Quintuple Bypass

I’m finally back in town after a harrowing week in Chicago.  I spent several days agonizing about missing classes to fly out, but my decision was clear when I stopped to acknowledge how bad I felt about the possibility of not seeing my dad before such a major surgery.  Even though many people told me bypass surgery is “routine,” sawing open my dad’s chest and rewiring his heart didn’t seem too routine to me.

I’m so relieved I went, for my dad yes, but mostly for my mother to help see her through her worry and fear for my dad’s life.  We had to celebrate her birthday in the hospital waiting room on Wednesday while the nurses watched my dad. Things were touch and go for awhile there but now he seems like he’s on the road to recovery.

This health scare reaffirmed a few things:

1)  Family First (biologic or not).  No matter what is going on, it can wait when your family needs you.

2)  It is a blessing to have a stellar TEAM of Instructors at SMAA who all step up for each other.  Creating, having and appreciating those who support us is one of the keys to a good life.

3)  When you are in surgery is not the time to start thinking about your health.  An ounce of Prevention is worth the proverbial pound of cure.  This is one of the reasons I emphasize the health and fitness aspect of martial arts and why I created the WarriorFit System (you are using this, right?).

I’m glad to be back!

The Original Karate Kid

I love going to the movies so turning the school into our very own private movie theater Saturday to watch the Original Karate Kid was a treat.  It took a bit of doing though.

I stumbled upon a simple way to make our our screen and Mr. Aaron and Mr. Lance put it together and set it up perfectly.  Mr. Mike came by and Helped Mr. Lance rewire our sound system for great effect.  The Thorndike family generously loaned us their projector while the entire staff, including Mr. Vincent and Dr. Karla helped me pop corn.  Sandy Sartor came to the popcorn rescue with not one, but two more air-poppers to fulfill the demand.   Thanks to everyone who made the night a huge success.

Before the night was through I already had requests and questions when the next movie night would be.  Well, I’m working on it.  Aside from The Karate Kid Part II, I’d like some help with movie suggestions.

Let me know what you’d like us to show next.

How Long Can You Live Without Breath?

The average person can hold his breathe for 2-4 minutes.  The world record is 17 minutes—recently documented and set by magician David Blaine.

How about the average 7 year-old struggling on a spelling test?  Or the average 15 year-old responding to an essay prompt? The average 17 year-old giving a speech to the entire school?

It’s time to give breathing its due.  There is no magic bullet in the world of teaching and learning, but breathing is such a tremendous tool for stress release that…..go to ScholarFit.com…….

This Saturday we’re hosting a Breathing Seminar for Families.  We’ll be teaching children (and their parents!) better breathing for Self Control, Anxiety Management, and Performance Enhancement. Look forward to seeing you there!

I’m finally back in town after a harrowing week in Chicago.  I spent several days agonizing about missing classes to fly out, but my decision was clear when I stopped to acknowledge how bad I felt about the possibility of not seeing my dad before such a major surgery.  Even though many people told me bypass surgery is “routine,” sawing open my dad’s chest and rewiring his heart didn’t seem too routine to me.

I’m so relieved I went, for my dad yes, but mostly for my mother to help see her through her worry and fear for my dad’s life.  We had to celebrate her birthday in the hospital waiting room on Wednesday while the nurses watched my dad. Things were touch and go for awhile there but now he seems like he’s on the road to recovery.

This health scare reaffirmed a few things:

1)  Family First (biologic or not).  No matter what is going on, it can wait when your family needs you.

2)  It is a blessing to have a stellar TEAM of Instructors at SMAA who all step up for each other.  Creating, having and appreciating those who support us is one of the keys to a good life.

3)  When you are in surgery is not the time to start thinking about your health.  An ounce of Prevention is worth the proverbial pound of cure.  This is one of the reasons I emphasize the health and fitness aspect of martial arts and why I created the WarriorFit System (you are using this, right?).

I’m glad to be back!

Dr. Karla at ScholarFit

Just want to make sure you know where to find me now….www.ScholarFit.com.  Thanks for all your encouragement.  Keep it up…your questions, additions, comments, etc.!

There’s an easy way to get updates.  Just go to the ScholarFit site and put your e-mail into the RSS Feed (in the top right corner of the site).

Thanks….and happy Spring day!

Dr.  K

Mission Accomplished

I’m flabbergasted.

My 4 Peak Performer students (Clarke Whitehead, Nathan Hyde, Zack Kierstein and Jordan Trout) and I challenged our Academy to raise $2,500–working with Habitat for Humanity– to help build a permanent home in Haiti following the recent earthquake.

You rose to that challenge.

At our Board Break-a-Thon Saturday, Ms. Michelle announced that everyone (so far) have collected…

$2,811

…with some pledges still outstanding.  So, if you are thinking, “oops, I missed it,” you have this week to get your donations in.  Let’s break $3,000 before we send a final total to Habitat for Humanity.

The Silent Auction run by Ms. Michelle is what put us over the top.  This was our first silent auction at the Academy and the timing couldn’t have been better.  Thank you to everyone for the generous donations to the auction.

I’m so proud, not only of the Peak Performers for leading a successful fundraiser, but for everyone who participated, helped and donated.  We know our recent recession is only temporary, but most Haitians live in daily poverty and raising money to build a home for people we will never meet has been the high point of 2010, so far.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for contributing to our Academy Mission–To Change Lives.

Keep your eyes open for pictures of the event which I will post was soon as I get them from un-official school photographer Tatum McKenzie who took some super shots of the break-a-thon.

Whoever Said We Read Better When We SIT Still?

There are many things we take for granted, and many things we just assume.  Many people assume, for example, that the best position from which to read a book is sitting.  Or that someone studies better at a desk, alone on a chair.  Our schools in particular base many of their activities around outdated and silly theories that completely ignore the importance of physical movement in helping to activate neural connections in our brains.

Granted, many talented teachers figure out ways to incorporate movement into every day classroom routines: kids get up to pick up handouts, a student walks up to the board to solve a problem, groups of kids move from table to table after each completed assignment.  When I taught high school history, I sometimes had my students get up and turn around 4 times, supposedly a lucky number in Kwaikutl culture.  I also just told them to get up and stretch, walk around if they needed to, get a drink, etc..  I didn’t know specifically how much movement was necessary to liven up those teenagers’ brains, or even specifically what type of movement was absolutely necessary – neither do cognitive scientists!  Researchers have yet to determine just how much and specifically what type of movement is absolutely required for optimal brain performance.  Ratey’s book Spark can fill you in more with the latest peer-reviewed updates in the mind-movement arena.

But No Movement?!?  Whoever said we read better when we sit still?  Ever tried reading standing up while reading…and continuing to stand up? It can be pretty cool.  Too bad we often don’t let our kids do it.  Or what about sitting on a ball-chair, the new craze in the ADHD Intervention world?  I’m sitting on one right now.  Someone somewhere finally said – enough with solid, stiff chairs!  Let’s move, or at least subtly work our core muscles while bouncing in the blogosphere.

Easter Egg Riots

Saturday we hosted our annual Academy Easter Egg Hunt, and despite the heavy winds, it was a great morning and all the kids had tons of fun. Siena even got to participate in her first egg hunt ever. Thanks to Nathan Ooms for backing off and letting her find some eggs. That was very kind of him and it made her day.

After our Easter Egg Hunt, I witnessed two other Egg Hunts that I just need to contrast to our well-disciplined and courteous egg hunt.

The first was directly following our egg hunt in Boulder.  We went to get Siena’s hair cut for the first time and stumbled across a toy store’s egg hunt in their tiny concrete square outside their store.  Coming right from our hunt in a nice, spacious park to this cramped quarters was striking.

You couldn’t really call this an egg hunt.  It was more like an Easter Egg Scramble because all the eggs were just dumped into this concrete circle and all the kids were unleashed to shove and jostle to collect as many eggs as they could.  It was a frenzy and had none of the FUN of exploring to find hidden Easter Eggs.

Dr. Karla and I were a bit repulsed and both said, in unison, “Siena’s never going to be a part of that.”

On Sunday — with the second Easter Egg Hunt Incident — It got worse!

I happened to catch a TV news report of an “Easter Egg Hunt Gone Wrong” in New Hampshire.  Again, not really a hunt as much as a piranha-like feeding frenzy.

Hundreds of kids were in a field where eggs were dropped from helicopters.  The best efforts of the organizers were to no avail in keeping the ravenous kids under control.  They stormed the field, running each other over, knocking each other done in a mad dash fueled by pure “id” to collect more eggs than they could possibly ever need.

Of course the TV announcer was aghast at how this could happen, but as a martial arts teacher my first response was, “really, what else did you expect”? I sometimes joke that our kids are like locusts at our Easter Egg Hunt, but it’s a joke.  Our SMAA kids were the pinnacle of restraint and just plain NICE as they searched for eggs, even going so far as to help others who didn’t have many eggs find more eggs.

These kids, in such overwhelmingly large numbers, really were like locusts.  File that Easter Egg Riot under “you had to see it to believe it.”

This Easter tale has one last component.  Sunday morning Siena, now 2, had her first Easter Egg Hunt at home.  On Saturday we colored eggs with her, an event in itself.  Watching her face as she helped dunk eggs and see them change color was priceless, as any parent would know.  As fun as that was, guiding her to find the eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden was better.  Seeing her scan the house, then spot an egg on the ledge, then exclaim, “there’s one!”– MAGICAL.

Some things are better in small numbers.

It’s Karate, not Karoshi

This week is St. Vrain’s Spring Break and I invite you to take a break from your martial arts training as well.

What? Heresy, you say! No, I’m serious. We all need a break from even the BEST DISCIPLINES, martial arts included. Of course who would want to be away from the positive influences in your life? After all, if you stop working don’t you backslide? Ever onward and upward as they say.

That sounds good in theory, but in practice it doesn’t play out. We need to put work aside periodically for 5 simple, profound reasons.

First, after awhile we waste time. We lose focus on achievement and become less and less efficient and ineffective in our labors. Practicing is like sloshing through mud, mentally we hit what economists call “diminishing marginal returns”– less return for more effort.

Second, we need a fresh perspective. New experiences and different inputs mesh with our experiences in ways we would never achieve without taking a break. Now, if you just plop in front of the TV for your break you probably won’t get any sort of valuable perspective at all. Shutting off your brain completely isn’t “active recovery” of the sort that I’m talking about. An active lifestyle is what I mean. Keep your body and brain alive with new, unusual challenges and they will help you when you return.

Third, we need to recharge our batteries. When we get emotionally run down, everything gets harder. When daily stresses overwhelm our systems nothing seems to work anymore. See point #1. After a break we return eager for action and primed for accomplishment. We need what’s called “activation energy” to experience flow, or optimal experience. Changing things up with new places and new adventures helps restore this mental energy.

Fourth, is the “reminiscence effect.” When you take a break from training you lose all the small details and retain only the “big picture.” The good news here is that many of the small mistakes you make tend to fall away as well. When you return you may be surprised to find learning easier and be better than before. Trust me, this happened to me with my martial arts training several times. I didn’t know what was going on until I came across the reminiscence effect.

Fifth, there is more to life than training. My martial arts teacher told me that while I was in a fit of obsession with training. Boy, did I need that. Achieving Black Belt and Life Mastery is a LONG process and committing to the path helps us take necessary breaks and still return to the path. Breaks make it easier for us to commit and re-commit to our long-term goals. No one makes it to the top of the highest mountain without regular breaks. Just make sure you weave them into a long-term vision or else breaks will mean stopping altogether.

This is why we have to FORCE ourselves to take a momentary rest before we suffer from “karoshi” the Japanese word for dying from overwork. They have so many people dying from overwork they had to create a word for it.

The Most Horrible ‘Aye’ Vote Ever Cast

Ever have to do something you really don’t want to do – but have to, given the circumstances?

Of course.

The Colorado State Senate just did, too.

The least-liked bill of the Spring Session is all about money.  More specifically, it’s about cutting the state budget earmarked to education.

The same week I read about Harvard increasing its tuition by 3.8%, I opened up my e-mail to find that Colorado decreased its financial support of education by 6.3%.

And this was not a wheeling and dealing, go-through-the-back-doors-to-get-a-bill passed scenario.  The senators voted 8-0 in approval of House Bill 10-1369.

They didn’t want to.

“This is the most horrible aye [vote] I’ve ever cast,” said Senator Evie Hudak of Westminster.

The prime sponsor of the measure, Senator Bob Bacon, added, “I think someone needs to say it’s a sad day when we’re cutting education.”

Sad indeed. Also a wake-up call.

Colorado is already at a dismal 48^th place in rankings of state funding for K-12 education.

Abysmal.

Granted, this is just state funding, just one of the revenue streams for school districts.  All districts, and wealthier ones in particular, get funding from its local property taxes.  But still – 48^th place, of 50?  Yuck.

Sometimes new families coming into our Martial Arts Academy wonder why the tuition is high relative to the place down the street led by a man who’s teaching punching and kicking as a hobby.

Because we refuse to be in 48^th place.

In my role of coaching new teachers in the local districts, the number of students in the classes I visit astounds me.  Even in a relatively well-off district, Boulder Valley, I walk into high school English classes with 30 students.  And this is just one of the teacher’s five classes.  Of course, I care how talented of a classroom manager the teacher is – how well he can engage the students during those 50 minutes, keep them from throwing spit balls, prompt them to discuss important matters of living a life of integrity.  But I also care about the students’ writing development – how much effective feedback they get from the teacher, how much the teacher “knows” their writing, can fix it, shape it, improve it.  Teachers need more than a minute or two with each student’s paper to get to know it, and work with it.

We demand so much from teachers…at the same time that we, for budget reasons, put them in extremely challenging conditions.

Thankfully, we have many parents at SMAA who volunteer at their child’s school.  And we have many parents who work, pay their taxes, and nurture their child’s curiosity and self-discipline.  We don’t “stand back” and let budget cuts stop us from offering our children a sound education.

Let’s continue moving forward with a list of educational experiences that don’t cost money.  But let’s also not ignore the fact that education, as a whole, does require a financial commitment.

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