re doing the kick right or not. It’s just a really big obstacle for this person. Lots of fear, and that’s real scary. So think about the person, about how much you want to help them overcome their fears, and then hit it hard and fast right in the center. It’ll break.
“Try again,” I said, holding the board with a good grip. I locked my elbows. As I turned my head away, I gave him the command to begin.
“Shijak!”
He hit the board with a powerful side kick. It still didn’t break—but everyone heard a little crack.
“That’s it!” I said. “One more time.”
He hit it again just as hard. It still didn’t break.
“O.K. guys,” I told the spectators. “It’s time to send good, healing chi to this person. Let’s help this young man break this board.”
Everyone nodded and leaned forward in their chairs. Some clasped their hands in prayer.
We set up again, and this time he hit that board with the hardest kick ever—accompanied by a loud, thunderous kihap.
Crack!
The room erupted in applause—for him and for the person who now had hope that many lifelong fears would soon vanish.
“That was hard-fought,” I whispered to him as I shook his hand. “Good job.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said humbly, then returned to his seat.
All evening, the energy in the room was intense. Even East Communities’ executive director became teary-eyed.
“I found myself getting emotional—over a board,” she said later, looking a bit baffled.
I could tell she didn’t understand why she had such strong feelings.
“In this kind of breaking exercise, that’s what happens,” I said. “You’re feeling all that energy moving—from dark to light, from sadness to joy. Some of the people we broke for tonight have been stuck in hell for a long time, and tonight they’re on the road to freedom.
“That’s huge.”
She gave an understanding nod.
I am continually amazed at how easily our Tao of Texas Martial Arts Institute’s group is willing to help others in need. I have to send out a Herculean electronic hug and thank you to all our breakers: Calvin Redman, Ziyah Parramore, Elijah Kleinman, Lev Kleinman, Jonathan Kleinman, Danielle Hamilton, Karen Rivera, and Waylon “Way-Way” Redman. They were selfless in service to others and bold in spirit.
Does reading this make you crave a breakthrough of your own over something that’s really troubling you? If you didn’t get the chance to participate in Saturday's breakthrough event, contact me via email.
I’ll never turn down an opportunity to break something.
Then again, you already knew that about me, didn’t you?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
When Two Garage Doors Close, Another One Opens
Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another one opens.”
This week, Bell’s words came to fruition: On Monday I closed the doors of the building where I started Tao of Texas Martial Arts Institute five years ago. On Tuesday I opened the door to the East Communities YMCA and walked in to the next phase of my martial arts life: teaching Taekwondo to kids from the poorest side of Austin—hoping to help them make positive life choices to counter what they see (crime, drugs, gangs) every day.
As exciting as it is to begin a new program in a new place for a new purpose, I’m feeling a mixture of sadness and fatigue today. Change for the better is still change, and there’s grief in leaving anything behind—even when you’re moving on to something better.
As I sat on the floor of the now-empty, echo-replying training hall Monday night, I fully understood the cliché “memories flooded in”. I avoid clichés, but dang it, this one is appropriate to describe how it felt to look around the dojang, remembering all the events, people, and transformations that occurred since Tao of Texas MAI opened.
What I Will Miss
I will miss that old school—and I emphasize the word “old”. It was a cement-walled, double-garage-door building with dark wooden rafters, zero insulation, and funky smelling fluorescent lights. It was frigid in the winter and brutally hot in the summer, had minor flooding issues, and sensitive electric wiring. It was always either the coldest, windiest, or rainiest day of the year—at night—when the breakers decided they had had enough and flipped out. I had to trudge outside with a flashlight and flip them back on. Oftentimes, I ended up switching off all the wrong levers until I found the correct switch.
The building may have been old, but it was because it was old that I loved it so much. It held a lot of spirit and character, and it helped me and my students train hard and dig deep. Five students became black belts, two black belts promoted to higher ranks, and I received a third-degree promotion. Hundreds of children and adults learned thousands of lessons regarding not only how to punch, kick, spar, and break wood, but also how to improve their fitness and health and become more honest, responsible, patient, compassionate, and respectful people. Not a bad five years spent, if you ask me.
With the mirrors, mats, and training equipment gone, I felt a little sad (correction: WAY SAD) about the other things I’ll miss. Things such as:
• The feeling of a cold mat beneath my feet on a winter day. My students sometimes complained that their toes were numb from the cold floor, and some claimed they had frostbite. I now treasure their exaggerations. I loved the cold, though. It made me feel alive. And cold or not, we always worked hard enough to produce a good stream of sweat by the end of class.
• The feeling of sweaty bangs and a sopping wet dobok after a long day of good, hard training at the height of summer
• The cool shower at home AFTER a long day of good, hard training at the height of summer
• The jump line, where kids and adults honed their jumping skills. Nathan and Matthew, two of my teenage students, spent a week one summer painting cement blocks on the wall—floor to ceiling—the colors from our belt ranks. (Tim Diller was the only one who actually reached “Super Red”.)
• The “Don’t Quit” sign, which encouraged me and my students to keep going even though training—and life—became hard
• The many guest instructors and visitors who helped my students see beyond Taekwondo—that life and other arts are out there and that we should always be open-minded to learning new things. Ilene Smoger Sensei of the Okinawan Karate Club of Dallas taught a bo weapons class; Andrew Budd Sensei taught Enshin Karate techniques; and my old master, Kyoshi Ivan Ujueta of the Professional Karate Institute in San Antonio, introduced my students to Jukido, the gentle, powerful way. Then there were Kelly and Mike from Toronto, Canada, who worked out with us one Saturday morning and taught everyone Tang Soo Do forms. My students still talk about all of these people, the fun they had, and what they learned.
• The anime character painted on the wall by another one of my teenagers. It was Lacy’s first paid gig as an artist, and her friend Danielle took a blurry picture of us as I handed Lacy her check.
• The very spot I stood on the mat when I realized I had to flunk a black belt candidate because she quit a task on the test. She learned a hard lesson that day, and I did, too. On her retest, she learned to persevere despite what trash her mind was talking, and I learned that by not enabling my students today, I enable them to succeed tomorrow. (Today, she is one of my finest black belts.)
• The sight of the ceiling fans and the Plexiglass windows shaking when the Enshin Karate guys hit the heavy Sabaki bag. These guys’ kicks were fierce. The small blood stains on the six-foot-tall bag proved it.
• The harsh knocking and banging sound from the Ving Tsun Kung Fu brothers working on the jong, a wooden dummy used in Chinese martial arts training. It was kind of scary to watch how these men attacked that wooden dummy.
• Lock-Ins. My students and I had a blast each time they brought their sleeping bags in for an overnight stay—and the parents appreciated a “date night” without having to come home early to relieve a babysitter. We always held a “Midnight Writer’s Group,” where adults and kids met at midnight to talk about the craft of writing and to share their work. And at around 4 a.m., when many of the kids had finally crashed, some teenager always seem to be in a talking mood, revealing thoughts, dreams, and fears that I doubted even their parents knew. I was honored to listen.
What I Won’t Miss
With the mirrors, mats, and training equipment packed away, I felt relief (correction: A HUGE WEIGHT OFF MY SHOULDERS) about all the things I won’t miss, such as:
• The long hours. Five days a week, I worked 6:30 a.m.-2 p.m. as a copy editor for an educational publishing company, then taught multiple classes in the late afternoon/early evening, did financial/administrative paperwork at home, ate dinner late, and (with whatever time was left) loved on my partner, four dogs, and cat. I chose to continue working my day job to pay personal bills because I didn’t want money to influence how I ran the school. I was able to remain true to that plan, and even though the schedule was exhausting, and I missed a lot of time with family and friends, I don’t regret my choice to make martial arts training affordable.
• Keeping track of tuition payments and paying bills and taxes. Ick.
• The restroom door lock that always had to be adjusted when the building’s foundation shifted
• Those pesky mosquitoes that loved to visit our open-air dojang in the summertime. We kept them off our bodies by spraying insect repellant and keeping our limbs kicking and punching.
• The trickle of water that flowed into the building from outside during a hard rain. (Oftentimes it was more than a trickle.)
• Keeping the back lot weed-free and cut short. Students were never back there—never saw it. Heck, I rarely saw it. However, as a tenant, I was responsible for keeping it cut. It contributed nothing to the school—and was another physically taxing chore.
• Trimming the heavy ivy-like vines that grew along the electricity line just outside our garage doors. If I didn’t trim them, the mosquitoes bred like rabbits.
• Cleaning the dojang, especially the bathroom, where sometimes boys missed their intended target. Eew.
What I Learned
In five years, I’ve seen many small businesses (even martial arts schools) come and go. I’ve had some of my best enrollment months despite stock market fluctuations and hard economic times. I learned a lot by watching other businesses fail and prosper, and personally, I’m grateful to have learned that:
• I’m a fabulous youth instructor.
• I’m not meant to run a school—ever again.
• I was smart not to incur new debt (besides a meager start-up loan) and make the business support itself. Now I’m closing the school DEBT-FREE. In five years, I’ve seen many small businesses fold due to bankruptcy issues, so I feel extra fortunate that I stuck to my guns on this issue. (Wait. That was a cliché, wasn’t it? Grrrr.)
• Material goods and money don’t motivate me. People do.
• Life is too short to spend one more second doing something because others think I should, or because they think I’d be good at it.
• I’m at my best and happiest when I’m teaching and mentoring—being of service to others.
• I don’t have an inherent need to be the top dog. I don’t have a problem taking orders from others. Hence, for me, it’s less stressful to work for someone else and let them pay me to teach, pay the rent and electricity bills, collect tuition, keep the books up to date, pay (the majority of) the taxes, cut the lawn—and clean the boys’ restrooms.
As I collect all the old building’s keys and prepare to turn them into the leasing office, I know that this time next year I will have compiled a whole new list of bullets like the ones above. And that’s O.K., because if there’s one thing I’ve learned most, it’s that when one door closes, another one always opens wide to a new adventure.
This week, Bell’s words came to fruition: On Monday I closed the doors of the building where I started Tao of Texas Martial Arts Institute five years ago. On Tuesday I opened the door to the East Communities YMCA and walked in to the next phase of my martial arts life: teaching Taekwondo to kids from the poorest side of Austin—hoping to help them make positive life choices to counter what they see (crime, drugs, gangs) every day.
As exciting as it is to begin a new program in a new place for a new purpose, I’m feeling a mixture of sadness and fatigue today. Change for the better is still change, and there’s grief in leaving anything behind—even when you’re moving on to something better.
As I sat on the floor of the now-empty, echo-replying training hall Monday night, I fully understood the cliché “memories flooded in”. I avoid clichés, but dang it, this one is appropriate to describe how it felt to look around the dojang, remembering all the events, people, and transformations that occurred since Tao of Texas MAI opened.
What I Will Miss
I will miss that old school—and I emphasize the word “old”. It was a cement-walled, double-garage-door building with dark wooden rafters, zero insulation, and funky smelling fluorescent lights. It was frigid in the winter and brutally hot in the summer, had minor flooding issues, and sensitive electric wiring. It was always either the coldest, windiest, or rainiest day of the year—at night—when the breakers decided they had had enough and flipped out. I had to trudge outside with a flashlight and flip them back on. Oftentimes, I ended up switching off all the wrong levers until I found the correct switch.
The building may have been old, but it was because it was old that I loved it so much. It held a lot of spirit and character, and it helped me and my students train hard and dig deep. Five students became black belts, two black belts promoted to higher ranks, and I received a third-degree promotion. Hundreds of children and adults learned thousands of lessons regarding not only how to punch, kick, spar, and break wood, but also how to improve their fitness and health and become more honest, responsible, patient, compassionate, and respectful people. Not a bad five years spent, if you ask me.
With the mirrors, mats, and training equipment gone, I felt a little sad (correction: WAY SAD) about the other things I’ll miss. Things such as:
• The feeling of a cold mat beneath my feet on a winter day. My students sometimes complained that their toes were numb from the cold floor, and some claimed they had frostbite. I now treasure their exaggerations. I loved the cold, though. It made me feel alive. And cold or not, we always worked hard enough to produce a good stream of sweat by the end of class.
• The feeling of sweaty bangs and a sopping wet dobok after a long day of good, hard training at the height of summer
• The cool shower at home AFTER a long day of good, hard training at the height of summer
• The jump line, where kids and adults honed their jumping skills. Nathan and Matthew, two of my teenage students, spent a week one summer painting cement blocks on the wall—floor to ceiling—the colors from our belt ranks. (Tim Diller was the only one who actually reached “Super Red”.)
• The “Don’t Quit” sign, which encouraged me and my students to keep going even though training—and life—became hard
• The many guest instructors and visitors who helped my students see beyond Taekwondo—that life and other arts are out there and that we should always be open-minded to learning new things. Ilene Smoger Sensei of the Okinawan Karate Club of Dallas taught a bo weapons class; Andrew Budd Sensei taught Enshin Karate techniques; and my old master, Kyoshi Ivan Ujueta of the Professional Karate Institute in San Antonio, introduced my students to Jukido, the gentle, powerful way. Then there were Kelly and Mike from Toronto, Canada, who worked out with us one Saturday morning and taught everyone Tang Soo Do forms. My students still talk about all of these people, the fun they had, and what they learned.
• The anime character painted on the wall by another one of my teenagers. It was Lacy’s first paid gig as an artist, and her friend Danielle took a blurry picture of us as I handed Lacy her check.
• The very spot I stood on the mat when I realized I had to flunk a black belt candidate because she quit a task on the test. She learned a hard lesson that day, and I did, too. On her retest, she learned to persevere despite what trash her mind was talking, and I learned that by not enabling my students today, I enable them to succeed tomorrow. (Today, she is one of my finest black belts.)
• The sight of the ceiling fans and the Plexiglass windows shaking when the Enshin Karate guys hit the heavy Sabaki bag. These guys’ kicks were fierce. The small blood stains on the six-foot-tall bag proved it.
• The harsh knocking and banging sound from the Ving Tsun Kung Fu brothers working on the jong, a wooden dummy used in Chinese martial arts training. It was kind of scary to watch how these men attacked that wooden dummy.
• Lock-Ins. My students and I had a blast each time they brought their sleeping bags in for an overnight stay—and the parents appreciated a “date night” without having to come home early to relieve a babysitter. We always held a “Midnight Writer’s Group,” where adults and kids met at midnight to talk about the craft of writing and to share their work. And at around 4 a.m., when many of the kids had finally crashed, some teenager always seem to be in a talking mood, revealing thoughts, dreams, and fears that I doubted even their parents knew. I was honored to listen.
What I Won’t Miss
With the mirrors, mats, and training equipment packed away, I felt relief (correction: A HUGE WEIGHT OFF MY SHOULDERS) about all the things I won’t miss, such as:
• The long hours. Five days a week, I worked 6:30 a.m.-2 p.m. as a copy editor for an educational publishing company, then taught multiple classes in the late afternoon/early evening, did financial/administrative paperwork at home, ate dinner late, and (with whatever time was left) loved on my partner, four dogs, and cat. I chose to continue working my day job to pay personal bills because I didn’t want money to influence how I ran the school. I was able to remain true to that plan, and even though the schedule was exhausting, and I missed a lot of time with family and friends, I don’t regret my choice to make martial arts training affordable.
• Keeping track of tuition payments and paying bills and taxes. Ick.
• The restroom door lock that always had to be adjusted when the building’s foundation shifted
• Those pesky mosquitoes that loved to visit our open-air dojang in the summertime. We kept them off our bodies by spraying insect repellant and keeping our limbs kicking and punching.
• The trickle of water that flowed into the building from outside during a hard rain. (Oftentimes it was more than a trickle.)
• Keeping the back lot weed-free and cut short. Students were never back there—never saw it. Heck, I rarely saw it. However, as a tenant, I was responsible for keeping it cut. It contributed nothing to the school—and was another physically taxing chore.
• Trimming the heavy ivy-like vines that grew along the electricity line just outside our garage doors. If I didn’t trim them, the mosquitoes bred like rabbits.
• Cleaning the dojang, especially the bathroom, where sometimes boys missed their intended target. Eew.
What I Learned
In five years, I’ve seen many small businesses (even martial arts schools) come and go. I’ve had some of my best enrollment months despite stock market fluctuations and hard economic times. I learned a lot by watching other businesses fail and prosper, and personally, I’m grateful to have learned that:
• I’m a fabulous youth instructor.
• I’m not meant to run a school—ever again.
• I was smart not to incur new debt (besides a meager start-up loan) and make the business support itself. Now I’m closing the school DEBT-FREE. In five years, I’ve seen many small businesses fold due to bankruptcy issues, so I feel extra fortunate that I stuck to my guns on this issue. (Wait. That was a cliché, wasn’t it? Grrrr.)
• Material goods and money don’t motivate me. People do.
• Life is too short to spend one more second doing something because others think I should, or because they think I’d be good at it.
• I’m at my best and happiest when I’m teaching and mentoring—being of service to others.
• I don’t have an inherent need to be the top dog. I don’t have a problem taking orders from others. Hence, for me, it’s less stressful to work for someone else and let them pay me to teach, pay the rent and electricity bills, collect tuition, keep the books up to date, pay (the majority of) the taxes, cut the lawn—and clean the boys’ restrooms.
As I collect all the old building’s keys and prepare to turn them into the leasing office, I know that this time next year I will have compiled a whole new list of bullets like the ones above. And that’s O.K., because if there’s one thing I’ve learned most, it’s that when one door closes, another one always opens wide to a new adventure.
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