An Epic Week Without Walls

Last month, I brought twenty of my students to Lake Tahoe, Nevada as part of my program's third black belt test, in conjunction with Leadership Public School's annual Week Without Walls field trip.

This was a unique opportunity to reinvent my black belt testing process to be more in alignment with my vision, as well as to experiment with a way to more deeply integrate my black belt tests with the culture of my hosting school through involving more of my students.  Four of the students were candidates (three 1st Dan, one 2nd Dan) and the other sixteen were students of varying levels of experience.  Every color belt participant was screened for general fitness prior to being accepted on the trip for safety purposes, which was especially important to me because I wanted to preserve the authenticity of the testing experience while maintaining as inclusive of an environment as possible.

Some of the features included:

• A well-regulated "Ironman-style" multi-day test, with monitored rest, hydration, and nutrition to balance out periods of high-performance activity;
• Daily workshops to introduce new curricular elements and provide high-quality learning experiences each day;
• Visits to two friendly martial arts schools (The Dojo in Folsom, run by UBBT teammate Sensei Chris Hadlock, and KicksUSA Martial Arts Center in Pleasanton, run by BKJN Michael Yu);
• Some social time, built into hikes and environmental awareness training;
• Technical demonstrations, spread out during the week;
• Individual and team "challenge" activities to complete each day;
• Camping in beautiful, faraway locales; and
• A tight-knit graduation ceremony with lots of heart and celebration to be found.  We promoted the black belts, but we also recognized many of the color belts who participated by promoting them to their next belt level too!

My brother was kind enough to come along and videotape a lot of the event.  He recorded a whopping 30 hours of footage that we'll be trimming down into a 30-minute documentary, to be distributed to the students and several of our honored guests.

Here's a 90-second teaser trailer for your enjoyment.