The World is all messed up! Things have changed greatly over the past few weeks. Quite a bit has not been good. This can wreak havoc on the emotions and stability of a person’s temperament. I’ve seen a great number of martial arts schools take to online classes and training workouts. This is a great […]

Last weekend I had the fortune of attending one of the Las Vegas Golden Knights home hockey games. It was an awesome experience. The atmosphere was an energetic party with concentrated observation of the game. No scoring chance happened without roaring cheers. Our host had commented that the city was really taking to having the team […]

It’s official! Just got the completed lease renewal. We’ve got another there years in this location! Now it’s that this is complete, it is time to recruit me students and welcome those returning from an absence. We’ve got plenty of foot space and class times to allow many more students to join us. Please like, […]

What is the average age of the students in the school that you attend? Why is that? This has come up in conversation a few times over the past month. It gave me the recognition that I can only count less than 10 black belts and instructors who started with (or just ahead of) me […]

Pregnant Martial Artist When I became pregnant in December 2018, it never occurred to me to quit martial arts. Why would I quit? I’ve been doing martial arts straight since the summer of 2013 with very few breaks. Pregnancy wasn’t about to change that! But there were times during my pregnancy where I took breaks. […]

How hard are you working toward you goals? Are you still interested in those goals? Are you able to push through the “daily grind” to keep working for your goals? Is it time to change things up? Pursue new goals? Currently, my school doesn’t have “kid’s classes” as I know that I don’t have the […]

I had the fortune to be included in the August 2019 Sword Experience blog. They asked instructors to write up a small piece discussing the events. https://swordxp.com/musketeer-highlights-for-august-2019/

One of the Haidong Gumdo Masters that I work with posted this thought. It is based on a yoga comment. I think it is very accurate for Haidong Gumdo and all other martial arts as well. A problem that humans fall into is that they want to “be like” the cool people. Well, in this […]

The best laid schemes of mice and men… That line came from somewhere in my childhood education. The irony of it kinda fits right now. Where I am now is not where I planned to be. Starting a major portion of my world over wasn’t even on my radar, let alone in the plans. What […]

As life happens, one of the things that comes up is “What do I do next?” Work has been frustrating. Social life/relationship isn’t going where you hoped. These are frustrating but they are talked about regularly, at least in my classes, from a slightly different viewpoint. In class, we talk about the different sparring style […]

Having been around the martial arts as long as I have been, there are a few common questions that I get asked. Here’s two of them. Why did you start martial arts? I wanted to have the bravery and discipline to pick up the burning cauldron and scar the tiger and dragon symbols into my […]

The past several months have been a struggle.Too many things happening in all aspects of life taking up too much time to get much of anything accomplished. All the things going on also make for a distraction that saps creativity (i.e. no ideas for blogs). I’m too old for this but such is life. During […]

Driving home yesterday, listening to a country radio station because my regular station started playing Christmas music before Black Friday, I heard the song listed below. Listen to the lyrics. The song made me think of why Leroy Jethro Gibbs may be building boats in his basement. Granted, this is only my thought, but it […]

Recently a discussion came about that questioned rank and time in rank. How does rank work? When can I test again? Do I have to wait [blank] years before I test again? These are standard questions. How long they get asked is the real concern. During the first year or so is pretty common. As […]

Now, I admit that my martial arts training started because of my personal interests, but that has changed and grown over the years. Not that my interest nor curiosity have changed but my role has evolved. I had started teaching a class during college because there were no Karate North schools near to train at […]

Guest post by Bill Hedrick. There is a story about the great American Composer Aaron Copland. In his later years he enjoyed conducting his own works. One rehearsal as he was working with the orchestra, pointing out things the orchestra needed to be aware of and generally breaking down the score, he pointed to a […]

In my martial arts school, I don’t have [blank]. I have students! This started with having younglings in class. Yes, those who are under the age of 16. The idea had first came up because we don’t have a specific youth class. When I first started martial arts training, within a community education program, there […]

“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” — Master Yoda (From Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)) The true burden of all Masters IS […]