“Perseverance is Strength.” Japanese Proverb This past week I confronted some feelings of doubt and discouragement after one of our classes where Sensei asked for us black belt candidates to demonstrate Seisan kata and in the later weapons class, Urashi bo kata. These unannounced tests are to be expected but I was simply disappointed with […]

“Don’t seek for a balanced life. Seek for a balanced day. (over and over again).” As we are now a couple weeks into 2022, I have been contemplating meaningful and purposeful areas for improvement. I have decided to strive for more balance across my time & energy allocations and output relative to family, work/career, mental […]

“It’s the end of the year as we know it, and I feel fine!” (borrowed and modified from REM – ‘End Of The World’) Happy New Year! Bye bye 2021 and Hello 2022! It has been a nice holiday period thus far having some time with family we had not seen in over a year, […]

Mountain Meditation Fresh snow and the Sierra so close; I could no longer resist as the mountains were calling. After working this past Monday and going into the dojo solo Monday evening to finish my daily pushups and crunches, get some kata practice and perform some bag work in lieu of sparring, I decided to […]

The bar is very high but I am feeling confident after a couple good training and sparring sessions this past weekend with Dirk-San, Geneva-San and Elijah-San (who joined us for sparring). I had dinner with a good friend of mine last night who was in Sacramento (he lives in Oregon) for the evening; he also […]

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” Joshua J. Marine One day at a time…I have to remind myself. Our Black Belt requirements are daunting; not for the weak-minded and only the strong (heart, mind, body & spirit) need apply. Over a 1-year period, 50k pushups and crunches, […]