IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME

hearts on fire

strong desire

rages deep within

hearts on fire

fever’s rising high

the moment of truth draws near

                                          John Cafferty

IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME.

With Black Belt testing and the tournament fast approaching I am reminded of the story of Rulon Gardner.

Rulon Gardner was the wrestler who won the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics. However, how he did it was even more amazing. Gardner beat the great Russian, Aleksandr Karelin, who hadn’t lost in 13 years. In fact, he had not even been scored on in 10 years.

So how did Gardner do it? He took personal responsibility for his grueling preparation. He would wrestle the best wrestlers in the country for a minute each, facing one immediately after another. He would do this for 10 to 15 minutes at a time with no breaks.

A typical wrestling match is three, three-minute periods with a much-needed breather in between. But Gardner’s training could be compared to running a 200-yard sprint up a steep hill, full speed, wearing a harness with someone behind him trying to hold him back.

Gardner said this “over-training” helped him the most when he needed it the most, in the last seconds of the match against the Russian. With both of them, dead tired Gardner broke from the hold Karelin had on him to score a point. Final score: Gardner 1. Karelin 0. The gold medal went to Gardner in the year 2000. Gardner’s win ranks as one of the biggest upsets in sports history.

What about you? In April we have the Action Invitational and Black Belt testing. Will you be preparing to be your best?

If it is to be it is up to me.

Courage

I was scared and fearing for my life.
I was shakin like a leaf on a tree.
cause he was lean, mean,
Big and bad, lord,
Pointin that gun at me.

             Lynyrd Skynyrd

 

Courage is the cliché hallmark attributed to the hero. I say cliché because people talk about courage as if it is some mysterious force only a hero is born with. Courage is a vague and fleeting concept for many people because they lack it themselves. People lack courage because they lack knowledge. They have no idea where the true source of courage comes from.

As Socrates pointed out, ‘People not only don’t know, but they don’t know that they don’t know.’ This is why so many people on earth live in fear. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear of living their nightmares. Fear of living their dreams.

What is fear? FEAR: False Evidence that Appears Real.

The ‘false evidence’ being our own manufactured worries, doubts, and negative images often of events that have not even taken place yet.

Fear is the perception or misperception of the unknown.

Nelson Mandela had this to say about courage: ‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it…I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’

The Seeds of Passion

 ROCKIN’ THE BRONX

I got a job in a band called Black 47
I was doin’ nothin’ special after 11
Oh we learned some tunes and wrote some songs
And we bought ourselves a drum machine to keep the beat strong
Well we bought the Irish People, the Echo and the Voice
And we rang a few bars, said “we got a new noise
Hey, it would please us greatly to come on uptown
And show you Paddys how we get on down”
One o’clock, two o’clock, give us a chance
All we wanta do is be rockin’ the Bronx
3 o’clock, 4 o’clock what does she want
The girl in black leather wants to
Rocka the – rocka the – rocka the – rocka the Bronx

Black 47
My love for music is no great secret to anyone that knows me. My IPod is very diverse, classic rock, classical, jazz, punk, musicals and rap to name a few genres. However, this week’s music is a guilty pleasure.
Black 47 is a mix of Irish/American politics, rock, reggae and even rap. They are a New York based band that started in the early 90’s. They have 13 CD’s of which I have 11. I would guess that unless I have talked your ear off about music, you probably have never heard about them. Their biggest song, Funky Ceili, was from the early 90’s.  It received lots of airtime on MTV back in the days when MTV actually played music.
My love for Black 47 probably rest in their combination of the new and old. Growing up my parents were always listening to The Clancy Brothers, a popular Irish group. I, of course, love rock. Black 47 gives it all to me: my Irish heritage, my years growing up and my love for music. It is my musical guilty pleasure and I am passionate about them.
My parents shared our heritage with me through the music when I was growing up. While I may not listen to the Clancy Brothers, as my parents did, the seed of their passion was planted in me.  Today that seed has grown into my passion for Black 47.
Black 47 will forever remind me of me of Saturday morning chores, my bothers, my sister and my parents. Please do your child a favor and  plant that seed of your family heritage that someday may create a passion in them to remind them of the power of family.

What Makes You Happy?

Happy happy
Put it in your heart
Where tomorrow shines
Gold and silver shine 

Shiny happy people holding hands
Shiny happy people laughing

R.E.M.

 Thank you to Mr. Dwyer from Plymouth Meeting for this email.

 There is an ancient Chinese proverb which loosely translated reads:  “All that you desire, is already ours.”
 Abraham Lincoln said: “In my experience, people are about as happy as they choose to be.”
 …and last, but not least Nike says: “Just Do It”

What we need to be happy is a question we often forget to ask ourselves.

Is there something you could do for yourself that would make you happy, put a spring in your step, a smile in your heart? Many of us haven’t asked ourselves that question enough. Some of us haven’t asked it at all. Or if we have, we haven’t answered it. Instead we diligently search for our path, for the way through our lives, through our current situation or circumstance, never taking time to ask ourselves what would make us happy and what would feel good to us. Then we wonder why life feels so hard, so difficult and unrewarding.
Discovering what would make us happy can help us through any difficulty in life. It can help us through the quieter moments of our day. It can help us make larger, more significant decisions. It can help us in our work. Especially if we look in our hearts and answer honestly.
What would make you happy? It’s a simple question, but one with profound consequences. Asking and answering that question, then acting on it, is often our path; a path that will lead to our next step, a path that is in our best interests. We will be choosing our destiny. And the destiny we are choosing is joy.

What would make you happy? Ask yourself often. Think about your answer. You may well find that the answer is within reach.

Adversity…

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, dont they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes, 

It aint me, it aint me, I aint no millionaires son, no.
It aint me, it aint me; I aint no fortunate one, no.
John Fogerty

 A student found a cocoon one day and brought it to his biology teacher.She put it in a glass box with a warming lamp. About a week later, the students saw a small opening appear on the cocoon. Then, the cocoon began to shake. Suddenly, tiny antennae emerged, followed by a head and tiny front feet.

The students watched the progress of the emerging insect throughout the day. By noon it had freed its listless wings, the colors revealing it to be a monarch butterfly. It wiggled and shook, but try as it might, it could not seem to force its body through the small opening. One student decided to snip off the end of the cocoon to help the insect. Out it plopped. Only the top half ofit looked like a butterfly. The bottom half was large and swollen.The insect crawled about, dragging its listless wings, and a short time later, it died. The next day, the biology teacher explained that the butterfly’s struggle to get through the tiny opening is necessary in order to force fluids from the swollen body into the wings so they will be strong enough to fly. Without the struggle, the wings never develop.   So it is with us without struggle in life there is no growth, no sense of accomplishment.We are designed with this internal desire to learn, master, and conquer. That is why children say … with great pride … when they dress themselves, tie a shoe, or cut their own meat … “I did it myself.”