Come Monday –or any day you decide –you may wake up and realize that you have a new job, a duty, an obligation, and/or a mission. The subject is "self-defense," the definition of which is the key issue.
As a martial arts teacher –and a member (recognize it or not) of the international martial arts community, I present you with the opportunity to be something more than a fitness teacher, something more than a teacher of the arts of physical self-defense, more than an instructor in some classical or eclectic martial art, and something far more than a school owner with a particular gross income and student count and tax obligation.
Self-defense, in today's world, has little or nothing to do with kicks, punches, grappling, and bo-staff training. These aspects of the martial arts are the bowl that holds the mix –they are not "the cake." Self-defense in today's world is contained in what we do –or do not –consume. It is in our beliefs about ownership, about conflict, about relationships, about people with fewer resources that you or I, it is about anger and diet and attitude and community and the environment.
A young instructor inexperienced in life, without the understanding and knowledge that comes with life-experience, may have some difficulty in grasping this idea. Age and experience brings the appreciation of what is to have failures and lost dreams, with the burden and gift of being a parent, with the inevitability of losing those you love, and with the crazy brutality and injustice of war, of prejudice, of hatred, and of greed.
Without the educational foundation of history, of philosophy, and of all the things you learn along the path –a young martial arts teacher can be unaware of the value of everything on the periphery of "martial arts" that is not contained in the movements and techniques –and that is not practiced "on the mat" (and this doesn't, of course, apply to all young instructors, as some people are born aware).
If this last statement rings true to you –then perhaps you are ready to become a martial arts teacher cut from a new –and different –cloth. Perhaps you are ready to be a martial arts teacher with a sense of mission and obligation to the world.
To begin, you must first appreciate and understand that to be a MASTER teacher, you are not going to find your skills easily, nor will they come to you in a best-selling book, a box, a video, or in a weekend certification seminar. You're going to have to wake up and work and experience and network and be a part of something bigger than your "business" –something bigger than "the ring" or the arena.
Start with teaching anger management –and start that by really studying the subject (www.angercoachonline.com). Move from there to embrace diabetes education (www.defeatdiabetes.org).
Why diabetes?
Well, besides the fact that it will touch the lives of 1 in 3 children in the next decade, it could be ANY health subject; your job is to become a master of integrating various topics, intelligently, into your school's curriculum and educational materials. From there you should develop the most active and visible acts-of-kindness program in your community. You must OWN this topic.
Next, tackle an aggressive environmental self-defense program. Read "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv –and integrate environmental education with unstructured outdoor play with your students.
From there, custom design your own Ultimate Black Belt Test Program –and start living as a real master teacher.
I have lots of ideas, tactics, and strategies for making all of the above the very things that bring students to your schools.
Should you, Monday morning or any morning wake up and recognize that you are being called to action (and that it's going to make what you may do for a living a LOT more fun and rewarding), please don't hesitate to contact me.
Tom Callos 530-903-0286
The New Way Network
The UBBT 6 (taking members now)
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Mission Driven Marketing
Marketing Your Martial Arts School by Adjusting and Refining Your School’s Mission and Your Life’s Work
By Tom Callos
In a perfect word you would, as a teacher of the martial arts, make art –and that art would be so remarkable that it sold itself. Take for example the glass artist Dale Chihuly’s work (http://www.dalechihuly.com/). Chihuly has developed an international reputation and sold millions of dollars worth of art because his work is absolutely stunning. And while his materials are not much more than colored glass, Chihuly takes it and turns it into magic.
This is how I visualize the fully evolved martial arts master teacher. The art that a master teacher makes is, for the most part, human –it’s physical. Our tools are our various martial arts –and it really doesn’t matter if it’s aikido or Brazilian jiu-jitsu or taekwondo or karate or gung fu, because the methods are just a small part of the art. What makes the work turn the corner from mundane to magical is what the artist does with the materials –how he or she puts the raw material to work.
Point: Approach your work as art. Make art –and let the art speak for itself. USE the art you make as your primary source of marketing and promotion.
Sell your services because you make magic –and you know how to display that magic, how to light it, and where to put it for the best effect.
Find the art in what you do; use what you do to make beauty, to teach people, to produce the extraordinary, and to make positive change in the world.
So what is the “art” that you can make as a martial arts school owner / teacher?
Your School is Art
Some of the art is in how you present your school. By itself and standing alone, your school’s appearance says something about what goes on there. I like a school that looks at its presentation and attempts to make a statement. It doesn’t matter to me if the look is Japanese minimalism or Brazilian culture or Chinese pagoda or American pragmatism –it’s that the school owner recognizes and is aware of the presentation’s impact on the senses.
Two fine examples of this reside in Southern California with Dawn Barnes Karate Kids schools and Rorion Gracie’s Gracie Academy. If you haven’t seen these schools –I’ll have to describe them to you as “art in and of themselves.” Both schools teach dramatically different “styles” of martial art, but both perfectly represent the idea of “academy as art.”
Point: A school can sell its lessons because of the “art” of its presentation.
Your Classes are Art
How you run your classes is a kind of art. A master teacher mixes the paint of his or her students into a moving, yelling, rolling, kicking work of art. It might be a class of gently flowing aikido practitioners or a group of 20-somethings in shorts and t-shirts getting ready for a no-gi jiu-jitsu workout or a class of taekwondo students in bright white uniforms or a capoiera troupe rhythmically warming up to music; whatever it is, it can be art.
Point: Your classes are a kind of art; done right, they can sell your services. Look at your class structure and execution as a kind of art.
Your Testing is Art
There is no better example of testing as art than my own program, The Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT). The UBBT spreads the process out, it blows it up into something grand, it breaks it down into little artful pieces. In the UBBT each martial artist crafts his or her own test –and then plays the process out in writing and film and action. Even before the UBBT participant throws a single kick or punch for the test, he or she has something to talk about, something to show, something with an expectation of emotion, spiritual quest, and mission.
Point: Your testing process has the potential to be the art that attracts people to your work.
Your Philosophy is Art
What comes out of your mouth, as in your message, your philosophical mission, your intent and direction as a teacher –this is art too. It can attract people, sell your programs, and be the foundation of your marketing and promotion campaign –if you know how to make it fly.
What you say is up to you, but that it is ART, just as Chihuly’s glass is art, is the point. It is something the martial arts master teacher ought to understand.
Philosophy as art might take the shape of adhering to ancient traditions, it might come from Christian or Buddhist teachings, it might be cultural or motivational or, as in my own focus, about sustainability, peace education, global consciousness, compassion, and community activism. Whatever it is, I am suggesting that seeing it as art, treating it as art, and selling it as art, is a far more constructive and intelligent approach to marketing a martial arts school than a strategy that makes no consideration of the idea.
What You Get Your Students to Do is Art
How your school looks, how you run your classes and testing, and what you say is all a part of your art –your mission to do more with what you have been given than to simply run a “business.” But the finest art you can make as a martial arts teacher comes in what your students do with what you teach them.
THIS is what you SELL. This is the crux of your marketing and promotion. Your art your mastery your mission in the world reveals itself in what you do and in what you inspire your students to do.
I’m not talking about what they do on your mat –which is undoubtedly a beautiful part of your art. The ultimate art that comes out of your work is what your students do in their lives and in the world.
This is your life’s work –to see your teaching manifest itself in goodness, in results, in victory, in health and happiness and peace and accomplishment. If you could display this, if you could light this work up, put it out there for the public to see –well, this would be the venue where your art would be most appreciated, understood, and valued.
Point: The art of the martial arts is found in ACTION. What you and your students do in the world is your ultimate art –and is should be the foundation of your schools marketing and promotion campaigns. What you do, what you produce, what comes out of your efforts –THIS is what you sell. It’s what brings people to you, it’s what makes your phone ring and your front door swing open. Your art allows you to transcend the triviality of simply operating a “business” for money.
How to Turn This Idea into Action
-- You don’t sell lessons, you change lives!
-- You don’t teach “karate” in a “dojo” –you teach people how to make their LIFE THEIR DOJO.
-- Your brand of self-defense instruction isn’t meant to simply protect your students from kicks, punches, and arm-bars; you teach self-defense from the REAL KILLERS: mediocrity, lack of self-esteem, apathy, the inability to connect with other people, and –among other things –the idea that you are what you own!
-- You don’t only produce fighters or black belts; you are a part of the village that raises people to be aware, to be here in the moment, to enjoy their health, and to learn how to keep fear and doubt from destroying their sense of humanity.
Your mission in life –your life’s work –has got to be more, in my opinion, than in “getting your gross up” and being a multi-school owner. Our industry is fixated on business basics, on suit-and-tie professionalism, on coming up with the next big plan to “double your gross” or “fill your school.” Our trade magazines and industry e-mail campaigns are all about promoting the martial arts through some new movie or the next lead-box gimmick.
Point: We should be fixated on seeing the martial arts come out of our schools and into the world.
Where to start?
It all starts with the primary teacher / owner of the school.
Mr. or Ms. School Owner / Master Teacher, can you answer these questions with an affirmative response:
Are you in the best shape of your life? Are you in the kind of shape that inspires others to get in shape too?
Are you doing anything in the world besides the minimum requirements to thrive and survive?
Do you have a list of heroes –and do you look to them for inspiration? Does that inspiration manifest itself in any kind of daily behaviors?
Do you have, in your mind, a clear definition of what it is to be a true master of the martial arts? Does this definition make you a man or woman on a mission –or is it a non-issue in your daily life?
I created the Ultimate Black Belt Test because I felt that a school’s master instructor should be able to market his or her lessons by acting like a master on a mission. The very process of testing ought to promote the martial arts school. The very nature of the test, what it is made up of, what it causes the participant to do –ought to be the very things that make people stop, look, listen, and enroll.
I think a school can operate without a master teacher on a mission, but it’s like a marriage without romance. The school owner who doesn’t use a sense of mission as the fuel for his or her school ends up getting hyper-focused on the procedures and particulars of payroll, statistics, bathroom maintenance, employee handbooks, and what’s called “majoring in minors.”
Five Concrete Steps to Start a Marketing Campaign for Your School Based Upon Having A Sense of Mission
Ok, enough with the rhetoric. Now I’m going to step out on the line and actually suggest five things YOU can do to make your work the kind of ART that brings people into your school; the kind of art that gives you something powerful to show, something powerful to talk about and to promote and to SELL.
Action Step # 1
If I were you, I would consider joining the Ultimate Black Belt Test (http://www.ultimateblackbelttest.com/). Other than going to the Olympics or deciding that you’re going to go after BJ Penn’s UFC title, you won’t find another mission-based program like this in the martial arts world. And unlike going to the Olympic Games or fighting in the octagon, the UBBT is designed specifically for school owners and master teachers.
If you don’t join the UBBT 6 (the next UBBT project) then carefully look it over and undertake your own “hero’s journey” program. Make your training and growth and personal/professional development a priority. Read, mend relationships, meditate, train like you’ve gone insane, and put yourself smack-dap in the middle of a new circle of friends. Find people that inspire you and remind you that there is a whole hell of a lot more to life than driving a fancy car, buying the right clothes, and competing with that school down the street.
Action Step # 2
Over the course of the next 12 months, commit yourself –and all of your school’s resources –to saving one child’s life in your community. Somewhere in your community there is a child who is going to die from something you might help them avoid. Children defend themselves with their heads; that is, children protect themselves by knowing how to avoid danger.
What you have to know is WHAT is killing children in your community? Take for example, diabetes. This insidious disease is expected to touch the lives of 1 in every 3 children over the course of the coming decade. By the way, UBBT member, “Mr. Diabetes,” Andy Mandell, has a completely free martial arts instructor diabetes prevention training course –with dozen’s of free teaching resources –at http://www.defeatdiabetes.org/. Look for the MADDCAP program (Martial artists Defeat Diabetes Community Action Program).
Is there a possibility that a child in your community could die from smoke inhalation or a fire this year? Will there be any teenagers who might perish from reckless driving? Or from drug or alcohol abuse?
How many children could you reach with some kind of life-saving message in the next 12 months?
Point: A teacher on a mission to save lives is 10,000 times more powerful than a business-person looking to distribute 10,000 VIP passes. This is mission-based marketing.
Action Step # 3
Embrace Project-Based Leadership Training (PBLT). If you haven’t heard of –or if you don’t fully understand my concept called PBLT, then BOY are you in for some fun times. PBLT is pure rocket fuel, pure genius, pure marketing power for the martial arts school owner and/or teacher.
For you, for free, on Friday, August 8, 2008 at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time, I will host a free one hour tele-seminar on the subject. Here are the specifics:
EVENT: Project Based Leadership Training Tutorial
DATE & TIME: Friday, August 8th at 10:00am Pacific
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast -- it's your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW...
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=3654912
Action Step # 4
You should OWN the acts of kindness program in your town. In 2001, I developed a program for the martial arts community called Random Acts of Kindness. Since then, more than a million acts of kindness have been initiated by martial arts students around the world. Starting an acts of kindness program with your students is still one of the most effective (and least expensive) forms of community-based, grassroots “marketing with a mission” you can do.
Can you name another business in your town that makes acts of kindness its business? Is there a better form of practical day-to-day self-defense than kindness? Do it for a day, do it for a weekend, or do it for a year –just do it.
Action Step # 5
Profile 10 living heroes. This might seem like a stretch, but I guarantee you that the PEOPLE you hang out with have the most amazing affect on your thinking –so amazing in fact, it might be the key ingredient to your school’s success (or lack thereof).
My 10 living heroes are:
Julia Hill; Nelson Mandela; Pam Dorr; John Bielenberg; The Dalai Lama; Thich Nhat Hahn; Ray Bradbury; Wangari Matthai; Oprah Winfrey; and Sarah Chayes.
If you want to find your mission, if your want to light a fire in your own life and in the lives of your students, then DO NOT make your primary influences people you read about in martial arts magazines. Get out of that box and into a new realm of quality thinkers and action-takers.
Point: In the future, the people who are going to have the most profound impact on your martial arts –and what you sell in your lessons, ARE NOT going to be martial artists.
Not only do we have to take our martial arts “out of the dojo and into the world,” but we need to bring the world into the martial arts.
About the Author
Tom Callos heads the Ultimate Black Belt Test and The New Way Network. He resides in Northern California. His e-mail is tom@tomcallos.com.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Letter on Non-Violence from 1995
I have been thinking about how to teach non-violence for many years. My first experience with the subject, as a martial arts teacher anyway, was when I read my friend, Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle's books. He wasn't very well known in the martial arts world at the time, but I read his first book and immediately contacted him and offered an invitation to a yearly training session I used to organize for Master Reyes and our West Coast MA association --in Squaw Valley, CA. We hit it off right away --and had a great weekend talking about violence and the martial arts.
Shortly thereafter, I began teaching my young students about the ideas of non-violence. Part of my program was using the words and writing of well-known people. The following letter is from someone I'd written back in 1995 --first the letter, then I'll reveal the source:
Dear Tom Callos,
Your idea of a wall covered with letters about violence is wonderful. Here is my little contribution:
As you know, my Babar books are and expression of non-violence philosophy! And is not because I decided to give a message, it is because I deeply feel non-violent myself. I am glad that the message comes through.
Violence is the most horrible disease of the human race. Of course, there is violence against animals also, but it is mainly because we must eat! What is despicable in human violence is that it comes from hatred, contempt, simply will of power (I should say "man's" violence, because women's violence doesn't generate destruction as man's does).
I believe violence arises when you don't know how to understand the "other," you don't know how to listen. Of course, one can say that if you want too much to "understand" you might become vulnerable.
I simply cannot forget that there are occasions when I wouldn't dare to patronize and recommend moderation. I am talking of persecution, aggression, rape.
Personally, since I rarely feel mad at someone, my problem is rather, as you say, "dealing with bullies." My way is to try not to stand against them like a wall, it is to let them push but, at the same time get them to understand that I am not impressed, I am not going to accept their views.
This is not easy and I am not saying that I am always successful!
The difficulty, a real challenge (particularly in politics), is to come to compromise without being unfair to your own thinking, to come to a compromise without dropping what you care about.
With my best wishes,
Laurent de Brunhoff
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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
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
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.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Intelligent Curriculum® SEE IT HERE!
Hi, Tom Callos here, I'm team coach for the Ultimate Black Belt Test -and I'm the head of the martial arts association known as The 100.
My new venture, as you see it here, is called Intelligent Curriculum® --partly because the internet allows us, as martial arts teachers, to design and display our school's curriculum and everything that has to do with communicating to students, parents, and potential members, in a new, dynamic, and intelligent way.
Just take a look at how attractive the simple blog is that I've designed as an example -and see how I've made two entries as examples of how your own students could be seeing YOUR curriculum.
The other reason I call this work "Intelligent" is that looking at your school's curriculum in a new way, laying it out in a more complete and educational fashion, and doing it all in a format that gives you SO MUCH control over the what and why ----well, it's very intelligent, very "today," and let me tell you, it's going to be very good for your school/business.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Can You Bring Me 100 People?
To: UBBT and 100 Folk
This might be THE ESSENCE and the core of our philosophy. “Self-defense” is believing, understanding, and taking action on the idea that you CAN and DO make a difference. You are not powerless –and you are not a “victim of circumstances.”
But wait, we (UBBT and 100 folk) take this idea a step further. It’s not enough to have an empowering philosophy, ACTION on IDEAS is where it’s at. We are THE ACTION HEROES of this Century –and every student who comes into our domain is empowered with the ability to turn all these wonderful notions, ideas, and slogans into ACTION IN THEIR LIVES –and of course, since it’s NOT always about YOU –in the WORLD.
Our training is then, in essence, ACTION-HERO Training.
There will be a day, if I have my way, when a martial arts school is synonymous with community service, with mobilizing its students for projects that burn with the talk we talk so well. The education you provide your students will have everything our teachers taught us, like a concrete foundation, and from there we will build a structure on top of that full of rich experience and modern, functional, centered beliefs. You see, this is self-defense for today.
How YOU Can Help This Work, RIGHT NOW:
We need people--special people. We need more of the kind of people who see their martial arts journey as something more than memorizing 12 forms, a couple of dozen one-steps, and some self-defense.
I’m looking for people to join the UBBT, the UBBT Student Program, and the UBBT for Kids, who are willing to try new ideas –to take action in their lives and in their schools and in their communities.
I’m looking for people who would be willing to eat healthier –and not just for themselves, but to serve as role models for as many people as we can possibly reach through our collective work (millions?).
What if we had a website that was FAT with hundreds of people each working on themselves in extraordinary ways? Imagine the power of 100 young people exploring healthy eating –while working on their martial arts. Could those 100 inspire a 1000 others? Could we get this “school” of people living in different cities all over the world to create something –like a school without borders –that changed the world for the better (at the very least the “martial arts world?”). We could! And guess what, it’s never been done! We could do it!
When I started studying the martial arts in 1971, we (the martial arts community) met in magazines and tournaments. In the 1980’s we met through an audio cassette tape sent out by EFC and thru conventions, seminars, and tournaments. Then we met through a box and DVD’s. Today we meet here on the internet –and it’s rich and content heavy and in an instant messages and ideas and results are transmitted to groups of people who come together for, well ---good reasons.
Even this lecture I’m giving you now, which at one time might have been an outline for a full presentation at a convention, is delivered to you in the comfort of your own home or office.
I’m looking for 100 people to Join us in the Next 30 Days
I’m looking for UBBT members, I’m looking for YOU to bring in special people to the UBBT Student Program ($75 a month), and I’m looking for kids with a interest in joining a national experiment in martial arts activism to join the UBBT for KIDS ($9.95 a month).
Now what I’ll give your students who become a part of these programs, is...
· A consistent daily, weekly, and monthly education in human potential through the martial arts. We’ll expose them to thinking that supports YOUR work –and we will talk about the richness of the martial arts, about mission, about change, about being centered, compassionate, aware, and conscious.
· I will talk with them about the power of what they are doing when they step onto your mat.
· I will engage them in the Alabama Project (and invite them to attend). I will talk to them about fitness, about acts of kindness, about PBLT, about Intelligent Curriculum, about helping you, and about the mission YOU are on to make your path to mastery a rich and daily spiritual practice.
· I will talk to them about the kind of history we are trying to make (and you know what, we could make history. We could change the entire western world’s view of what the martial arts are about –beyond the ring, beyond the mat).
· I will encourage them to stay your student –to practice with awareness, and to help you in your mission to make a difference in your community.
· I will bring resources to the table, videos, books, ideas, authors, heroes, and concepts you don’t’ have the time to dig up. Your students will come to YOU with ideas –and they’ll feel like they’re a part of something big, something extraordinary.
What you’d have here is the first real, authentic, functional MARTIAL ARTS ASSOCIATION. You are, in essence, hiring me as a staff member –and my job is to INSPIRE. I inspire student and teachers to see their martial arts as a deep, important, life-enhancing practice. My job is to boost your sales by boosting your presence in your community.
Can you help? Can you bring me students you know would blossom in this kind of environment? Do you have members you’d like to groom for this kind of activism and activities? Any future leaders out there who might benefit from the relationships they would make in our group?
Bring ‘em on!
This year I’d like to move forward in the world with the power of 100 people committed to crafting a new mission in the martial arts world. 100 people doing acts of kindness, 100 people reading, training, talking, and exploring diabetes education, anger management, PBLT, and so on.
I can HELP YOU be a better teacher –and it won’t cost you a penny.
Can you help the UBBT grow to a place where we are recognized as the most amazing martial arts group in the world? Will WE have a chance to speak at TED (www.ted.com)?
HELP! Let’s Grow! Let’s see what 100 highly motivated, pro-active people bring to our table.
Tom Callos
Monday, May 19, 2008
The POWER of the MOMENT
I’m Tom Callos –and I am an educational activist, working in the martial arts industry.For the most part, I teach school owners, instructors, managers, and their staff members how to run martial arts schools in a way that is efficient, effective, fun, rewarding, and profitable.
There are a number of other organizations and consultants who do this kind of work too.
However, I have a very different slant to my advice and methods than do my contemporaries in the martial arts world.
I focus on business practices and concepts that are about raising the social consciousness of the owner, the staff, and students; I promote a kind of martial arts education that deals with issues far beyond the scope of what, traditionally, has been dealt with or discussed in martial arts schools.
I teach my clients how to embrace self-defense in a way that is relevant to today. I help them learn how to teach things that reside outside of the realm of kicking, punching, and grappling; things that people living in today’s world need to know about protecting themselves, their families, and their communities.
While most consultants, including myself, will deal with business statistics, sales procedures, promotional strategies, and all of the other obvious and basic necessities of running a business, I believe in a kind of martial arts that is an authentic path to mastery, a kind of martial arts that transcends the profit-and-loss statement.
The Power of the Moment
My clients and I have launched an authentic and experiential leadership training program –as until now, many schools claim to teach leadership, but very few have a sound method or curriculum to do so. We are championing the first-ever anger management teacher-training program in the martial arts industry. People might think that martial arts teachers know a lot about anger management and teach it to their students, but until now that has not been the case.
The martial artists I work with are coached in a new kind of Intelligent Curriculum®, a new kind of educational mission for their schools, and we craft a new stance, a new position and role for the martial arts school in the community.
A martial arts school, as I see it, should be a place where the student learns as much about peace, as she learns about the opposite of peace. Students should be inspired and directed to take their martial arts out of their dojo (school) and into the world. Anger management, environmental self-defense, dietary self-defense, community involvement, meditation, empathy training, and sustainable living represent a part of the new kind of “self-defense lessons” taught in schools that recognize what I call the power of the moment.
That moment is the opening that comes every so often; that moment when the young and impressionable student is listening to his or her martial arts teacher like only a child can –with that wide-eyed acceptance, that fully open mind, ready to grow, instantly absorbing, and highly impressionable.When that moment comes, as I have seen it come so many times, my job is to make sure the teacher knows what power his or her words, influence, actions, and position wields.
It is at that moment that we want our hero at the front of the class to speak not about defeating an opponent or striking another human being or winning a tournament; we want to hear words and ideas that inspire compassion, awareness, respect for self, for family, for the community, for the global community, and for the planet.
We want a seed planted and/or watered at that moment; something that has the potential to sprout into a kind of wisdom and happiness that is uncommon, but the deepest wish of every mother and father. My clients are the kinds of teachers who are acutely aware of the power of the moment; they live to create those moments –so that they might make a true contribution to a better and more peaceful world.
We consider this “our business.” We spend only the smallest amount of time necessary working on how to run our businesses so that we can pay the bills and have money left over (like all business owners); we spend the majority of our energy on coming up with the most innovative, creative, interesting, and powerful ways to create moments of deep learning, constructive and useful attitudes, and the kind of awareness that promotes peace of mind –and peace in action.
Engaged Martial Arts
In my programs, the teacher must transform himself into someone who makes the pursuit of genuine martial arts mastery a deep, personal and spiritual daily practice. You can recognize my clients because they are training to be in the best shape of their lives; they are eating and living with full consciousness of what they consume; they define and engage their heroes; they practice meditation; they read; and they take on projects with their students that benefit their respective communities; projects that show, firsthand, how to apply their training principles to life —off of the mat.
My members are grounded, real –and exuberant people.
Among our ranks is an Academy Award winning filmmaker; there are songwriters, environmental and civil engineers, artists, attorneys, authors, world champions, school teachers, counselors, journalists, grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers—and all of them are martial artists with a desire to make a difference, here and now, through what they teach and how they teach it.
That is the mission of this work, which is now made up of my work and the work of my clients.
It manifests itself in all sorts of interesting projects, such as (to name a few):
The Alabama Project
Each year we build and/or remodel a house in Alabama with housing activist Pam Dorr (click on the link to see her video-profile from the Hallmark Channel) and students from the famous
Rural Studio. In 2009 we will be renovating a two-room schoolhouse in Hale County, Alabama, one of the last remaining Rosenwald Schools in the area.I use these projects to empower martial arts teachers to step out of their schools and engage their communities in all sorts of unique ways.
Our involvement with architects, artists, engineers, and activists is my intentional training program to show teachers how to break down the barriers between disciplines. Participants in these projects inevitably return to their own communities and begin to engage in activities with their students that teach lessons far beyond blocking punches and breaking boards.
Peace is More Important than Punches
One of my most important missions is to help martial arts teachers teach Peace Education to their students. In 2007 I developed a set of teaching flash cards called “Peace is More Important Than Punches.” A number of schools have started using these cards to introduce peace-thinking to students. One of our members, Ms. Debby Young, is helping to have the cards translated into Swahili –for use in the new Kenyan Library System.
The Dietary Self-Defense Program
Several of my clients, members of the UBBT and The 100, are working with a new dietary self-defense program. Components include posters, flash cards, and written lessons meant to be added to the curriculum of all martial arts schools, regardless of system or style.
The Environmental Self-Defense Initiative
In 2006 I called upon all martial arts teachers in the international martial arts community to adopt the Environmental Self-Defense Initiative, which asks schools to require their young students to do 5 to 10 “acts of environmental self-defense” along with their regular belt-testing curriculum to earn their green belts.
MADDCAP™
MADDCAP™ (Martial Arts Defeat Diabetes® Community Awareness Project) is the first-ever diabetes teacher and student training program in the martial arts world. More info may be seen at http://www.defeatdiabetes.org/.
The Veterans in Martial Arts Program
I have called upon all martial arts schools in the international martial arts community to give free lessons for the remainder of 2008 to all returning veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. What is Enlightenment? magazine is the first publication to publish this request, in it’s May, 2008 issue.
The UBBT ECO-AdventureEach year I take a number of clients on a 4-day eco-adventure along the Pacific Crest Trail, just outside of Lake Tahoe, CA. As a result of this program, dozens of clients are now making outdoor education a part of their programs.
The Anger Management Teacher Training Program
The first anger management teacher training program in the martial arts may be seen at http://www.angercoachonline.com/
The Elder Circle ProjectStill in development, this project seeks to involve grandparents in martial arts schools. We are proposing that at least once every quarter, a teacher invites one or more grandparents to come to the school and share his or her life story with young students. We intend to develop this idea for use in all interested martial arts schools.
What a pleasure it is to put all of this in this blog!
Tom Callos
tomcallos@gmail.com
530-903-0286
Thursday, May 08, 2008
A Call to Associations
A Call to Every Martial
Arts Association in the World
To: Every Supply Company, Every Consulting Firm, Every Billing Service, Every Magazine, Every Association of Every Style and who have Come Together for Every Reason under the Martial Arts Sun
For a Moment, Put Profit Aside
Money's a darn fine thing. It buys stuff. I value it as much as the next person. I think a portion of everyone's day, of their life, should be focused –like a laser beam –on making enough of it to make ends meet (and then some).
However, with that being said, for the reminder of this short request, I'm putting the making a profit part of the money thing aside. I'm not denying it makes "the world go around," I'm not suggesting it isn't important, I'm simply addressing that which has little or nothing to do with making money to show a profit.
Martial Arts Associations - Groups I'm Asking You To Consider the Following
Martial arts associations, whether you have 10 members or 10,000, I'm asking you to recognize your power. You have the power to reach your members –and, quite possibly, to mobilize them. You have the power (albeit sometimes a lot less than you would like), to influence people, to educate them, and to inspire them to DO SOMETHING.
Now, most of the time, you're trying to get them to buy stuff or pay dues, which is good. But there's something else you could get them to do –and it's that something else that could play a significant role in a better image for the martial arts, for the kind of attention we want, and to prove that the arts are really what we say they are (something special).
Let's Start with Something Very Simple.
Imagine this: If you had 500 members (or 167 members, each with two "significant others"), and each of those 500 people did 10 acts of kindness for 5 other people, you would have impacted 2500 people and be directly responsible for 250,000 acts of kindness.
What human being wouldn't appreciate a little more kindness in his or her life? Simple, yet it is something that we have never done –and something, I think, indicative of the values we promote.
Let's take it to another place:
Imagine if one of the billing services in our industry created a program that allowed students to voluntarily donate an extra $.10 to a dollar every month over and above their tuition. With a $.25 donation, 10,000 students could accumulate $60,000 in 24 months. Now imagine we gave that money to Oprah and let her gift it to the most worthwhile activist on her long list of people working on amazing and world-changing projects. How exciting would that be?
Think about what we could do with four or five times that much.
Century, NAPMA, EFC, APS, UFC, the WTF –everyone, everyone! What profits would be lost in utilizing the simple idea of combining forces to do something absolutely extraordinary? Something so stunning, so solid, so enlightened, that the good from it could light the face of a million martial artists --and possibly, a million martial artists to be.
It's not about profit, it's about the opportunity. It's about the martial arts and what is not fighting. It is about a lot of people doing very, very little –to show how much can be done. I'd like to see a half-dozen of the most prominent business owners in the martial arts world use their influence to do something amazing.
I'll bet you if these men and women led the movement, a whole lot of teachers and students would step in to help.
Why not? Why not in our lifetime? Is Oprah the only one who has the chutzpah to step up and take ultra-positive action in the world? We could do it –and a million "karate kids" could own a piece of it.
Note: Of course, in no way do I mean disrespect to any martial arts group; I simply dream of what we could do if we put down our company names, set aside our styles, groups, and differences, and just did something completely unexpected.
Tom Callos
Arts Association in the World
To: Every Supply Company, Every Consulting Firm, Every Billing Service, Every Magazine, Every Association of Every Style and who have Come Together for Every Reason under the Martial Arts Sun
For a Moment, Put Profit Aside
Money's a darn fine thing. It buys stuff. I value it as much as the next person. I think a portion of everyone's day, of their life, should be focused –like a laser beam –on making enough of it to make ends meet (and then some).
However, with that being said, for the reminder of this short request, I'm putting the making a profit part of the money thing aside. I'm not denying it makes "the world go around," I'm not suggesting it isn't important, I'm simply addressing that which has little or nothing to do with making money to show a profit.
Martial Arts Associations - Groups I'm Asking You To Consider the Following
Martial arts associations, whether you have 10 members or 10,000, I'm asking you to recognize your power. You have the power to reach your members –and, quite possibly, to mobilize them. You have the power (albeit sometimes a lot less than you would like), to influence people, to educate them, and to inspire them to DO SOMETHING.
Now, most of the time, you're trying to get them to buy stuff or pay dues, which is good. But there's something else you could get them to do –and it's that something else that could play a significant role in a better image for the martial arts, for the kind of attention we want, and to prove that the arts are really what we say they are (something special).
Let's Start with Something Very Simple.
Imagine this: If you had 500 members (or 167 members, each with two "significant others"), and each of those 500 people did 10 acts of kindness for 5 other people, you would have impacted 2500 people and be directly responsible for 250,000 acts of kindness.
What human being wouldn't appreciate a little more kindness in his or her life? Simple, yet it is something that we have never done –and something, I think, indicative of the values we promote.
Let's take it to another place:
Imagine if one of the billing services in our industry created a program that allowed students to voluntarily donate an extra $.10 to a dollar every month over and above their tuition. With a $.25 donation, 10,000 students could accumulate $60,000 in 24 months. Now imagine we gave that money to Oprah and let her gift it to the most worthwhile activist on her long list of people working on amazing and world-changing projects. How exciting would that be?
Think about what we could do with four or five times that much.
Century, NAPMA, EFC, APS, UFC, the WTF –everyone, everyone! What profits would be lost in utilizing the simple idea of combining forces to do something absolutely extraordinary? Something so stunning, so solid, so enlightened, that the good from it could light the face of a million martial artists --and possibly, a million martial artists to be.
It's not about profit, it's about the opportunity. It's about the martial arts and what is not fighting. It is about a lot of people doing very, very little –to show how much can be done. I'd like to see a half-dozen of the most prominent business owners in the martial arts world use their influence to do something amazing.
I'll bet you if these men and women led the movement, a whole lot of teachers and students would step in to help.
Why not? Why not in our lifetime? Is Oprah the only one who has the chutzpah to step up and take ultra-positive action in the world? We could do it –and a million "karate kids" could own a piece of it.
Note: Of course, in no way do I mean disrespect to any martial arts group; I simply dream of what we could do if we put down our company names, set aside our styles, groups, and differences, and just did something completely unexpected.
Tom Callos
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
