Book Review: The World Without Us

Alan Weisman's The World Without Us explores the question: what would happen if humanity was to disappear from the world tomorrow, all at once, suddenly, and not cataclysmically?

Although this seems like a plot device from the Left Behind series and countless post-apocalyptic science-fiction movies, that's not where Weisman's heading. His point is to show readers that without our destructive lifestyles, the world would eventually repair itself. Through interviews, research, and educated speculation, Weisman takes us on a tour of the world that extends both forwards and backwards: backwards, to delve into our history and explain the kind of damage that we've done to the world; and forwards to paint a picture of the healing power of our planet.

Ultimately, the point of the book is that we don't have to disappear in order to heal the world. We just need to eliminate our 'footprint' on the environment. Check out this book if you get a chance....and if you haven't yet checked out any of Coach Tom's links to Colin Beavan's No Impact Man blog, there's a good place to get started.

Monthly Progress Report: January 2010

No grand narratives today. Just posting my totals and updating you all on where I'm at.

For reference, here is a link to my original list of goals.

Big Stats:
(I'm tracking my grand total since I committed in April 09, w/separate tracking for 2010-only!)
Pushups: 66,150 (10,150 since 1/1, mostly inclined for my shoulders)
Ab Exercises: 66,500 (10,500 since 1/1)
Kicks: 71,000 (15,000 since 1/1 - this is one of my own goals outside of the UBBT)
Mileage: 1211 (123 since 1/1: 80m bike, 24m run, 9m hike)


More Stats: (2010-only)
Forms: 180 (Gaebaek is my form of choice; I'm not counting others.)
Sparring/Bag Rounds: 100 (24m sparring, 76m bag)
Meditation: 900m (I average at least two 15m sessions daily)
Acts of Kindness: 2019 (big, small, conscious & sincere)
Inspired AOKs through school/community: 1643 (most through Free Hug Day)
Righting 3 Wrongs: 1 in progress, 2 in the works.
Mending 3 Relationships: 2 in progress, 1 in the works.
Living Heroes Profiled: 1
Books Read: 1


Personal Goals in Progress:
Current Weight: 224 (originally 249 in Apr 2009)
Weekly Journaling: With some minor variance, still on track.
Healthy Sleeping Habits: On track, averaging 7 hours/night.
Clean Home: I've halfway cleaned out a desk. Need to do more.
Credit Cards Paid Off (my personal goal): 2 in progress, on track to be paid off in March and May.
Cooking: I can now slice veggies for salad without cutting myself. Onward to recipes with the stove!
Body For Life: Beginning effective 2/1/10. Used some principles in Jan, but stepping it up in Feb.
Groundwork & Boxing: On hold during January; looking forward to resuming.
Empathy Training: 1 day mute complete.
Videos & Film: Recorded 2 videos on my phone; made one with much assistance from my brother.
Diabetes Education Course: Contacted Dawn Swidorski of MADDCAP; looking forward to learning!
Anger Management Course: Postponed; pursuing MADDCAP info first.
Project Planning Guides for Teachers: Turning this into a summer goal.
Environmental Cleanup: 1 completed; more to come.
Public Performances: 1
Memorize Quote: Not yet begun.
Seek a Master: Not yet begun.
Reduce Plastics: No new plastics purchased; Brita pitchers in use; silverware in tow daily.
Buy Nothing New: Aside from essentials, no new purchases made since 1/1/10.
Student Team Engagement: Could be better. Working on this.
Anonymous AOKs for Teammates: No anonymous ones yet; kind acts performed openly though. :)
Contact teammates regularly: Using the UBBT site for this, expanding to videoconferencing in Feb.


Last, but not least:
No quitting: I'm still here! :)

Celebrating Everyday Heroism

In an early post that I made last May, I mentioned that I work in a tough neighborhood.  My program, among other aspects of the school, helps to create an oasis where our students can be safe from the local drama; however, we still receive our fair share, and it is in those times when I see everyday heroes rise.

Without getting into the details and negativity, tensions have increased on our campus.  We've had numerous incidents lately and while it is not necessarily my role to handle such issues, I am often close at hand when they happen and will often find myself in conversations with students and staff long after the encounters have occurred.  It's affected us all in some way, including myself; I'm a couple of days late in posting.  Sorry - I have several drafts in the works, but this is foremost in my mind right now.

In such times, it's easy to become consumed by negativity, but right now I'd really like to recognize a few everyday heroes from my community, not all by name, but through their actions:

• During a parking lot scuffle, one of our parents (a retired vet) stepped out of his car and separated the combatants while support arrived;
• Numerous teachers and staff were on hand to deal with the issues of the past few days, and I appreciate their quick thinking and decisive action;
• A member of my student team, Ranfis Villatoro, was provoked during a passing period by another student, who engaged in classic textbook pre-fight interviewing.  Ranfis held his ground and talked him down without having to fight;
  
• Another member of my student team, Armond Witherspoon, was caught in the middle of an encounter between two students and helped his teachers separate them by standing in the way.  It became especially tense when control was lost and a pair of scissors was produced.  His sweatshirt was cut in the process, but thanks to his quick sidestep, he was unharmed....and a lucky young man.  Another student stepped in and calmly helped to take away the scissors.

There are no words for the gratitude and pride that I feel, for the honor of working alongside everyday heroes like those I've just mentioned.  It's a mixed feeling every time, but I find myself appreciating most.

This is not how things are every day, of course, but this did all happen within the span of several days.  Incidents like these, while uncommon at our school, are somewhat commonplace in the neighborhood that we serve.  Our school was built here to help transform the community through empowering people.  It's why I chose to serve here six years ago, and why I continue to help build the school.  This work is my ultimate black belt test.  It's not found in my pushups, my mileage, or my bag work; these are a means to achieve something within myself that must be passed on and shared....so that heroes may rise.

Every hero that rises is a victory for us all.

Colored Lenses

Your focus determines your reality.

Humans are subjective beings.  Although we exist in an objective reality, our existence within that reality is forever perceived and interpreted through a subjective lens.  Conceptually, we are capable of abstraction; I can employ my mental faculties in order to conceive of another's point of view - but what cannot be divorced from this process is the 'me' of this.

It's like wearing a pair of funny glasses.  Try them on and the world appears differently, thanks to the colored lenses or whatever other properties are in the lenses.  In some cases, the altered sense of perception can highlight certain things and obscure others.  With certain lenses, you may even begin to see things that aren't even there, or are so badly distorted that we don't recognize them.

Mentally, the lens that we employ is attitudinal.  It comes from us, and is controlled by us.  The world provides a set of circumstances, but depending on which lens that we employ, we will shape our own perception of it, unconsciously categorizing, interpreting, and reacting to what we see - or what we think we see.

Take our practice of the martial arts, for example.

Many people in the world see much of what we do through the lens of media, almost all of it in the most superficial sense (the punching, kicking, choking, etc).  Many people also have rather polarized views regarding violence, ranging from bloodthirsty cries of support, to utter revulsion, and everything inbetween.  All colored lenses.

From a certain point of view, love or hate it, we're all a little sick.  We stab our friends for fun and strive to figure out how to do it more effectively.  Our idea of a good time is tossing our buddy on the mat and hearing that thunderous echo resound throughout the gym.  Only we know the joys of impaling someone (or being impaled) with a well-timed side kick, and when it happens, we somehow manage a smile.  Part of our practice involves visualizing and having a deep understanding of exactly how that joint locking technique is supposed to light up every nerve in our opponent.  Smashing through construction materials is somehow considered impressive.

Distorted?  Perhaps.  But through this lens, we're all a bunch of sadistic people.  In fact, given that this is what is shown in most of the media, it's no wonder that some people don't see what we see. We see through different eyes and wear our own funny-colored glasses.  In what we see, there is a deeper beauty to what we practice, revealed in every action of every day.  We have the opportunity to show it - but to do that, we must teach, we must practice, we must write, we must film, we must take action, we must create, we must inspire, we must do, and we must share.

I like that the UBBT encourages us to embrace and adopt a more overt connection between what we practice and the benefits that it carries for our students in all areas of life.  I like that we have a group that reminds and inspires us to BE what we practice.  And I love that students have this opportunity to see us in action (or inaction) as we train and grow because it's real.

Our work provides a different lens for us to see ourselves and our practice differently, and for the world to see us with new eyes.  I am honored to contribute in whatever way I can.

Making Things Right

My life is not what it once was.

Each day, I evolve. I grow. I change. Part of me that belongs to yesterday fades, another part remains, and the part of myself that is here now meets my future self in every moment of every day.

In every instant, I cease to be and I come into being all at once.

This also means that every instant is the birth of the new me, and in any given moment, that new me can become something else…and perhaps what I have undone in my life can be made whole once again.

I have not always been aware of the harm that my lifestyle has caused to the world, to others, and to myself. For a long time, I have possessed the knowledge but not the realization. My intentions have never been harmful, but that doesn’t mean that in my ignorance, I have avoided hurtful actions. Far from it.

I am not who I once was. I am becoming someone else now. My awareness has grown.

My lifestyle, the one I lived prior to beginning my UBBT journey, was hurting me. I ate poorly, slept little, and exercised intermittently. For this, I have paid a heavy price – some of that literally, more of it in other realms of my life.

Not all of it was hurtful, but that’s how we justify things to ourselves sometimes, isn’t it? “I know this is bad for me, but for the most part, I’m a good person, so this time, it’s okay.” Sure. It’s okay this time. And the next time, and the time after that. Then we call it a habit, as if the word offered any support.

Then come the defenses: “I’ve always been this way.” “I’ve tried.” “I’ll get around to it.” Mix them up as you wish, add a dash of other excuses, and you get a nice little cornucopia of rationalizations to protect yourself from anyone daring enough to care and say something.

This year, it’s time that I stop lying to myself. I’ve done enough damage.

This year, I must realize. This year, I must learn.

This year, my life is my apology, my amends, and my atonement to both myself and my world. This year, the hurtful side of my life will fade into yesterday, and I will meet the man that I shape myself into in every new instant.

That man, like me, will not be who he once was. He will be better, as will I.

May your Live journey lead you to meet a better You.

A Quick Hello to the Live Team

One of my goals this year is to get over my camera shyness, post videos that I record, and learn some basic film editing so I can begin to use this to enhance my program. This is part of that beginning, recorded at my desk in my classroom with my Droid phone, and then uploaded to YouTube.

Lessons learned today: aim the camera at me, decide whether to look like I just worked out or freshen up first - but not this halfway business, uploading works best when you don't have a brand-new school firewall blocking your wi-fi signal, I'm more comfortable recording this stuff when at least one other student is in the room because I'm aware of their presence and leave my 'instructor hat' on.

More to come, I'm working on this! Hope all is well with you.

Neeru Khosla, a Living Hero

Neeru Khosla strongly believes in the power of education and is an influential figure in many exciting projects both in the world of education and abroad!

Since 1997, Khosla has been a board member of The Nueva School, an internationally recognized school based in Hillsborough, California that caters to gifted and talented students.  Additionally, she is on the advisory board of the American India Foundation, which helps to accelerate social and economic change in India.  Recently, she was named a member of the Wikimedia Advisory Board.  Previously, Neeru was a trustee of the Pacific Vascular Research Foundation and Connexions, a Rice University open-source project.

Neeru's commitment to education is evidenced by her role on the National Advisory Board for DonorsChoose, an organization dedicated to addressing the scarcity and inequitable distribution of learning materials in U.S. public schools. Neeru is one of the founding members of the K-12 Initiative of the D-School (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) at Stanford University and a member of the committee to expand the program. Neeru is currently the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CK-12 Foundation. CK-12 is a non-profit organization launched in 2006, which aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide.

The CK-12 online service is completely free, funded primarily by donations from the Khosla family.

CK-12's model synthesizes the power of collaborative development (such as Wikipedia) with the flexibility and personalization of an iTunes playlist.  Teachers have the ability to construct their own textbooks, or FlexBooks, by dragging and dropping chapters from texts that have been donated to CK-12's network.  The books can be viewed digitally and it is easy to edit them to include bonus videos and/or links to interesting sites on the Internet.  Additionally, teachers have the option to author and publish their own content for sharing with other educators.  This allows for much greater creativity, innovation, and collaboration among teachers!

As a high school teacher, I find this incredibly exciting.  CK-12 recently presented to the faculty of LPS San Jose, encouraging us to begin using their technology as a tool....completely free.  My enthusiasm was echoed by my principal, who really liked the fact that this technology allows teachers to construct textbooks that are driven by the curriculum, as opposed to curriculum that is driven by the textbooks.  It allows for much greater personalization with students than ever before, and I'm all for that!

(Author's note:  This is the first of ten living heroes that I will be profiling as part of the Live Like A Champion project.  Source credit for most of this information belongs to the CK12 website and Wikipedia.)

Students: You Are A Teacher

"The path of the teacher and student are one."

-Vergere, from SW-NJO: Traitor, by Matthew Stover

Matthew Woodring Stover is one of my favorite authors, at least in terms of novels that I read for fun.  A talented writer with martial arts experience, Stover regularly infuses his work with rich and insightful narratives that draw from the teachings of the arts - like the quote above.  But I digress...

I may have a master's rank and title, and I may share my days with others teaching, but I am forever a student.  Without this constant and never-ending quest for improvement, I wouldn't be the kind of teacher that my students deserve to have.  I am always working on my "A" game, and my standard for my "A" game continues to rise as I grow.

Similarly, students may wear a student's belt and play the role of learner more frequently, but you are also forever a teacher.  Everyone around you learns from you.  As Dr. Phil might say, we teach people how to treat us.  This is especially important because, if you're a UBBT student member, you are also now a teacher to everyone around you and for countless thousands more!

Since we're teammates, and we are both students and teachers together, then let me share something with you: some of your biggest battles with your UBBT participation may be with those who are close with you.  It's not because they don't care about me, because they do.  They just don't understand what we've committed to.  That's understandable: the UBBT is a big commitment!

Help them to understand the value of what you are doing.  Though you may be a student, you, like me, are a teacher.