Prepare. Prevent. Protect.

One of the challenges I see most prominent within people, as a teacher and as a human being, is the fear of change. Some are fearful that they can change, some are fearful that they can’t change and others are fearful that they will change. Whichever camp you might fall into (and you might fall into all of them at different points in your life), the common denominator is fear. And more specifically, it’s the fear of the unknown. However, without change, we’d still be crawling around in diapers, so obviously our fear of change can only be so strong.

I read an incredible book by Jiddu Krishnamurti called On Fear some years back and I refer to it quite often because it’s a really short and well-written book. Essentially, the protagonist came to realize that he only commits himself by way of fear or love. Go ahead and take a moment to think about that because it’s a terrific exercise. One of the things that I found was that there’s a whole lot of fear governing my decision making. Krishnamurti let me know I wasn’t alone.

So I say that people should harness that fear and turn it on its head. If I’m fearful of something that could change my life for the better, I do my best to experience that change…within reason. Obviously, there are some things in life that don’t need to be experienced in order to realize that they’re bad for you. But there are many things in life that we are afraid of doing precisely because we believe we’ll be judged by others; or worse, be judged by ourselves.

One day, an overweight fellow student I trained with confessed that he was afraid of losing too much weight. In his mind, it was easier to think that people may dislike him due to his weight rather than dislike him because of his personality. Just hearing that was mind-blowing in and of itself. It made me think of what might be holding me back from achieving some of my own positive changes.

At the end of the day, we’re all going to change, but choosing what to change and how to go about that change is the best way to manage fear. So let go of your own fears and grab onto the steering wheel of self-discipline, because when you’re driving your own changes, you might find that too exhilarating to waste time being fearful.

Whenever I’m on YouTube, I inevitably stumble upon some amazing young athlete, musician, or acrobat and it’s hard not to be impressed and humbled all at the same time. What goes through my mind is something like, “Man, do I really need to get my act together.” I know I wouldn’t do much different with my life, even if I could turn back the clock, but it still makes me think. As a grown man, with a business and a lot of happy and successful students, I can still feel the pull to be part of that one percent I see on YouTube. So if I can feel that kind of pressure, what do my young students feel like when they see these exceptionally talented kids?

Over my twenty years of teaching I’ve run a lot of impromptu polls in my classes. It helps me get a better sense of what my students go through in their every day and how they are coping with the realities of their world. I ask about grades, peer pressure, technology, sleep habits, and the like. One thing I started noticing years ago was that every kid seemed to be in AP classes, a straight A student, played at least one sport, played an instrument, and belonged to a club. Now, in my head I’m thinking, “How could everyone be this successful? Where do they get all this time? When do they have time to just be kids?” There’s a bell curve for a reason, because we’re all not that talented and organized. So for a while I just thought that my kids were afraid of telling me the truth. That is, until I started talking to my college students.

I graduated in 1996 from a private university in Morris County and have now taught at least half a dozen students that have graduated from the same university. All of them have described a softer university experience with very low pressure on deadlines. As one student said, “You have to really try to fail out of school, because it’s just too expensive, and the students know it.” This is the same place I attended where, if you missed three classes in a semester, without a doctor’s note, your grade would drop a full letter.

On the one hand, I see the pressure to perform, like I’ve never seen before, for grade schoolers and high schoolers. The pressure isn’t to do their best, but to BE the best. On the other hand, I see university students (that aren’t science and technology majors) taking a very expensive four year vacation. Again, as an older man I find these messages confusing, but I have the power and authority to filter out what I don’t want to engage in. However, I can’t imagine how daunting these mixed messages are to young students today, where their power and authority to filter has not yet been developed. Especially if they have not learned the skill sets of self-reliance and self-acceptance. It’s one thing to do your best, but it’s quite another to always be pressured into being the best.

When I was in college, my psychology professor told us there was no definition for love in our textbooks. This was the very first minute of his class in Pysch 101, and I cannot recall if he even explained why. If I were to guess today, it is that not all things are quantifiable by science. Looking at a definition of love, we see the following: affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. In short, I see love as a feeling where two or more people resonate over their similitude. Not unlike the Hindi greeting of “namaste”, or recognizing the divine in you. People want to be known, accepted, and loved.

 

In order to be known, it helps to know oneself first. It is the very first thing we tackle at White Tiger Dojo. Self-knowledge leads to self-control and self-control leads to a life filled with more harmony and less conflict. Coincidentally, it also leads to being easier to love.

 

Love is something we do not talk about much in the dojo, but we do express it often. Anyone stepping on the mat, that is comfortable with hugs, will naturally gravitate towards me, the assistants and each other for a hug of acknowledgement that they are “home” with their martial kin. This happens at the beginning of most classes, but can inevitably become a big group hug at the end of a class. We also express love of what we’re doing through rigorous and cooperative teamwork to solve the problems of physical conflict.

 

To be accepted, we express our love and joy for learning about conflict with an exercise we call “See, Say, Do: Ask, Tell, Yell”. This is an exercise where two people, who like and respect each other, inhabit characters of con artists, sneaks and wrong-doers so that their partner learns to visually, vocally and physically protect themselves from their “attacker”. Then the roles are reversed and the challenge is reciprocated. Typically they end with a bow and usually a hug of affirmation. Our students recognize that conflict and empathy are two sides of the same coin and in order to be a good student, they must understand both perspectives.

 

At the end of the day we end up learning about ourselves and loving ourselves a little bit more through the educational lens of conflict. Seeing yourself in the long and tall mirrors on the wall and through each other’s eyes builds respect, knowledge and a strong bond of friendship that only insiders would blush at when outsiders recognize their love.

I have a confession to make–I’m broken. But I’m okay, because I’m broken due to some hard work, some good successes and some horrible failures. It’s also okay because I’ve learned along the way. No one can undermine all the work I’ve done to put myself back together–hopefully a little better than I was before. While being broken is natural, staying broken…is not. Most of us strive to succeed, but failure is inevitable and wisdom is earned only after failure is endured. This is what I appreciate so much about the the Japanese art of Kintsugi.

I’ve been teaching four-year-olds long enough that some of them are married and expecting their own children. Within that same time frame, I’ve seen plenty of teaching methods and parenting methods go in and out of favor. As an educator, I can’t say that there’s been an improvement in the methodology for teaching kids to be self-sufficient. This isn’t to say that every school and parent is failing today’s children; rather, it’s a commentary on the idea that “less struggle” isn’t the most optimal goal to have in mind for the youth of any time period.

When I was a kid we moved around a lot as my father left his medical residency, joined a practice, and eventually owned his own practice. The four of us lived in a two bedroom apartment, then a three bedroom apartment and then a house by the time I was 8 years old. Although I didn’t know at the time, I later learned that this was the name of the game in trying to raise a happy, healthy, and safe family. My parents knew that certain zip codes had opportunities, standards, values and a level of safety that others did not. It made sense then and it still makes sense now…to a certain extent.

We live in a society where politeness is not only taught, but it is encouraged in ways that can begin to take on the customer service representatives at Disney. Like anything, too much can manifest an imbalance that can adversely affect our lives. Just because we are taught to be polite it doesn’t mean we should allow people unfettered access to our space and time. When I think of my surroundings, I think of how much control I can impose upon my space. Controlling one’s space requires the understanding of the 3 Ps of distance: Perimeter, proximity and personal.

In any athletic endeavor, you will find an arbitrary set of standards that mark a level of competency along the way towards mastery. If the standards truly have value, then you will see them resonate throughout your athletic experience. If the standard is purely arbitrary, then the set of standards will be seen as valueless and unnecessary. They will rarely see the need to use what was previously taught and begin to doubt all skills and standards. Not being held accountable for one’s actions goes hand-in-hand with not reinforcing standards. At the White Tiger Dojo our standards have value and we hold everyone accountable for their actions, including myself.

We have a tradition at our dojo where every student takes the entire class through a warm-up exercise. We make sure that each student can speak loudly and clearly enough to lead the class through the warm-ups which sometimes makes its way to the core exercises of punching and kicking. It’s really important to be able to speak up for one’s boundaries in order to establish one’s needs, wants and personal safety. If one cannot stand up straight and speak up for oneself, then one is only left with the bare-minimum-instinctual reactions of “fight” or “flight”.

When I first meet a student, the first thing we talk about is personal responsibility. I explain that the only way they will ever be able to keep themselves safe is to first learn how to control themselves. Presenting kids with a visualization of how the abstract concept of personal responsibility is implemented usually helps them better understand how the idea works in their day-to-day. So I ask them, “Are you safer if you watch where you run or are you safer if you close your eyes and run?” This scenario coupled with this concept is my way of passing the baton of leadership over to a new, young and capable mind.