Gratitude

I am so grateful for all the great books that have crossed my path, and for the wealth of information I've been able to absorb from them due to the passion for life that I had due to having a positive environment to grow up in which nurtured the passions of which motivated me to improve.

Short version:  Thanks Mom & Dad, for telling me that I could do anything.  Thank you for believing in me.  Thank you for helping me so that I *could* do anything.

To myself, thank you for taking the time to ponder life, and my own purpose.  To Derek, thank you for teaching me what time leveraging was.  To Robert, thank you for teaching me what money leveraging was.  To Arneil, thank you for teaching me what joint leveraging was.

All of these people may not have been the perfect source for the information.  They might not have been the best in their fields, or even in the top 10 in the world.  But, they were who I needed to learn from at the time.

Derek motivated me through greed, which was my motivation at the time.  Robert motivated me through a quest for power, which motivated me at the time.  And Arneil taught me through a rare combination of humor and my own fear (not that he was intimidating, but he helped me come to terms with some of my own fears) to help teach me.

As the student progressed, I learned to learn from love, from passion, from joy, from altruism and other more positive places.

Thank you to Tony, to Robert, to Steve, & Steve, and others for teaching me what I needed to learn, when I needed to learn it, no matter how it made me feel at the time, it made me grow in the end.

I had one of those fantastic conversations today with two students of mine, and, as I passionately dumped life lessons on them by the bucketload, I saw within their eyes what it must have looked like to many of the teachers I'd had.  That wonder of listening to someone and only getting 1% of what they had to say, but realizing the abundance of knowledge that they were simply inspired by.

I've been there, and it was a pleasure to be on the other side.  Go fourth and flourish my students.  Learn what I have learned sooner than I have learned it, and pass it on better than I have in the past.  Like any good "father", I want you guys to be better than I ever was.

Today was a good day for me and two others, as a result of a large collection of people's efforts.

So... thanks :)

Martial Arts is Always Exciting - Quantified Excitement

I was playing with some math this morning (heh, wait, the exciting part is coming) and, while I always felt that Martial Arts (be it Striking or Grappling) was filled with so much variety so as to never get bored and always stay excited, I never really quantified it before.

So, as I said, I was playing with some math this morning to make a point to some of my students, and, if I've done this right (using to the Nth power logic) the numbers are really astounding.

Check it out:
Number of possible permutations (or combos):
Straight Hook Uppercut (6 strikes):  720
With altered altitude (12 potential 'strikes' taken to "high" or "low" extremes for easy math): 479,001,600!!!
With Fakes (24 potential 'strikes') actually breaks the calculator, but I estimated it somewhere around 18 hundred trillion, as its 6 to the 23rd power, and 6 to the 20th power is 3,656,158,440,062,976.  Actually, I'm not entirely sure what comes after trillion, but I think it might be in there.  (Zillion?)

Anyway, its a lot.  No wonder it always feels fresh, new and exciting when we train!  Can you imagine "running out of combos?"

Yeesh, you add in kicks, blocks, evasion, takedowns, ground positions, submissions, trapping... the list goes on into... well, a lot of potential permutations, eh?

So:  I'd better go work on my Jab Punch Hook and Uppercut.  Clearly there are combinations yet to be discovered :-D

Sensei Ono, Shinka Martial Arts

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My Mom has a green belt

Y'know, its a weird, fulfilling, awesome thing, teaching your parents things.

When we grow up, they're these omniscient beings, the source of all life's answers (how do they KNOW the stove is hot!?)

Then, at some point, our specialties diverge, and, pretty soon, we become able to help them in our own ways.

A common event is the youth teaching the old the technology of the youth - as was the case with my family and I.

I have two favorite memories of such an event.  One, was when I was teaching my Mom how to "move the line up" in a word processing program; and the abstractness to which the explanation of "deleting empty space" became.  The second, is the elaborate instructions required for my father to "turn on the internet".

But, I would say that one of the more impactual, more recent memories would definitely  be teaching my mom Martial Arts, and guitar hero.

Both, were so drastically outside of her self definition at the time, that it was truly inspiring and fulfilling to be there for her and to help her bridge the gap from impossible, to possible, to plausible, to doing, to struggling, to persevering, to done.

Now, of course, "done" is something nobody ever truly is, in anything.  There is always room for improvement.  But, at the same time, it is important to respect, honor, and celebrate milestones in our lives.  Measurable, quantifiable benchmarks that we set for ourselves.

So, to look at my Mom, and see her achieve a green belt at Shinka is really inspiring.  When I think about this vague memory I have of her being afraid to try martial arts, and think of what she has become... wow, honestly:  Wow.

From sitting behind her, holding guitar hero's guitar for her and getting her to strum while I did the fingering (and gradually getting her to do "just the reds" and so on) to teaching her to keep her hands up and how to redirect the force of larger opponents in martial arts...  in the end, its all learning, its all growing, and its all taken a lot of persevering, practice, and heart.

Thankfully, heart, is one of the things my Mom has a seemingly unlimited amount of.  When others have been beaten down, or have given up, you'll see my Mom not only continuing on, but, doing so with a smile on her face as she embraces life's challenges.

Does she get down?  Oh sure, we all do.  But she's like the friggin' wolverine of cheerful.  It might get wounded momentarily, but that healing factor kicks in, and she's back up and swingin' for the fences again.

Way to go Mum.

I'm proud of you :)

Sensei Ono, Shinka Martial Arts