You do recognize, right, that I am suggesting that martial arts teachers are (should be) more social entrepreneurs than business entrapreneurs? At least the teachers in my sphere of influence anyway...
By the way, if you read these journals and are a professional martial arts teacher (or will be someday), you are invited to join me for a tele-seminar this coming friday at 10:00 am pacific standard time. Register at www.tom-callos.com.
Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society.
While it's very likely that this is the first time this idea has been stated as such, I predict that you'll hear it a LOT more in the martial arts world. All of my work is a reflection of this idea. --Tom
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
This note isn’t about you, it’s about how you teach your students.
Ok, Wait, FIRST, if you're a school owner and/or teacher, go to www.tom-callos.com and sign up for my upcoming tele-seminar, June 27, 2008 at 10 am PST.
Ok, on with the program:
If you're in the UBBT and/or the 100 --and these programs haven't caused
you to commit yourself to regular and disciplined martial arts training (in a way
like never before), then you're off track.
It will be very, very difficulut to keep you growing, to get you to understand your potential, or to show valid proof to the world of what we're capable of --and what the real benefits of the martial are ---if you aren't the old karate/aikido/gung fu/tkd/or what-have-you master practitioner who, day after day, training after training, puts on the uniform and sweats with the intention of not just understanding the art --but transcend it.
Ok, on with the program:
If they train, consistently, they will chemically transform their own mind/body.
If they train, they will see/feel results.
If they train, they will begin to understand things about what you offer them that are invisible without a reasonable amount of mat-time.
Training is the foundation that supports the structure above it.
Training is the shoes, clothes, canteen, map, and meals needed for the trip.
Everything above, coincidently, is also the key to enjoying and receiving genuine benefit from the UBBT process.
If a student joins your school but doesn’t train, how long does it take them to find the justification not to continue? How long is it before they open the book, “1001 Reasons Why Your School Isn’t for Them,” or the even more popular, “100 Certifiably Genuine Excuses About Being Too Busy.”
The truth? You can’t charge enough –or too little –to someone who isn’t training, as the key to all the locks begins with a student’s feet on the mat, with an elevated heart rate, with the mind absorbed in the movements.
If you don’t train in the UBBT like this is your personal Olympics, it won’t be long until you find the genuine justification for quitting a program that required you to pledge not to quit, when you began.
And now, these ideas translated into a letter to your students:
Dear Student (and/or Parents and Loved Ones of a Student):
First, thank you for becoming a member of my school.
Now I am going to reveal a “secret” to you; it is the information that will make what happens here a life-enhancing experience –or another “activity” among many.
Training in classes and with home-practice is the key that unlocks all of the benefits from the study of the martial arts. “Training” means coming to classes consistently and for an extended period of time.
If you train, you transform.
If you don’t train, you won’t be able to find the reasons to continue paying for lessons and attending classes.
With training, your body and mind react and respond –and a lot of other “things” take place inside of you, things that are difficult to describe, but that serve you in many ways.
All of the promises we make about what the study of the martial arts can do –are contingent upon regular and focused practice.
So my first priority is to get you to attend your classes in a consistent and regular fashion. Trust me, regular attendance has a huge payoff, so huge that I can’t even find the words to describe what you’re going to experience.
The second priority is to teach you how to practice, as it is practice above all other things that builds skill, confidence, mental focus, determination, and the ability to overcome obstacles.
Thank you for your membership; for me, your participation here is of the utmost importance. The two things about the martial arts that I hold most sacred are regular practice and the ability to overcome any obstacles as I proceed on my journey.
My goal is bring you a clear understanding of the magic that happens when intention and commitment meet in the same place. If I may ever be of assistance, if you ever need a reminder or help with your training, don’t hesitate to contact me. I wouldn’t be here today if someone else hadn’t helped me, too.
With respect,
Your Name
------------If you're in the UBBT and/or the 100 --and these programs haven't caused
you to commit yourself to regular and disciplined martial arts training (in a way
like never before), then you're off track.
It will be very, very difficulut to keep you growing, to get you to understand your potential, or to show valid proof to the world of what we're capable of --and what the real benefits of the martial are ---if you aren't the old karate/aikido/gung fu/tkd/or what-have-you master practitioner who, day after day, training after training, puts on the uniform and sweats with the intention of not just understanding the art --but transcend it.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thoughts on How to Use Your Martial Arts Journey as a Student/Teacher to Fill Your School with Students –and then Keep Them Training
Thoughts on How to Use Your Martial Arts Journey as a Student/Teacher to Fill Your School with Students –and then Keep Them Training
By Tom Callos, Team Coach for the Ultimate Black Belt Test
You’re a martial arts school owner and/or teacher –or a “teacher in training.” A martial arts school is, well, a SCHOOL –and you’re going to want eager students who will do what you ask of them so that you can share the fun, confidence, rewards, and adventure that your own martial arts journey has given you.
Ahh, but remember, for your students to grow –you must grow.
The fact is, you won’t be able to stop your own journey, your inevitable aging, your evolution as an athlete, a teacher, and a man or women, no matter how “experienced” you esteem yourself at the moment. What you can control, for the most part, is your own journey, your direction, and your mission as a student and a teacher.
It is this journey and mission that will fuel your school beyond your initial “start up” as a business owner. It is your journey and mission as a human being/student/teacher that allows you to brilliantly deliver on the promises you’ve made in your school’s well-crafted sales pitch about the benefits of martial arts training.
Throw the Stone, Watch the Ripples
You started teaching (or thinking about teaching) —and that was where the stone entered the pond. Your first wave of ambition might have been to polish your won skills. When I first started a school I needed people to spar and compete with, as I was trying to be a “nationally rated” competitor. When someone joined who was about my size, I thought, “Oh, good! A new sparring partner!”
The second wave of teacher awareness is often based on developing top competitors. A lot of us used to live for our competition teams –and the measure of our skills as teachers was measured in the number of medals our students took home.
Each ripple that fans out from where you begin as a teacher is affected by your age, your experiences, your peers, your heroes, and things you might never have thought about. You become a far better teacher at the moment of birth of your first child. You take a leap forward as a teacher upon the death of one of your parents. When one of your young students dies as a result of something you and their parents never anticipated, but that might have been preventable had you known, your understanding of life, of self-defense, and of teaching, shifts into a new universe. As you walk the path of your life and as you watch your friends and students do the same, you start to assemble all of the ingredients that take a fine athlete, a good competitor, and a martial arts practitioner to the level of a “Master-Teacher.”
It is Not What You Know, It is What You Do in the Here and Now
Here, we come to the crux of this essay. What you know is the foundation of what you teach and what you “sell” as a martial arts teacher. However, what you DO, right now, this week, next week, next month, and in the next year –this is the heart, the blood, the cells, the brain, the everything of your school’s growth, its sales campaign, its vibrancy, and its power.
It’s what makes your school breath, it’s what gives you the drive to move ahead in good times or bad, it’s what makes you good to work with and for, it is what motivates people beyond “a paycheck.” What you do about or with your martial arts training is more important than what you know.
Running a real martial arts school –a school run by a real master, well it’s just like growing up. You start off wanting your own place. Then you want a car and all the bangles of success. Then you want love. Then your “stuff,” which has found a way to have WAY too much power in your life, takes a big backseat to the quality of your daily life. Then, if your brain hasn’t been fried by excessive exposure to corporate brainwashing and TV sitcoms, you go through this unexpected awakening. And, being that THAT is where you are, it is then that you start really living. This is when your experience makes you rich and the education you then provide your students has the potential to border on wisdom, to be parallel to what a student of a master in any field, in any discipline, might hear from his or her teacher.
And what does your wisdom say?
TAKE ACTION! Talk is cheap, what are you DOING in your life and in the world? In the words of the legendary master teacher Jhoon Rhee, “If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then an ACTION is worth a 1000 pictures.”
How to Bring Students in and Keep Them with ACTION
This info might not be ideal for the instructor who is just cutting his or her teeth as a teacher and/or school owner. However, let’s remind ourselves not to underestimate the understanding and awareness of any young person. Each generation seems to start with a foundation set by the generation before them.
To bring in students and keep them in the school, the first ingredient is running interesting, exciting, content-rich classes where people feel safe, respected, and cared for. If that’s not happening, you can hang it up. The second component is seeing what you practice on the mat –come to life outside of your school. The expression is “Out of the dojo and into the world” (copyright Tom Callos, thanks).
If little Johnny is taking his martial arts home and to school –and as a result treating his family better, being more polite, cleaning his room more often, and saying/doing positive things that reflect your influence, then your value goes way, way, WAY up in the eyes of his parents; his school teachers too.
If 25-year-old Shannone aspires to be like you, if he carries himself with a sense of dignity, if he controls his temper, you are doing something very important and valuable, both for him and for the world. If he feels a sense of belonging, if he treats his friends and family better, if he handles work and relationship and “life” issues better because of your coaching, well –what more could you ask for?
If 45-year-old Jennifer finds her power through your training, if she gets physically fit again, if she gets her “groove” back on, if she gets some of her life back, her vigor, and her courage, you have done something! If, as she evolves as a person she can also contribute significantly to the world through her love of martial arts training –NOW you’re really doing it.
AND THE BEST WAY TO DO ALL OF THIS is to be an example for them. Set the mark so brilliantly, so wonderfully, so exceptionally, and so high –that everyone in your sphere of influence is moved and inspired by your actions. Show them how it is done, both in victory and defeat.
School owners and teachers; take your martial arts out of the dojo and into the world. SHOW us that you have grown too large to be hemmed in by the four walls of your school. Show us that your footprint is too big for the size of your mat. Don’t just be an “exercise instructor,” or a “self-defense teacher,” or even a “business-person” or “school owner.” Be something bigger than that, be somebody that is hard to describe. Be a genius in action for the world. Look at self-defense from a GLOBAL perspective. See wrongs that are way bigger than what can take place in the ring or on the mat –and then make solutions! Sure, mobilize your students to do 1000’s of reps of techniques, but then show your wisdom and mobilize them to solve REAL problems.
The MASTER TEACHER of today engages in projects in his or her community that speaks of the real heart-of-hearts, the core, of martial arts teaching, of martial arts practice, and of why they have spent nearly their entire adult life doing this stuff. It’s more than kicking, punching, and grappling.
Is what we practice on the mat important? Isn’t it enough? Yes, and no. We begin, as teachers, to teach the ABC’s. We focus on the micro. We obsess over the details. They are important. Yet, someday, we hope to see those letters turned into something big, something that speaks to our potential as human beings, something like:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--The Declaration of Independence
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”
--Martin Luther King
“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. “
--John F. Kennedy
On some level you are just a martial arts teacher –and you’re there on the mat teaching the ABC’s of focus, self-control, teamwork, perseverance, courage, tenacity, and all the other character traits that make a good black belt. At the same time, you should be aware that those ABC’s can become something –and that you can open your mental door and recognize that each person has in them the potential to make a difference in the world –and that, in the end, that’s what all the training is for.
Start Hanging With People Who Blow Your Mind
To avoid being too presumptuous, I have to assume that many of you reading this are already “there.” If so, good for you! If you’re reading this and it doesn’t fit what you know or usually read about martial arts school management, I can tell you why. It’s because you haven’t been hanging out with the “right” people.
They say it takes a “village” of people to raise a child. Well, likewise, it takes a village of people to raise a master teacher. Some of those villagers are family members, some of them are old friends from school, some of them are people you work with, one or more of them might be the village idiot, and somewhere in that village, if you’re lucky, is the wise-person.
If you make a conscious effort to seek out (and it’s easier now than ever before) and be with, study with, read, listen to, and generally “hang out” with our planet’s wise-people, it will have the most profound effect on your school. You will have no shortage of topics to address –and no shortage of motivation, inspiration, and mental stimulation. Your advertising topics will go through the roof.
And here, now, is the challenge. Study –but most of all BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. Tackle violence. Tackle environmental degradation. Tackle racial prejudice. Tackle anger. Are any of these subjects related to personal protection and self-defense?
But don’t do it alone. If you do everything you can as a person, it isn’t half of what you accomplish if you could inspire 200 students to one-tenth of what they are capable of. Teach and then mobilize your students in your community to take action where action is needed.
This is what a wise-person does. This is now our business –and getting your head in this space is exactly what you need to get your fire burning –and your school filled with people who haven’t come to you because they received a VIP Pass or a discount on lessons. I am challenging you to become a man or woman of extraordinary action.
This is what all the training has been for.
If you could empower your students and mobilize them to take even the smallest action steps, in the world and outside of your school, and each one of those people touched the heart of, the intellect of, the one, two, five, ten other people, you would have successfully waged the best advertising campaign in the world. The learning that would happen! The stories that would come out of this!
It’s a lot easier to do than you think.
Come join me on June 27th at 10:00 am PST for a tele-seminar to get your new business plan happening. Join a movement for a new and more relevant kind of martial art teaching; a kind of teaching that pays tribute to tradition –and forges a way for the martial arts to evolve into something everyone benefits from.
Tom Callos
By Tom Callos, Team Coach for the Ultimate Black Belt Test
You’re a martial arts school owner and/or teacher –or a “teacher in training.” A martial arts school is, well, a SCHOOL –and you’re going to want eager students who will do what you ask of them so that you can share the fun, confidence, rewards, and adventure that your own martial arts journey has given you.
Ahh, but remember, for your students to grow –you must grow.
The fact is, you won’t be able to stop your own journey, your inevitable aging, your evolution as an athlete, a teacher, and a man or women, no matter how “experienced” you esteem yourself at the moment. What you can control, for the most part, is your own journey, your direction, and your mission as a student and a teacher.
It is this journey and mission that will fuel your school beyond your initial “start up” as a business owner. It is your journey and mission as a human being/student/teacher that allows you to brilliantly deliver on the promises you’ve made in your school’s well-crafted sales pitch about the benefits of martial arts training.
Throw the Stone, Watch the Ripples
You started teaching (or thinking about teaching) —and that was where the stone entered the pond. Your first wave of ambition might have been to polish your won skills. When I first started a school I needed people to spar and compete with, as I was trying to be a “nationally rated” competitor. When someone joined who was about my size, I thought, “Oh, good! A new sparring partner!”
The second wave of teacher awareness is often based on developing top competitors. A lot of us used to live for our competition teams –and the measure of our skills as teachers was measured in the number of medals our students took home.
Each ripple that fans out from where you begin as a teacher is affected by your age, your experiences, your peers, your heroes, and things you might never have thought about. You become a far better teacher at the moment of birth of your first child. You take a leap forward as a teacher upon the death of one of your parents. When one of your young students dies as a result of something you and their parents never anticipated, but that might have been preventable had you known, your understanding of life, of self-defense, and of teaching, shifts into a new universe. As you walk the path of your life and as you watch your friends and students do the same, you start to assemble all of the ingredients that take a fine athlete, a good competitor, and a martial arts practitioner to the level of a “Master-Teacher.”
It is Not What You Know, It is What You Do in the Here and Now
Here, we come to the crux of this essay. What you know is the foundation of what you teach and what you “sell” as a martial arts teacher. However, what you DO, right now, this week, next week, next month, and in the next year –this is the heart, the blood, the cells, the brain, the everything of your school’s growth, its sales campaign, its vibrancy, and its power.
It’s what makes your school breath, it’s what gives you the drive to move ahead in good times or bad, it’s what makes you good to work with and for, it is what motivates people beyond “a paycheck.” What you do about or with your martial arts training is more important than what you know.
Running a real martial arts school –a school run by a real master, well it’s just like growing up. You start off wanting your own place. Then you want a car and all the bangles of success. Then you want love. Then your “stuff,” which has found a way to have WAY too much power in your life, takes a big backseat to the quality of your daily life. Then, if your brain hasn’t been fried by excessive exposure to corporate brainwashing and TV sitcoms, you go through this unexpected awakening. And, being that THAT is where you are, it is then that you start really living. This is when your experience makes you rich and the education you then provide your students has the potential to border on wisdom, to be parallel to what a student of a master in any field, in any discipline, might hear from his or her teacher.
And what does your wisdom say?
TAKE ACTION! Talk is cheap, what are you DOING in your life and in the world? In the words of the legendary master teacher Jhoon Rhee, “If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then an ACTION is worth a 1000 pictures.”
How to Bring Students in and Keep Them with ACTION
This info might not be ideal for the instructor who is just cutting his or her teeth as a teacher and/or school owner. However, let’s remind ourselves not to underestimate the understanding and awareness of any young person. Each generation seems to start with a foundation set by the generation before them.
To bring in students and keep them in the school, the first ingredient is running interesting, exciting, content-rich classes where people feel safe, respected, and cared for. If that’s not happening, you can hang it up. The second component is seeing what you practice on the mat –come to life outside of your school. The expression is “Out of the dojo and into the world” (copyright Tom Callos, thanks).
If little Johnny is taking his martial arts home and to school –and as a result treating his family better, being more polite, cleaning his room more often, and saying/doing positive things that reflect your influence, then your value goes way, way, WAY up in the eyes of his parents; his school teachers too.
If 25-year-old Shannone aspires to be like you, if he carries himself with a sense of dignity, if he controls his temper, you are doing something very important and valuable, both for him and for the world. If he feels a sense of belonging, if he treats his friends and family better, if he handles work and relationship and “life” issues better because of your coaching, well –what more could you ask for?
If 45-year-old Jennifer finds her power through your training, if she gets physically fit again, if she gets her “groove” back on, if she gets some of her life back, her vigor, and her courage, you have done something! If, as she evolves as a person she can also contribute significantly to the world through her love of martial arts training –NOW you’re really doing it.
AND THE BEST WAY TO DO ALL OF THIS is to be an example for them. Set the mark so brilliantly, so wonderfully, so exceptionally, and so high –that everyone in your sphere of influence is moved and inspired by your actions. Show them how it is done, both in victory and defeat.
School owners and teachers; take your martial arts out of the dojo and into the world. SHOW us that you have grown too large to be hemmed in by the four walls of your school. Show us that your footprint is too big for the size of your mat. Don’t just be an “exercise instructor,” or a “self-defense teacher,” or even a “business-person” or “school owner.” Be something bigger than that, be somebody that is hard to describe. Be a genius in action for the world. Look at self-defense from a GLOBAL perspective. See wrongs that are way bigger than what can take place in the ring or on the mat –and then make solutions! Sure, mobilize your students to do 1000’s of reps of techniques, but then show your wisdom and mobilize them to solve REAL problems.
The MASTER TEACHER of today engages in projects in his or her community that speaks of the real heart-of-hearts, the core, of martial arts teaching, of martial arts practice, and of why they have spent nearly their entire adult life doing this stuff. It’s more than kicking, punching, and grappling.
Is what we practice on the mat important? Isn’t it enough? Yes, and no. We begin, as teachers, to teach the ABC’s. We focus on the micro. We obsess over the details. They are important. Yet, someday, we hope to see those letters turned into something big, something that speaks to our potential as human beings, something like:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--The Declaration of Independence
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”
--Martin Luther King
“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. “
--John F. Kennedy
On some level you are just a martial arts teacher –and you’re there on the mat teaching the ABC’s of focus, self-control, teamwork, perseverance, courage, tenacity, and all the other character traits that make a good black belt. At the same time, you should be aware that those ABC’s can become something –and that you can open your mental door and recognize that each person has in them the potential to make a difference in the world –and that, in the end, that’s what all the training is for.
Start Hanging With People Who Blow Your Mind
To avoid being too presumptuous, I have to assume that many of you reading this are already “there.” If so, good for you! If you’re reading this and it doesn’t fit what you know or usually read about martial arts school management, I can tell you why. It’s because you haven’t been hanging out with the “right” people.
They say it takes a “village” of people to raise a child. Well, likewise, it takes a village of people to raise a master teacher. Some of those villagers are family members, some of them are old friends from school, some of them are people you work with, one or more of them might be the village idiot, and somewhere in that village, if you’re lucky, is the wise-person.
If you make a conscious effort to seek out (and it’s easier now than ever before) and be with, study with, read, listen to, and generally “hang out” with our planet’s wise-people, it will have the most profound effect on your school. You will have no shortage of topics to address –and no shortage of motivation, inspiration, and mental stimulation. Your advertising topics will go through the roof.
And here, now, is the challenge. Study –but most of all BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. Tackle violence. Tackle environmental degradation. Tackle racial prejudice. Tackle anger. Are any of these subjects related to personal protection and self-defense?
But don’t do it alone. If you do everything you can as a person, it isn’t half of what you accomplish if you could inspire 200 students to one-tenth of what they are capable of. Teach and then mobilize your students in your community to take action where action is needed.
This is what a wise-person does. This is now our business –and getting your head in this space is exactly what you need to get your fire burning –and your school filled with people who haven’t come to you because they received a VIP Pass or a discount on lessons. I am challenging you to become a man or woman of extraordinary action.
This is what all the training has been for.
If you could empower your students and mobilize them to take even the smallest action steps, in the world and outside of your school, and each one of those people touched the heart of, the intellect of, the one, two, five, ten other people, you would have successfully waged the best advertising campaign in the world. The learning that would happen! The stories that would come out of this!
It’s a lot easier to do than you think.
Come join me on June 27th at 10:00 am PST for a tele-seminar to get your new business plan happening. Join a movement for a new and more relevant kind of martial art teaching; a kind of teaching that pays tribute to tradition –and forges a way for the martial arts to evolve into something everyone benefits from.
Tom Callos
Monday, June 09, 2008
Doing What A Coach Must Do Sometimes
Hello and good morning friends,
Would you take a few minutes, please, to read this letter; I could use your help.
I began the UBBT—and then the 100, not to "change the world" as I might occasionally make reference to, but because I believe that the teacher who really walks the talk of self (and community) improvement through the martial arts has a very solid product to sell in his or her school.
Better product = better sales = a kind of martial arts with deep, emotional, concrete results. Those of you who run schools for a living want, I know, want financial success. Well, how to set up shop, answer the phones, sell lessons, do billing, conduct exams, and all of those school-owner essentials are well documented; you might still need help with them, but I saw no need to replicate what has already been done.
I founded these programs to address an authenticity issue, feeling that our industry had become so focused on finances and school business, that we were overlooking a kind of mental, emotional, spiritual, and "social" development that had equal (or greater) value.
I also believed that we (a bunch of school owner/master teachers/black belts) could come together and accomplish a significant body of work, create "a movement" if you will, towards a kind of martial arts teaching that was richer, more meaningful, and that was meant to sit on top of all the business basics the industry had laid down in the prior decade.
I selectively advertised for participants in these, obviously, complex programs –and felt, no I knew, that members who trained as we set out to train, would experience significant benefits from the process.
If members actually...
Studied meditation with a master –and then actually sat for meditation every day for a year –the experience would be life-changing... and for the first time (for many) martial arts teachers might have an authentic meditation program for their students.
If a member documents 1000 acts of kindness and 10,000 (new req.) to 50,000 acts through students and community, that the teacher would "own" the movement in his or her community –and 1000's of people would be touched by this simple concept. In a way, the acts of kindness program was meant to be the ultimate marketing campaign –as giving someone an act of kindness, from my viewpoint, is as good or better than giving someone a guest pass for lessons. Anyone who invested themselves in this concept would be driven by a goal that few, if any, people in their community had ever tackled.
If members took up the idea that mending relationships and fixing wrongs was as important to personal development as doing kicks, grappling, and testing for belts –and if each participant in the UBBT inspired his or her students to follow suit, that people would me moved by the experience –that stories worth telling would be created –and that people's lives would be improved, physically and spiritually, through the process.
With the 100. I sought to give UBBT members a place to hang their hat that had goals and ambitions beyond retail products or licensing programs. An association formed not to address competition, MMA techniques, words-of-the-week, and what-have-you, but an association of rather sophisticated thinkers and doers who recognized the superficial treatment of the martial arts –of the education we had the potential to provide, versus what had become the status quo in "the industry."
I felt that the standards for the industry have dropped to an all time low –and that people joining the 100 could be counted upon to take considerable and unified action to, if nothing else, offer an alternative to the obvious emphasis on physical skills and business practices (in the MA industry).
With the UBBT I needed 13 months of full-on commitment.
I needed black belts who were willing to step up as examples to all other black belts and martial arts students. I needed a "West Coast Demo Team" of teachers who would step up and show the martial arts world what being a master-level black belt was all about ---or at least DIE trying.
I never expected one black belt or participant to drop out.
I made it very clear at the beginning that this wasn't easy –and that the worst thing anyone could do it to drop out. It hurt me, it hurt the individual, it hurt the very "thing" we claim to promote and live by, and it would hurt this program –as it is so dependent on each members full participation.
Likewise, the 100. asks members to look deeply at peace, at environmental issues, and perhaps most deeply at how we can combine our efforts to make something together that made our schools different, more valuable, and more authentic.
On some scale, we have made progress in both programs.
However, this morning I received another e-mail from a black belt participant who asked me to cancel his/her financial obligation to the program, as he/she couldn't go on.
I would guess that this is a member who didn't tell his/her students about the seriousness of his/her commitment. This is a teacher who, undoubtedly, either didn't inform students –or created a justification for telling his/her black belt candidates why he/she is failing to see his/her own black belt test to fruition.
Do as I say students –but don't do as I do.
Is this because we (you and I) don't look in each other's face everyday? Is it because the UBBT website doesn't look pretty? Is it because the program costs about $10 a day? Is it because the listserve only works right about 75% of the time? Is it because I feel strongly about peace, the environment, anger control, diabetes education, and all of that ---and these things, for you, don't "ring" of any value? Is it because it is so very hard to write in your journal, weekly? Is it because I have asked you to show all black belts, all martial arts people, how strong you can be? Is it because this process is difficult to keep up with? Are you bored? Is it because the member roster looks like crud?
I don't know exactly what to say to you all ---except that I honestly expect you to make a commitment in the beginning, and then see it through.
No matter how hard it is, no matter what path your life takes, no matter what obstacles present themselves.
This IS perseverance.
This IS respect for my work and your "school."
This IS your self-discipline being put to the test.
And, frankly, this is an embarrassment to the rank of black belt.
Because of your inability to stick to your commitment, the UBBT is weakening.
How can we stand in the industry as an example of a different approach –and authenticity –a spiritual way to run a martial arts school –and one that isn't driven by purely economic factors, if we can't see a 13 month program through to its fruition?
Yes, "look at the ubbt" and see what these men and women are made of. ???? These are real "black belts." UGH.
I am, of course, not talking about YOU --but about our teammates who are, at the moment, self-absorbed with all the things that keep us from doing our best at something we are committed to (or have committed to, which is the case here).
Don't ask me again to cancel your tuition.
There are no refunds in this program. If you fall by the wayside due to cancer or death or ? –I'll stop your payments. If you simply can't hang in there with the commitment, I'm sorry, you're going to have to throw your hard earned cash into the program to support your promise to participate.
OR, just cancel your purely financial obligation to the program like any other business transaction –as this is purely "business" is it not?
Now a note to all other future UBBT and 100 Members:
My name is Tom Callos.
I am a 37 year student of the martial arts. I have two programs I designed to help school owners and master teachers do what they do, better.
Neither of them are easy; they don't come in a box; you can't open a package and unroll a poster for the wall from it; and both programs require thinking, creativity, a massive amount of participation, and a large degree of commitment.
The only people who are willing to join these programs are people willing to be role models and examples of what is to be a martial artist and master teacher in the world today.
These people will suffer.
They will fail.
They will try new things.
They will struggle.
They will, in many cases, do things that are so different, so extraordinary, and so telling of the true and deep spiritual commitment they have to their life's calling, that you will be stunned and inspired by their work.
Do not ask me to be a part of anything I do, please, if you are not willing to do whatever it takes to see your goals to fruition –and/or to recognize the big picture of my/out work.
Do not join to fail.
Do not weaken our campaign by being weak when things are not going well.
There are many programs in the martial arts world that ask almost nothing of members.
Join one of those --but this isn't one (or two) of them.
When you join the UBBT, you join to do as much as you can, as hard as you can, for 13 months. There is no quitting –and no dropping out. We are, after all, black belts –or aspiring to be black belts in a different light.
When and if you join the 100, join a group of people who are beginning the journey with the end in mind –and the end result of the "ultimate union" for martial arts teachers would be the Nobel Peace Prize. There's a good chance that we will never win any prize, much less the Nobel Peace Prize, but we do know as humans we have the potential to do great things –and so this is how we apply ourselves to the idea of it all.
At the VERY LEAST my friends, give it all you have. You're spending $6 to $10 a day –and that, in today's world, doesn't buy much. Spend your energy CREATING an organization of committed martial arts citizens using their art, their connections, their minds –for a purpose that's big and daunting and wonderful.
Let's bring more peace to the world –let's make the martial arts stand for something other than goofy people in uniforms walking around pretending to be warriors and talking the talk –but not walking the walk.
Tom
Would you take a few minutes, please, to read this letter; I could use your help.
I began the UBBT—and then the 100, not to "change the world" as I might occasionally make reference to, but because I believe that the teacher who really walks the talk of self (and community) improvement through the martial arts has a very solid product to sell in his or her school.
Better product = better sales = a kind of martial arts with deep, emotional, concrete results. Those of you who run schools for a living want, I know, want financial success. Well, how to set up shop, answer the phones, sell lessons, do billing, conduct exams, and all of those school-owner essentials are well documented; you might still need help with them, but I saw no need to replicate what has already been done.
I founded these programs to address an authenticity issue, feeling that our industry had become so focused on finances and school business, that we were overlooking a kind of mental, emotional, spiritual, and "social" development that had equal (or greater) value.
I also believed that we (a bunch of school owner/master teachers/black belts) could come together and accomplish a significant body of work, create "a movement" if you will, towards a kind of martial arts teaching that was richer, more meaningful, and that was meant to sit on top of all the business basics the industry had laid down in the prior decade.
I selectively advertised for participants in these, obviously, complex programs –and felt, no I knew, that members who trained as we set out to train, would experience significant benefits from the process.
If members actually...
Studied meditation with a master –and then actually sat for meditation every day for a year –the experience would be life-changing... and for the first time (for many) martial arts teachers might have an authentic meditation program for their students.
If a member documents 1000 acts of kindness and 10,000 (new req.) to 50,000 acts through students and community, that the teacher would "own" the movement in his or her community –and 1000's of people would be touched by this simple concept. In a way, the acts of kindness program was meant to be the ultimate marketing campaign –as giving someone an act of kindness, from my viewpoint, is as good or better than giving someone a guest pass for lessons. Anyone who invested themselves in this concept would be driven by a goal that few, if any, people in their community had ever tackled.
If members took up the idea that mending relationships and fixing wrongs was as important to personal development as doing kicks, grappling, and testing for belts –and if each participant in the UBBT inspired his or her students to follow suit, that people would me moved by the experience –that stories worth telling would be created –and that people's lives would be improved, physically and spiritually, through the process.
With the 100. I sought to give UBBT members a place to hang their hat that had goals and ambitions beyond retail products or licensing programs. An association formed not to address competition, MMA techniques, words-of-the-week, and what-have-you, but an association of rather sophisticated thinkers and doers who recognized the superficial treatment of the martial arts –of the education we had the potential to provide, versus what had become the status quo in "the industry."
I felt that the standards for the industry have dropped to an all time low –and that people joining the 100 could be counted upon to take considerable and unified action to, if nothing else, offer an alternative to the obvious emphasis on physical skills and business practices (in the MA industry).
With the UBBT I needed 13 months of full-on commitment.
I needed black belts who were willing to step up as examples to all other black belts and martial arts students. I needed a "West Coast Demo Team" of teachers who would step up and show the martial arts world what being a master-level black belt was all about ---or at least DIE trying.
I never expected one black belt or participant to drop out.
I made it very clear at the beginning that this wasn't easy –and that the worst thing anyone could do it to drop out. It hurt me, it hurt the individual, it hurt the very "thing" we claim to promote and live by, and it would hurt this program –as it is so dependent on each members full participation.
Likewise, the 100. asks members to look deeply at peace, at environmental issues, and perhaps most deeply at how we can combine our efforts to make something together that made our schools different, more valuable, and more authentic.
On some scale, we have made progress in both programs.
However, this morning I received another e-mail from a black belt participant who asked me to cancel his/her financial obligation to the program, as he/she couldn't go on.
I would guess that this is a member who didn't tell his/her students about the seriousness of his/her commitment. This is a teacher who, undoubtedly, either didn't inform students –or created a justification for telling his/her black belt candidates why he/she is failing to see his/her own black belt test to fruition.
Do as I say students –but don't do as I do.
Is this because we (you and I) don't look in each other's face everyday? Is it because the UBBT website doesn't look pretty? Is it because the program costs about $10 a day? Is it because the listserve only works right about 75% of the time? Is it because I feel strongly about peace, the environment, anger control, diabetes education, and all of that ---and these things, for you, don't "ring" of any value? Is it because it is so very hard to write in your journal, weekly? Is it because I have asked you to show all black belts, all martial arts people, how strong you can be? Is it because this process is difficult to keep up with? Are you bored? Is it because the member roster looks like crud?
I don't know exactly what to say to you all ---except that I honestly expect you to make a commitment in the beginning, and then see it through.
No matter how hard it is, no matter what path your life takes, no matter what obstacles present themselves.
This IS perseverance.
This IS respect for my work and your "school."
This IS your self-discipline being put to the test.
And, frankly, this is an embarrassment to the rank of black belt.
Because of your inability to stick to your commitment, the UBBT is weakening.
How can we stand in the industry as an example of a different approach –and authenticity –a spiritual way to run a martial arts school –and one that isn't driven by purely economic factors, if we can't see a 13 month program through to its fruition?
Yes, "look at the ubbt" and see what these men and women are made of. ???? These are real "black belts." UGH.
I am, of course, not talking about YOU --but about our teammates who are, at the moment, self-absorbed with all the things that keep us from doing our best at something we are committed to (or have committed to, which is the case here).
Don't ask me again to cancel your tuition.
There are no refunds in this program. If you fall by the wayside due to cancer or death or ? –I'll stop your payments. If you simply can't hang in there with the commitment, I'm sorry, you're going to have to throw your hard earned cash into the program to support your promise to participate.
OR, just cancel your purely financial obligation to the program like any other business transaction –as this is purely "business" is it not?
Now a note to all other future UBBT and 100 Members:
My name is Tom Callos.
I am a 37 year student of the martial arts. I have two programs I designed to help school owners and master teachers do what they do, better.
Neither of them are easy; they don't come in a box; you can't open a package and unroll a poster for the wall from it; and both programs require thinking, creativity, a massive amount of participation, and a large degree of commitment.
The only people who are willing to join these programs are people willing to be role models and examples of what is to be a martial artist and master teacher in the world today.
These people will suffer.
They will fail.
They will try new things.
They will struggle.
They will, in many cases, do things that are so different, so extraordinary, and so telling of the true and deep spiritual commitment they have to their life's calling, that you will be stunned and inspired by their work.
Do not ask me to be a part of anything I do, please, if you are not willing to do whatever it takes to see your goals to fruition –and/or to recognize the big picture of my/out work.
Do not join to fail.
Do not weaken our campaign by being weak when things are not going well.
There are many programs in the martial arts world that ask almost nothing of members.
Join one of those --but this isn't one (or two) of them.
When you join the UBBT, you join to do as much as you can, as hard as you can, for 13 months. There is no quitting –and no dropping out. We are, after all, black belts –or aspiring to be black belts in a different light.
When and if you join the 100, join a group of people who are beginning the journey with the end in mind –and the end result of the "ultimate union" for martial arts teachers would be the Nobel Peace Prize. There's a good chance that we will never win any prize, much less the Nobel Peace Prize, but we do know as humans we have the potential to do great things –and so this is how we apply ourselves to the idea of it all.
At the VERY LEAST my friends, give it all you have. You're spending $6 to $10 a day –and that, in today's world, doesn't buy much. Spend your energy CREATING an organization of committed martial arts citizens using their art, their connections, their minds –for a purpose that's big and daunting and wonderful.
Let's bring more peace to the world –let's make the martial arts stand for something other than goofy people in uniforms walking around pretending to be warriors and talking the talk –but not walking the walk.
Tom
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Click on Banner to Listen to Thresa Byrne Interview
Theresa is the trainer (life-fitness coach) for a group of kids appearing on the ABC mornig show, FITTING IN...airing June 14th, 7 am. See her website at www.umac.us
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
A Reminder to Keep Our Eyes Looking inthe Right Places
I feel the need (as usual) to remind you, teams, that the best place to find "martial arts philosophy and wisdom" is....
Wait, let me add:
The people who are going to have THE MOST influence in the martial arts world --the people who will give you the knowledge and tools to BE THE TEACHER you want to be (whether for 10 students or 10,000), the PEOPLE who can show "THE WAY" in a way that makes sense for today -and for tomorrow...
Have probably never thrown a kick or a punch in their lives.
I doubt that there is a martial artist in the world as wise as Jimmy Carter, as Nelson Mandela, as Rosa Parks, as Julia Hill, as Wangari Matthai, as E.O. Wilson, as Jane Goodall, as 1000 other modern day PEOPLE-WHO-TAKE-ACTION in the world.
THESE are the masters --and while we need to keep an eye on our precious "martial arts world" ---we really have very little to learn from in that context, and a whole lot more to learn about from a "global" perspective.
Today, the most amazing warriors don't carry traditional or modern weapons, they are armed with vision, the ability to take action, and a sense of their connection to humanity.
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