Monthly Progress Report: February 2010

It's the end of the month, so here are my totals!  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: 76,500 (20,500 since 1/1, mostly inclined for my shoulders)
Ab Exercises: 78,500 (22,500 since 1/1)
Kicks: 81,000 (25,000 since 1/1 - this is one of my own goals outside of the UBBT)
Mileage: 1312 (224 since 1/1: 170m bike, 42m run, 12m hike)


More Stats: (2010-only)
Forms: 320 (180 in Jan, 140 in Feb)
Sparring/Bag Rounds: 220 (52m sparring, 168m bag)
Meditation: 1800m, estimated (I average at least two 15m sessions daily)
Acts of Kindness: 3841 (big, small, conscious & sincere)
Inspired AOKs through school/community: 2068 (many 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: 2
Books Read: 2


Personal Goals in Progress:
Current Weight: 222 (originally 249 in Apr 2009, was 224 in Jan; dropped to 220 and bounced to 222. Grr!)
Weekly Journaling: With some minor variance, still on track.
Healthy Sleeping Habits: On track, averaging 7 hours/night.
Clean Home: My electricity bill has increased, but I've been doing a lot more laundry.
Credit Cards Paid Off (my personal goal): 2 in progress, on track to be paid off in March and May.  March 15th will mark the first one.
Cooking: Can accomplish simple salads, eggs, and pasta now.  Still making a mess when I get clumsy.
Body For Life: In progress. Slipped slightly during the UBBT reunion, picking up the ball and continuing onward.
Groundwork & Boxing: 4 hours completed this month.  Not good enough for me.  Need to do solo drilling before I forget things; started today with 30m of groundwork basics (thank you Kai).
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: Dawn Swidorski visited on 2/22; following up with her about pledging.
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: I feel as if I have encountered numerous ones; however, I need to process this more.
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.  Still going strong.
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.  Realizing that scheduling can be difficult when talking to teams from around the world!


Last, but not least:
No quitting:  Renewed this today - time for my next evolution! :)

Darrell Scott, Living Hero

Darrell Scott is the father of Rachel Scott, the young 13-year-old who was one of the first students slain in the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, which claimed the lives of twelve students and one teacher.

Shortly after the tragedy, Scott resigned from his job and began speaking to youth groups and communities as part of an organization called Columbine Redemption, which also published a monthly magazine with writings from family members and guest columnists, samples of Rachel's essays, and profiles of other Columbine victims.  Following that, the Scotts started Rachel's Challenge, a non-profit community outreach organization which speaks to children and teens about school violence, encouraging them to become aware and also to perform acts of kindness to help prevent violence.

Since then, Darrell has spoken to over five million people in live settings, appeared on numerous television talk shows, and co-authored five books.

(This is the second of ten living heroes that I will be profiling as part of the Live Like A Champion project and Ultimate Black Belt Test.)

Defeat Diabetes Comes to San Jose

On Monday 2/22, Dawn Swidorski from the Defeat Diabetes Foundation visited classrooms at Leadership Public School in San Jose to spread awareness about the disease and lifestyle adjustments which could help to lower the risk of diabetes.

Epic students, including members of San Jose's Live team, had the opportunity to meet with her as well!

Thank you Dawn - we look forward to carrying the torch and helping to spread the message!

Training at The Dojo - Folsom, CA

 

After a few friendly e-mails, I brought three of my team members to visit Sensei Chris Hadlock and his team in Folsom for a friendly workout and sharing session.  My team and I enjoyed their many insights into groundwork and I am glad that my brief introduction to meditation was helpful for their team.

On behalf of myself and the San Jose team, thank you Chris, Chandra, Christian, Kenny, and Scott for opening your home to us!  I look forward to continued opportunities to meet and train together.

My Honor Is My Life

Promises are overrated.  What matters is the commitment that the promise represents.

It is said that a samurai never had to make promises.  Once spoken, it is as good as done.

In person, I joke around - a lot.  However, when it comes to serious matters, you will find that my word is as good as action.  I will accomplish the things that I say I will do....or break myself trying.  I don't say that because I actively seek to hurt myself.  I'm saying that because that's how committed I am to my word.

Last April, I committed to UBBT 7.  Since then, I have thought very deeply about what I wanted from this year and how I would reinvent myself in order to become the kind of teacher that my students deserve to have, the kind of person that my loved ones deserve to have, and the kind of human being that this world needs.  My goals are the product of those reflections - sure they're on the list of UBBT requirements, but I'm not embracing them because they're on a checklist.  It's because I understand and have great respect for why each of those items is there.  That's why I committed to doing it.

I have been thinking, planning, acting, reflecting, and renewing for almost 10 months now.

Thus far, I have remained true to my word.
(Please remind me if I've forgotten anything.  I assure you, it wasn't intentional.)

It is a strange feeling sometimes to hear others praise me for my accomplishments so far this year.  I know their intentions and I appreciate their positive energy, yet at the same time, I feel weird receiving praise for doing something that I said that I was going to do.  Sure, when it's a high target and I hit it, the praise is encouraging and I feel validated....but have our expectations of the world become so low that we presume failure in order to be pleasantly surprised by someone's success?  I hope not.  I hope that instead, such praise is a celebration of integrity and honor.

Part of warriorship, the budo, the martial way, whatever you want to call it, involves sincerity and integrity on this level....not only in training, but in life.  Commitment isn't any harder than just doing the things that you say you're going to do.  If you want to make it more difficult than that, you're welcome to do so, but that doesn't change anything in my book.  Life will throw you plenty of curveballs; there's no need to add any yourself unless you want it that way.

The symbol of my warriorship is not my sword - it is my spoken word, which is far more powerful than any sword.

My word is my honor, my honor is my life, and my life is my dojo.

Some snapshots of that life for you:

Four years ago, I told a group of nervous freshmen that if they worked hard and persevered through the dual challenge of surviving high school and building the culture of a newly-created school, I would be there when they walked across the stage to receive their diploma.  In four months, that will become reality.

Twelve years ago, I had dinner with my father on my birthday.  He asked me, and I told him, that no matter how successful I was in business, I would finish college.  It was our last conversation.  He died three weeks later.  I went back to school and went from being a high school graduate to earning my master's degree within five years.

Twenty years ago, I told a girl that I loved her and that if she gave me the chance, I would be the man that she deserves to have.  Since then. every time that I have said those three little words to her, it is with the same sincerity.  The last time I told her, "I love you," was about two hours ago, before I started drafting this.  Those words still hold true today, and as far as I'm concerned, they always will.

Commitment is my strength.  I will not fail you, and I will certainly not fail myself.  I like myself too much for that. :)

There are three hundred and eighteen days left in this year's challenge.  I will be there at the finish line, in person or in digital spirit, to celebrate with you, but before that day, something else must occur.

You must honor your word.

In Sickness and in Health

I'm down, but not out.

I picked up a bit of food poisoning, most likely on Sunday, and my stomach was practicing involuntary backflips for a while.  (Lesson learned: Undercooked seafood = suffering.  Well-cooked = happiness.)

It hasn't taken me out of the game though.  I'm ahead on my numbers for the year, so I took a couple of days off from training.  I reminded myself of General Douglas MacArthur's line, "We're not retreating - we're advancing in another direction," and then I set off to work on other goals.

I cleaned a lot, as one of my personal goals was to excavate myself out of my piles of unsorted stuff.  I went through old junk mail, shredded it, and tossed enough into the recycle bin to account for a small tree.  It made me feel sad.  I'm going to plant some trees this year.  Please hold me to this.

I briefly turned on the television and CNN was doing a viewer-response segment about mixed martial arts and churches.  I listened to angry viewers denounce the martial arts as violence for longer than I should have, and then turned off the television to go and meditate instead.  I felt disappointed.  I'm going to do at least three presentations on anger management, non-violent conflict resolution, and peace education this year, and thirty more through my students.  Please hold me to this.

This is part of what I do when life throws me a curve ball:  I adjust and find a way to take action on it.  It doesn't always involve creating new goals, unless it's in an area that I haven't been working on.  The commitment (or recommitment) revitalizes me, so that instead of staying down, I get back up.

Playing the Game

Underneath the uniform, I'm a gamer at heart.  Gaming is probably the only passion in my life that predates my training!  I find them intellectually and socially stimulating, across multiple gaming types: card games, board games, word games, sports, games of chance, even video games (which makes me a hit with the kids).  Gaming is such a part of who I am that sometimes, when I analyze situations in my life, I find that I don't always use my 'Black Belt Eyes'.  On those occasions, I use a gamer's eyes to find understanding and direction.

Through these eyes, the UBBT/Live Project is another kind of game, and a very good one at that.

A well-constructed game isn't just about repetition.  There's a sense of graduated demands, where skills and situations that occurred in the early part of the game return to raise the stakes in later stages of the game.  If every stage of a video game was like the first stage, it would quickly become boring, so later levels tend to add an extra twist to make the game more difficult and interesting.  Football may have a lot of repetition during the game, but every new play is an attempt to adjust for the opponent's responses, so the game evolves over time.  Even in blackjack, after the first hand is dealt, it changes the probability of future cards showing up in your hand.  All of these twists serve to make the game engaging, fun, and worth replaying again and again.

If your workouts are beginning to feel like a routine, congratulations on becoming acclimated to the training, but you might also want to take that as a signal that it's time to tackle another evolution soon.  Since our program is largely self-driven, the game only evolves when we do, which also makes it worth playing only when we make it that way.

Since your opponent in 'the UBBT game' is yourself, the way that you play the game is the only factor that determines whether you win or lose.

What games are you playing with your UBBT/Live experience this year?  Are you playing the 'if I'm really good with my diet this week, I will let myself eat a slice of pizza with my salad' game?  How about the 'one more minute on the treadmill' game?  Maybe the 'today I push to level 10' game?  Have you tried the 'three acts of kindness before I leave work/school today' game yet?

How is your 'next level' different from your 'current level' and 'past level'?  What must change in you in order to complete the newest part of your game?  Do you need to learn something?  Try something different?  Beat a more challenging objective?  How must you evolve?

Talk to you all again soon.  I'm off to work on my game some more.  Train hard and play harder!