Monthly Progress Report: March 2010

It's the end of the month, so here are my updated 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: 86,000 (30,000 since 1/1, mostly inclined for my shoulders)
Ab Exercises: 90,000 (34,000 since 1/1)
Kicks: 91,000 (35,000 since 1/1 - this is one of my own goals outside of the UBBT)
Mileage: 1482 (394 since 1/1: 270m bike, 92m run, 32m hike)


More Stats: (2010-only)
Forms: 520 (180 in Jan, 140 in Feb, 200 in Mar)
Sparring/Bag Rounds: 360 (92m sparring, 268m bag)
Meditation: 2700m, estimated (I average at least two 15m sessions daily)
Acts of Kindness: 5974 (big, small, conscious & sincere)
Inspired AOKs through school/community: 2562 (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 (1 in the works to bring me up to 3)
Books Read: 4 (IOU 2 summaries)


Personal Goals in Progress:
Current Weight: 220 (originally 249 in Apr 2009, was 224 in Jan, dropped to 220 and bounced to 222 in Feb, dropped to 217 and bounced to 219 in Mar. Grr!  It's coming off, but it can be frustrating watching the scale!)
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): 1 paid off, 1 in progress, on track to be paid off in May. 
Cooking: Can accomplish simple salads, eggs, and pasta now.  Not much progress this month.
Body For Life: In progress. Been sick this month and haven't been consistent.  Going to begin anew once I kick this virus.
Groundwork & Boxing: 9 hours completed total; 5 of them this month.  Still not good enough for me.  Was doing 30m/day of groundwork basics that Kai showed me (thank you again Kai), and dropped off once I got sick.
Empathy Training: 1 day mute complete.
Videos & Film: Made 6 videos with my Flip camera, 2 videos on my phone; made one with much assistance from my brother.  I'm learning!
Diabetes Education Course:  I have materials from Dawn; need to begin integrating and implementing.
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 after the rainy season.
Public Performances: 2
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.  Educating my students about the Algalita project and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Buy Nothing New: Aside from essentials, no new purchases made since 1/1/10.  Still going strong.
Student Team Engagement:  Still some hardcore folks, some are still trying their best even though they're behind; others aren't trying very hard right now.  It's unfortunate, but I'm moving ahead and leaving the door open for them.
Anonymous AOKs for Teammates: No anonymous ones yet; kind acts performed openly though. :)
Contact teammates regularly: Using the UBBT site for this, expanded to videoconferencing on Skype.  Was very pleased to have met so many people at the UBBT reunion.  In case we didn't get to meet yet, maybe I can give you a call sometime?


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

A Week Without Walls, Epic Style

 
Over the past week, I've become engrossed in the planning stages of a weeklong field trip, as part of a program at our school called Week Without Walls.  The program is one of the school's signature experiences, where every teacher on our faculty designs an independent curriculum which takes our students out of the classroom and out into the world (sounds familiar, huh).

Mine has always focused on the martial arts.

My Week Without Walls trip was part of a series of blog entries that I had written early in my UBBT experience last year...so before I continue, here's a few links to my old posts for background:

A Week Without Walls (4/28/09)
You Will Experience Fear (5/17/09)
Week Without Walls, Day 1 (5/18/09)
Week Without Walls, Day 2 (5/19/09)
Week Without Walls, Day 3 (5/20/09)
Week Without Walls, Day 4 (5/21/09)
Week Without Walls, Day 5 (5/22/09)

My brother filmed a short 20-minute documentary about the week.  Here's a 2-minute trailer, featuring a much-heavier me:




Back to the present now: I'm planning another one for this year, and I'm confident that this will blow last year's trip completely out of the water.  In my mind, I have to outdo myself - not just for the sake of constant and neverending improvement (thanks Tony Robbins), but also because this year, the school's calendar provided me a unique opportunity to blend my program's black belt testing into the Week Without Walls trip....so now students will have a chance to be active participants and coaches in one of the greatest peak experiences of a martial artist's training career....and candidates will have the added bonus of being in a unique place, far away from the familiar mats of our humble dojo.

That's where I've been lately and what I've been up to.  I've been making phone calls, doing research online, and just this past weekend, I drove up to Lake Tahoe to survey several areas where I'd like to do different sections of the test.  I did some filming and will be presenting it to students at the high school in order to drum up interest for my trip (they can choose from thirteen different trips this year, including mine).

Thanks to my lovely girlfriend and her family, I was able to share a luxury suite with them while they enjoyed a family vacation.  It provided a fantastic (and luxurious!) setting for me to edit and brainstorm in peace.  Here's a short video walkthrough of half of the suite (yes, half...the other side was a mirror floorplan):




And now here's the latest batch of film making attempts from yours truly. I hope you enjoy them and that they spark some curiosity about our trip. (Could I have lucked out any better with the names of the locations?  Does this scream 'black belt test' or what?)

WWW 2010 Preview: Shadow Cliffs
WWW 2010 Preview: Vikingsholm
WWW 2010 Preview: Eagle Falls

Finally, my pièce de résistance for the weekend, a brief trailer with highlights of things to come:





I'm looking forward to telling you more of this story as it develops.  Talk to you all again soon!

Video Machine!

Since the UBBT reunion in February, I've been playing around with videos on my new Flip cam.  I purchased it with the hope of making it easier for me to reach my video goal for the year, and I'm well on my way!  This week, I am a video-editing machine!!!

I thought I'd share a few of them with you this week.  The first is from a workshop that Master Callos did at my school, edited by my brother with some creative input from myself:



It really was an amazing seminar, and quite honestly, the best class that my students have ever had.  Thank you again for coming, sir.

Coach Tom was in classic form throughout the event, and if your only exposure to him is just through his writing and vlogs, you're seriously missing out.  This next video captures a classic Tom Callos moment during the workshop:





I also uploaded some videos to the UBBT site from some other events that have been going on in my neck of the woods.  This next clip is from one of our outdoor workouts, and while we did an awful lot of hiking and push-ups, the camera didn't catch all of the running (read as: sprinting to catch up with our track stars) that went on all over the hillsides:





We were also honored to meet our Live project brothers & sisters at the Kahnawake Survival School on a videoconference this past week.  It was a great experience, and despite our technical difficulties with the microphone & speakers, I felt that it really broadened the sense of the scope of our project for both of our teams.  I'm really looking forward to doing another one of these again to keep in touch.

Here's another vid:





And that's it from me for now....3 videos closer to my goal! (Credit for the first goes to my brother.) 

Keep training hard and sharing stories of your progress!

Reconstruction & Reconnection

The next two weeks are a very exciting time for my school.  There is a building project occurring in our parking lot which will install several solar photovoltaic arrays on canopies which will shade our parking spaces.  It's not our project (if only!); it's part of the Green Careers Academy at neighboring Overfelt High School.  Still, it's very fascinating!  (More on how to green your local school here.)

It's really an ingenious idea to make use of those dreary parking lots.  Instead of being a bleak, empty space, now the parking lots will have aesthetically pleasing coverings which will reduce the heat on cars, cool the lot, improve the rain run-off management, perhaps even have self-powered lighting to improve safety while providing clean, sustainable energy!

On another note, I've been rebuilding myself as well.  I seem to have developed some funky colors on my calves which have been slightly disconcerting, if only because my dark-skinned legs generally don't change colors unless something is wrong.  They're not itchy, nor are they painful (much to my relief - those symptoms would be bad, so I am told), but I'm laying low for a couple of days until I can see a physician.  Safe and smart is probably the best approach here.

I'm still supercharged, though.  Even though I'm off of my feet more often, it's afforded me some additional time to invest in some other worthwhile endeavors!

I've turned my focus onto building & rebuilding relationships and connections.  Last night I had dinner with a longtime friend (stay tuned - I'll be writing about him and his work in the future) and tried some fascinating vegan food at Vegetarian House in downtown San Jose.  Tasty place - just be careful of the fried options.

Also, some of my student team members had fallen off of the wagon, but I was very pleased to see them return to training this week.  They're sore, but beginning to get back on track.  I'm very glad to be reconnecting with them.  (Great job team!)

UBBT reunion attendees, I haven't forgotten about you too.  I loved meeting all of you at the event and I'm still talking to people about it!  I'd love to be able to connect with you all again as soon as possible.  I owe you all some photos as well!

Speaking of UBBTers, I was also very happy to connect with Kanentokon Hemlock via phone & Skype.  We're planning a videoconference between our two high school teams - more on this very soon!

I'm also very excited that SGM Rick Alemany and Professor Kai Li will be in San Francisco next month for their seminar.  Since it's in my backyard, I wouldn't dream of missing it.

On the education front, I've been selected to serve on a visiting committee for another charter high school, on behalf of the regional accrediting association (WASC), in April.  I find those experiences wonderfully constructive and it's very refreshing for my practice as a teacher.

My program is joining forces with Dawn Swidorski and MADDCAP.  I'm perusing the materials and hope to begin creating some speaking opportunities for both myself and my students soon!

Lastly, I'm finalizing details for two very special black belt exams that I'll be chairing.  One will be with a longtime friend, and now student, who will be earning his 4th Dan in April.  The other is my own school's test, which will be in the Lake Tahoe area during late May.  Both tests are now heavily influenced by my UBBT experience and if they are even half as enjoyable and rewarding as my own journey has been, then I will have succeeded gloriously.  (If any current members, coaches, or veteran UBBT folks are out in that neck of the woods, it would be a tremendous honor to meet up with you - send me an e-mail!)

Busy is good. I'm never bored that way. Keep training hard - talk with you again soon! :)

The Ringbearers

In J.R.R. Tolkien's famous Lord of the Rings trilogy, the term 'ringbearer' was used to refer to a person who was in possession of the One Ring - an enchanted band which could turn its wearer invisible, in addition to other neat stuff.

Over time, the ring corrupted its wearer - a reference to another older story of the Ring of Gyges, a mythical ring (with similar powers of invisibility) found in Book 2 of Plato's Republic.   In the story, the tale is uttered by the student Glaucon, who claims that no one could resist the temptation to behave immorally if they did not have to fear the consequences of their actions.

On any given day, my teammates and I are ringbearers.  Through the magic of the Internet, we are brought together, yet the distance also provides a sense of invisibility.  If desired, we could hide in plain sight through our participation (or inaction).

It's part of why we're encouraged to make our journey as public as possible.  Doing so makes us 'visible', both as a teaching tool and as a sense of accountability to others.  I've told my family, friends, co-workers, and all of my students about this project, so now it's very difficult to hide.

Yet, if I wanted to, there are still opportunities to be invisible.

At some point during my day, I will be alone.  For all intents and purposes, I am invisible during this time.  No one to see me cheat, no one to see me slack off, no one to see me be less than the person that I strive to be.

This is where the lesson of the ringbearer returns: the moral person is the one who can wear the ring and still behave justly.

In my head, that means: we must wear our black belts, or act like champions, even when no one is watching.

Even me.