Martial Arts First Aid Kit Workshop Review

Every once in a great while something comes along that takes all the rules of the game, chucks them out the window and creates what Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift, a new world-view like the earth being round.

I witnessed such a game-changer this weekend as the host of “The Martial Arts First Aid Kit Workshop” with Bill Parravano, The Knee Pain Guru.

I’ve known Bill as a martial artist for years and knew that “healing” was his real job, but as we are all wont to do I never really gave much thought about it.  I never saw first-hand what exactly his healing work consisted of until last year.

I was so jazzed about the little taste of it I got that I set up last weekend’s workshop.

Fixing a shoulder injury I had for years was great, but watching a room full of students with various aches, pains and not-completely-healed injuries walk out of the workshop feeling better than they had in years blew me away…and he just scratched the surface.

Bill’s healing work is based on putting your body in a position of comfort so your nervous system sends out the relaxation signal and allows your body to attend to and heal past trauma by itself…

And the best part is that it is Painless.

What Bill does is far removed from painful manipulations and pressing into your body.

Don’t get me wrong, I love those too but Bill’s program is much more sustainable and many of the exercises can be done BY YOURSELF.

It’s funny because several people in the workshop immediately wanted to share what they learned with family and friends.

I’m no different.

I will be integrating his teaching into my own with my adult students and I’m going to help Bill reach as many people as we can.   Like I said, as far as health and healing goes, The Martial Arts First Aid Kit is a game-changer.

You can check out more about Bill at:   TheKneePainGuru.com

And check back in a few days if you want to receive updates, like when the Video Program of the workshop will be available, at:   TheMartialArtsFirstAidKit.com (it won’t be live for a few days)

Ask An Expert EdNews Parent

My lastest Q and A about Bullying in Schools has been posted on EdNews Parent’s website.  Click the link below to check it out.

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WarriorFit Workout of the Week

Ms. Michelle made the news!  Check her out in the Boulder Daily Camera.

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

With tomorrow being Valentine’s Day I thought it appropos to say a little something about Kojak’s question, “who loves ya, baby?” (for the uniformed, Kojak was a TV detective fro the mid-1970′s and this one of of his trademark line).

Kojak’s line is really an assurance that he loves ya, a rhetorical question but I’m going to answer it anyway.

Here’s my quick answer: Don’t worry about it.  Well, don’t worry about it directly.

Instead, ask yourself this alternate question: “Who, and what, do ya love?”

Worrying about who loves you is akin to worrying about being happy or worrying about your self-esteem. You cannot directly make people love you, be happy or feel great about yourself for no good reason (well, maybe this one but it’s not a good idea). Each of these is a fool’s errand.

Each of the above values follows The Law of Indirect Effort, that they are results of other actions and lack a simple 1-to-1 correspondence.

It brings me to a third, related question people love to ask each other, “is it more important to be loved or to love?“

To love of course, because that is the best way to assure that you will be loved in return–hey, you get both this way.  Loving is attractive, literally, by doing what you love, or loving what you are doing and expressing it to those you love it is inevitable that this same love with come back to you.

On the flip side, longing and neediness are repellent, they push everyone away.  You might get a bit of sympathy for awhile but people will begin to shun you if it keeps up (ask me, I know firsthand).

Who loves you, how happy you are presently and how you feel about yourself are SCORECARDS about how you’ve been doing lately. You can’t erase these scores, nor can you plead with a teacher to raise them undeservedly.

Valentine’s Day at its heart is a perennial reminder to express your love to those who are important in your life (hint, hint) in case you’ve forgotten lately, and haven’t we all to some degree?

“The hole you give through is the hole you receive through.”

I’ve been tying my shoes wrong

About two weeks ago Bruce Tiemann told me that he had been tying his shoes wrong and saw a lecture about how to do it correctly.  I don’t recall what brought this subject up, but it might have been something about tying Jai’s karate belt.

Of course I learned to tie my shoes the same way, and when he explained it to me I knew I was in the same boat.  Aside from pure curiosity, I had a vested interest in testing this whole shoe-tying thing out.

I have a pair of LL Bean slippers that are among my favorite things, especially on cold winter days like today.  My aggravation has been that, as comfortable as they are they have leather laces that constantly come untied.  As a result I’m regularly tripping on them and I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with these shoes.  I’ve even been looking at a different kind of slipper to replace them with.

So home I went to try this “new way to tie my shoes.”

How’d it go?

With the correct way, i.e. a stronger knot, my leather laces stayed tied for about a week and I haven’t tripped over them once.  It turns out it wasn’t the slippers’ fault.

Success!  Thanks for the tip Bruce.

Here are three BIG points to take from learning how to tie your shoes:

1.  Never take for certain how you’ve been taught something.

You might not have been shown the best way to do things, and you might not have learned correctly and completely.  Kenpo Grandmaster Ed Parker said that tradition should be bound by knowledge, that tradition should change as we learn more about our world.  There are many ways to perform the same task, some are equally correct while some are objectively superior.  If you’ve learned something incorrectly or inefficiently don’t hold on to it because of habit.

2.   Always be prepared to change and adapt your beliefs and behavior based on new evidence.

This is not waffling, flip-flopping or being wish-washy as politicians are apt to accuse each other of, it’s being an intelligent person.  I’m not talking about changing because of an opinion, but because of new, proven information.  Prior beliefs may no longer serve you and need to go for you to progress.

I’ll never consciously tie my shoes the old way again, based on this new information.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “a mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimension.”

3.  Little Tweaks Make Big Differences.

Sure these two knots are similar and when it comes to tying your shoes it might not matter to you much, but what if that knot was responsible for saving your life?  A little difference like looping the knot in the other direction has major consequences.

Whether it is god or the devil in the details, details matter.  Martial arts students know that the small details are the difference between a technique working and failing utterly, which is why the expert eye of a master instructor is necessary.

I’ve posted a link to the video so you can see for yourself and try it out:

Terry Moore: How to tie your shoes