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Pick Yourself

December 15, 2011 in Business, Forward Thinking, On The Job, Training with 2 Comments

Pick YourselfWhy do certain kids always get picked last in gym class?

Why do certain employees always get skipped over for promotion?

Why does life seem to present opportunities to some while it appears to ignore others?

My analysis is that it’s because those individuals would never pick themselves. If you’re not willing to pick yourself, neither are your peers. Doors close. Opportunities slip away. You’re last again.

If you want a spot on the team, if you want the job or the promotion, and if you want the once in a lifetime opportunities you have to be willing to pick yourself. Completely. Without a doubt.

Are you willing to pick yourself? Be honest.

The Worst Thing We Can Do To Students

September 27, 2011 in Discipline, Growth, On The Job, PSAs, Success, Teaching, Tips for Parents, Training with 2 Comments


Photo by Adrian Sommerling

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. ~ Lou Holtz

Sometimes the most well-meaning efforts have the biggest negative impact. One of the worst things we can do to students as parents, teachers, and coaches is to save them from failure, save them from the real consequences of their actions, and to save them from feeling pain or disappointment. I have seen the product that is the eternally rescued child and it’s not pretty.

Students who are constantly rescued, saved from failure, guarded from consequences, and shielded from pain and disappointment fail to acquire the necessary tools required to deal with the ups and downs of life. They become entitled blamers, victims of the world, unable to cope with the law of reaping and sowing.

Maturity is when we stop demanding that life meet our demands and begin to meet the demands of life.

Marital arts and countless other sports and activities that children take part in are moving toward a no-fail mindset. Martial arts schools are good at pretending that students are challenged and “put to the test”, but are they really? Look around: they’re removing obstacles that used to stand in the way of success; they’re preparing the path for the child and smoothing out all the rough spots. Less sparring, less board breaking, easier techniques, and less time in between belts are a few examples of this. In many schools, the sole requirement for the next rank is that you have a checking account and a pulse.

But by pretending that every child is succeeding, we’re actually failing all of them. By guarding them from frustration and consequences, we’re missing valuable coaching moments that could be used to develop strong-willed leaders who won’t take no for an answer. Instead, we’re breeding an army of future husbands, wives, friends, neighbors, workers, and parents who expect life to bend around them, to lay down at their presence, and to submit to their will.

What we must do as coaches, teachers, and parents is to show students how to leap the hurdles presented to them by life. Life is full of hurdles and you can either jump them or you can’t. But expecting our children and our students to be Olympic hurdlers in their teens and adult life when we’ve removed all of their opportunities to practice jumping as a child is irrational and irresponsible. If you save them from failure now, you set them up for failure later. And failure later is generally far more painful.

Last week I wrote about the secret recipe for being a great coach. The second half of that recipe says that successful coaching depends on the coach’s willingness to tell the truth. Our students and children need us to tell them the truth about life so they have every opportunity to build the tools required to cope with that truth. It’s important to understand that the truth will find them one way or the other; let’s tell them the truth now and help them navigate it so it doesn’t kick them in the teeth later (martial artists should take that literally).

The Secret Recipe to Being a Great Coach

September 21, 2011 in Competition, On The Job, Teaching with 0 Comments

I was watching an “inside training camp” special that gave you an inside look at college football training camps. It was interesting to me because the producers put a lot of focus on the coaching staff. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of emotion, and a lot of what you’d probably expect to see at a college football practice. I think coaches are tough on their athletes because that’s what they think gets results or because that’s what they think the people watching want to see.

There’s no doubt these coaches get results, but at what cost to the athletes? In my mind, there’s only two questions you can ask a coach after a victory is achieved:

  1. What was invested in the athlete to get this victory?
  2. What did this victory cost the athlete?

I never want anyone to ask the second question of me after it’s all said and done. All of the emotion and disorder coming from a coaching staff is good for the cameras, but what if you can meet the same outcome–victory–through different means? Sure, there are times when you need to ride people and when you need to step up and be more serious with a group of athletes, but that’s not when the best work gets done.

In my experience, the secret to being a truly great coach and producing athletes that constantly improve and reach the top is providing grace and truth consistently over time.

Grace in coaching is kindness and favor. It’s empathy with the place the athlete is in and the situations they’re faced with in training and competition. It’s understanding the difficulty inherent in executing the concepts. When you have grace–not domination–you build trust and cultivate an atmosphere where people can poke the box, communicate, understand and be understood.

Truth in coaching is the unwillingness to let athletes believe anything aside from reality. It separates confidence from cockiness. It’s humility. It’s telling them exactly what they need to know when they need to know it to make the biggest improvements. It’s the opposite of being their yes-man. Truth makes it easy for athletes to live and work within their level of talent and ability while striving to reach new heights, something they can’t do when they have an inflated or deflated sense of their ability.

“…let’s not forget that the goal of coaching and the general development of athletes is not for the victory, but for what the victory represents: continual improvement (physical, mental, social, emotional) of the person.”

Yelling, screaming, and throwing things may get people to focus and work harder over the short-term, but nobody has convinced me of its long-term merits (besides being bad for your health!). And let’s not forget that the goal of coaching and the general development of athletes is not for the victory, but for what the victory represents: continual improvement (physical, mental, social, emotional) of the person. The end can’t justify the means in this situation or you’ve failed as a coach. If you break someone’s spirit in any way, shape, or form while leading them to a “win”, you’ve lost.

The only method I’ve found to fill an athlete’s emotional tank and invest in their future during training is to give consistent doses of grace and truth. That’s it. And I think I’ve proved that it works and I’m continuing to prove that it works. If you’re a coach (or a teacher or parent), I invite you to give it a shot.

Form Over Function Will Be the Downfall of Martial Arts

September 19, 2011 in Competition, Forward Thinking, On The Job, PSAs, Teaching, Training with 3 Comments

I’ve talked at length over the past few years about how the martial arts industry is shooting itself in the foot. I’ve written some of my points down (here’s 10 of them in one article, here’s one, and here’s another) and there’s still a lot more to come, including some big ones. In keeping with the theme, I’d like to expose another straw that’s been heaped on the camel’s back by martial arts schools across the globe, but especially here in the U.S.: form over function.

Thousands of years ago, martial arts was about function. People in many parts of the world needed it for survival. For many others it was about developing dominating hand-to-hand combat tactics for military personnel. Martial arts training in those times wasn’t a game, wasn’t a hobby, and certainly wasn’t a joke.

As you can imagine, modern-day citizens who live in relatively safe societies have different goals than their 2000 year old counterparts. We’re not interested in kicking people off horses and learning how to maim someone’s face with a Kama. Instead, we’re interested in not getting fat, teaching our kids discipline, focus, and respect, and participating in a sport/activity that engages us.

Because of this shift, many martial arts have switched gears and become martial sports. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is growing wildly as a sport. Wrestling, Taekwondo, and Judo have all been adopted as Olympic sports. And mixed martial arts — a combination of dozens of arts — is gaining in mainstream popularity with no sign of slowing. In a major move, the UFC just signed a multiyear deal with Fox Sports.

I think that was a great move. Sports are popular. Sports have rules. Martial sports are exciting. And you can create a huge industry around sports. But what is the heart of a martial sport? It’s a physical competition against another human being. For martial sports, which are spawned by ancient arts that gave their practitioners nasty combat skills, the competition must center around combat. Taekwondo, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and the UFC have all figured that out.

But thousands of schools around the globe are taking combat out of martial arts. They’re removing the function and replacing it with form. They’re taking something inherently useful to society and making it useless. They’ve removed all sparring and physical contact from the curriculum, they’re putting an emphasis on kata and forms patterns, they’re replacing combat with board breaking (and often not even using real boards), and they’re filling the gaps with games, fitness, and fluff.

Sparring is the most important aspect of martial arts in terms of function. It’s the only aspect of training that teaches you pin point timing, distance, feinting, the application of power and technique, and self-defense. But there are schools awarding Black Belts to students who have never participated in a single sparring match. It’s the equivalent of awarding NFL contracts to people who have only played flag football.

“…there are schools awarding Black Belts to students who have never participated in a single sparring match. It’s the equivalent of awarding NFL contracts to people who have only played flag football.”

The industry can’t survive the long-term repercussions of this. It’s a cancer. When you give Black Belts to students who can’t spar, you create future instructors who can’t spar. These instructors are impotent as teachers of the next generation. The side effects are students who have a false sense of security and an industry knee-deep in mediocrity and empty martial arts curriculum. And that kills long-term profit.

The industry has already damaged itself enough. The industry associations are encouraging schools to remove sparring from their curriculums because it results in higher dropout rates. But I’ve already explained why only bad teachers water down curriculum. Real teachers prepare the student for the path, not the path for the student.

Martial arts training is about function and removing the functional aspects is akin to removing the soul of the martial art you teach. Scrubbing out the most challenging parts of your curriculum may help short-term retention, but good luck surviving when nobody wants your product because it no longer has any function. If this trend becomes more widespread, the industry will suffer another major body blow to its reputation. And at this point, I’m not sure how many more of those we can survive.

My Energetic Competition Coaching Philosophy

September 14, 2011 in Competition, On The Job with 0 Comments

Me coaching at Nationals 2010 in Ft. Lauderdale

If you’ve ever seen me coach at a tournament, you’ve probably noticed that I get fired up. I see some coaches just sit back in the chair and relax and casually observe. I have no idea what they’re doing or thinking; that style of coaching is impossible for me.

I don’t want my coaching to come across the wrong way, so I’m writing my thoughts publicly to put them on the official record. While I do get fired up, I do so for very important reasons. And I have lines that will never be crossed (that I often see crossed by other coaches): I do not yell at my athletes, I do not yell at officials, and I’m careful to show respect.

I’ve seen other coaches verbally, physically, mentally, and emotionally abuse their athletes when things don’t go right. I’ve seen them berate officials. And I’ve seen parents act completely inappropriately. None of that is me.

I will, however, do whatever is necessary to protect my athletes, to promote a fair competition atmosphere, and to correct blatant mistakes. When I get fired up it is for my athletes, not me. I dedicate a lot of time to training and coaching, but so do my athletes and so do their parents. And without my athletes I wouldn’t be coaching in the first place.

When I’m sitting in the chair I will celebrate every point my athlete gets as a celebration of all the hard work and dedication that made that point happen. I will also celebrate it so the officials have an extra opinion on whether it was actually a point or not (it helps, trust me). If my athlete isn’t getting points when they clearly should, I won’t hesitate to let officials know my opinion. I’m energetic, but never disrespectful.

I’m also fired up because competing is hard and every single competitor who goes through the training to prepare and actually shows up to fight is a warrior. But they’re also people–mostly kids–and they need support. They need a cheerleader. They need someone in their corner who they can trust and who they know has their back. That’s me 100%.

“First place holds no importance if everyone has forgotten that every competitor is first a person.”

If we win, I will celebrate the victory. I will also make sure to spend a few extra moments with each opponent after the match to thank them for being a competitor, to congratulate them if they’ve won and console them if they’ve lost. I try to never forget that people are far more important than places. First place holds no importance if everyone has forgotten that each competitor is first a person.

The problem I face is that to a casual observer I may seem cocky or obnoxious. I’m certainly loud and boisterous. But I am strongly grounded with the values and principles I’ve talked about above. I care more about the competitors than the competition regardless of whose team they’re on. And I want to make the record clear that I never cheer for the downfall of the opponent, but only for the progress and victory of my athlete.

“…they’re also people and they need support. They need a cheerleader. They need someone in their corner who they can trust and who they know has their back. That’s me one hundred percent.”

When you see me at a tournament, be confident that my state of mind aligns with what I’ve written here. I made a promise to myself when I started coaching in 2004 to always uphold these principles and I’ve done one heck of a job considering the many crazy situations I’ve found myself in during my tenure as head coach of my competition team.

P.S. If you’re a Taekwondo athlete and you’re in the Atlanta area, stop in for a training session or two! Contact me and I’ll give you all the details. I’d love to meet with you.

Mobility Training for Increased Performance and Decreased Injury

September 6, 2011 in Competition, Forward Thinking, On The Job, Teaching, Training with 0 Comments

Kelly Starrett is an interesting human being. He’s a genius when it comes to physical therapy, mobility, performance, and recovery and I’ve enjoyed learning from him over the past few weeks as I began studying the concepts of mobility training for my competition athletes.

Performance suffers as mobility declines and Kelly teaches athletes how to heal themselves and do routine maintenance so they can perform like well-oiled machines. He’s introduced me to stretches and other techniques that seem alien to me, but have the potential to change the game as far as mobility, flexibility, and recovery go.

Here’s an example that’s obviously relevant to martial arts:

That’s just the beginning.

Mobility and flexibility/stretching may seem like the same thing, but as Kelly notes:

Stretching only focuses on lengthening short and tight muscles. Mobilization, however, is a movement-based integrated full-body approach that addresses all the elements that limit movement and performance including short and tight muscles, soft tissue restriction, joint capsule restriction, motor control problems, joint range of motion dysfunction, and neural dynamic issues. In short, mobilization is a tool to globally address movement and performance problems.

One change I’ve already made is to throw away the static stretching most martial arts schools do at the beginning of class. Static stretching decreases explosiveness, speed, and overall performance with no clear reduction in risk of injury. So out with the old (static stretching) and in with the new (dynamic stretching).

I’ve also started introducing some of the mobility training, slowly but surely. There’s some great stretches, but a lot of the cool stuff requires working with a Rumble Roller, stretch band, and some lacrosse balls. I got this mobility training pack at Rogue Fitness that includes the Rumble Roller, Lacrosse Balls, and a physical therapy stretch band for less than $100. They’re wonderful tools of pain and agony that I can use to work a ton of these mobility concepts on both myself, my students, and my competition athletes.

While the pain is real, so are the results. I’ve already noticed a huge difference in the little time that I’ve been working on this stuff. And the better you get at it, the less pain you experience. It actually starts to feel good and the information you receive about your body (what’s working and what’s not) is invaluable to performance. Being able to fix the trouble spots will undoubtedly give you a leg up on the competition.

Side Note: Don’t forget, the deadline for my Insanity 60 day challenge is only 5 days from now. Accept the challenge at Team Fitness Challenges.

The Flip Side of Teaching Children to Share

August 29, 2011 in Discipline, On The Job, Teaching, Tips for Parents with 0 Comments

Have you ever watched an interaction between two children where one is playing with something and the other wants it,  so a mini battle ensues and the parent or teacher tries to teach the lesson of “sharing” to solve it?

I’ve seen it more times than I need to. I remember when I was a kid having the “lesson” taught to me. But there’s more than one lesson within this situation between two children and sharing is the least important of the two. The important lesson is a lesson on boundaries. The problem is that if we place the focus on the sharing lesson, the boundaries lesson not only doesn’t get taught, but gets counteracted.

When a child wants something they almost always walk up and take it. If Johnny is playing with a toy and Andrew walks up and tries to take the toy, the proper response from Johnny is, “No.” This is typically where the parent or teacher will jump in and try to “teach” Johnny about sharing. But teaching sharing in this scenario is not appropriate. Johnny’s response (assuming he wasn’t being hostile) was absolutely correct. Instead, Andrew needs to learn about the boundary of not taking things from others and be taught how to ask for things politely and accept “no” as a valid response.

If this boundary isn’t taught, Andrew learns that he can simply walk up and take things from people. And if they protest they’re mean, greedy people who don’t share and we must find an authority figure to notify about all of this “non sharing” going on so we can get justice! Johnny also learns that when he says “no”, it doesn’t protect him from anything. But healthy boundaries is all about the ability to say and hear no appropriately. Teaching the wrong lesson here sabotages both Johnny and Andrew’s ability to relate properly and sabotages every future relation they’ll have about property and possibly other things.

We need vigilance as teachers or parents because teaching lessons we think are correct and healthy can actually be counterproductive. Learning to share is great, but sabotaging children’s understanding of boundaries in the process is a large-scale failure.

The Real Meaning of Discipline

August 10, 2011 in Discipline, On The Job, Teaching, Tips for Parents with 1 Comment

As the owner of a martial arts school, I’m always approached by parents who want their child to learn “discipline.” I guess I can’t blame them; the martial arts industry has marketed discipline to the world since I can remember. But what is discipline? How we define the concept is important because my discipline might not look like your discipline.

A lot of parents think discipline means punishment for a crime. The parents who ask me to teach their children discipline expect me to raise my voice, be a master punisher, and to put their kids through my sadistic brand of boot camp. If I’m not shouting, not making kids do 50 push ups for stepping off their line, and not sitting them in a corner every 20 minutes, I’m not really teaching discipline according to them.

But none of that is discipline, it is obedience. Obedience is adherence to authority. Discipline is about learning accountability and adhering to values and principles.

Discipline comes from the latin word disciplina, which means “teaching or learning.” It’s about solving the issue through communication, not yelling. It’s about solving the issue through understanding, not punishment. Are there consequences? Of course. But a consequence is not a punishment. A punishment is something one does to another. A consequence is something one does to themselves. Children must learn that.

When you discipline through healthy communication you instill self-discipline. I’ve found through over 10 years of teaching in a discipline-oriented environment that kids who have the tools to do well, do well. Punishment and yelling only achieve temporary compliance; they never promote long-term change because those tactics never give kids the tools they need to succeed next time.

Kids have no choice but to learn through trial and error. And when they make an error, those around them who know the answer have a choice: rain down wrath or offer guidance. Through healthy guidance–true discipline–children learn limits and boundaries. They learn why they shouldn’t bite or hit. They learn why they shouldn’t throw food. They learn why their actions have real consequences. Through this new understanding, they develop a sense of self-discipline. When punishment and authoritarian obedience replace learning, the opportunity for deeper understanding is lost and thus the child remains lost. Fear is temporary, understanding is forever.

Of course, it’s hard for the parents to teach limits and boundaries if they have no clear understanding of these concepts themselves. After all, most laws, healthy behaviors, and healthy communication techniques are all based on the concept of personal boundaries.

It may seem as if I don’t “discipline” because I don’t toe the line of the classic–incorrect–definition. And much of my disciplining happens in private (because shame is not discipline either) so it’s not always directly witnessed. But make no mistake: the kids I lead and teach learn clearly the ins and outs of healthy behavior, communication, and interaction through months and years of working with me.

If you’re unclear or would like more information on my discipline philosophy, please feel free to leave a comment or schedule a conference with me. I’d love to talk :)

Seth Godin on the difference between management and leadership

March 16, 2011 in Forward Thinking, On The Job with 1 Comment

Are you being a manager when you think you’re being a leader? Here’s a great Seth Godin clip on what true leadership is about:

Thoughts? The comment section is open below….

Rethinking pushups and other exercises as obedience tools in martial arts.

February 14, 2011 in Discipline, On The Job with 1 Comment

It’s a staple in martial arts schools across the country: A.D.D. Adam steps out of line and the 5th Dan Black Belt Master Instructor shouts with conviction, “Give me 10 Adam!”

Since the beginning of time, martial arts instructors have doled out pushups, squat thrusts, and other painful workout procedures to modify behavior. But have we ever stopped to ask, what are the side effects?

Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation

It is well known in psychology that people who are intrinsically motivated to do something perform at a far higher level than those who are extrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation is inherent motivation inside an individual that leads them to performing under their own free will. Extrinsic motivation is the use of a system of rewards and punishments to motivate people.

Pushups and other exercises are a form of punishment; an extrinsic motivator designed to alter behavior in a student. And the punishment often comes with some level of anger and shame as well.

It may seem like it corrects behavior to the casual observer — and it does temporarily — but it’s severely lacking as a long-term behavior modifier. In fact, it has negative side effects.

What do you want?

Martial arts teachers want some semblance of order in the classroom. And they want to appear as if they care about discipline. What they really want is self-discipline but what they promote is obedience.

The problem is that they think the best way to get that order and discipline is to force students to respect them by punishing those who step out of line. But, when you demand that a student perform pushups (or assign any other punishment), the following things happen:

  • The student focuses on how they feel at the time of being punished rather than how others feel (you, a student they disrespected, etc.) Instead of learning empathy, they learn shame.
  • The student (especially younger students) associates the activity they’re doing (e.g. pushups) with punishment and negativity, which can lead to them avoiding those otherwise healthy activities in the future. Shouldn’t pushups be something you WANT to do to make yourself stronger? Then why use them for punishment?
  • The student will learn to continue the undesired behavior as long as they can avoid the punishment (not get caught). In fact, some instructors and parents will use the line, “don’t let me catch you doing that again.” And the student promptly thinks, “okay, you won’t catch me.”
  • The student at best becomes obedient. But obedience is worthless. Self-discipline is what we should be after and punishment is not a means to achieve it.
  • Punishment is only fuel for the fire if the student is seeking attention. Good luck with that.

Shout it, maybe they didn’t year you.

If you try to make the “discipline” more effective by raising your voice, the student actually hears nothing.

When you yell at people, especially young children, they tend to shut down. They stop thinking logically and instead their brain tries to determine the threat level it is currently facing. Their heart races, their vision blurs, they become confused because they want to escape yet are fearful of doing so, and all-in-all they just want the situation to end. In the process, nothing you said is heard and only pain results.

Unfortunately, you’re not any closer to self-discipline. Now, you just have students who are fearful and that degrades the learning environment.

What we can do differently…

Here’s my approach to solving problems in the classroom and promoting self-discipline:

  • Earn respect through trust and confidence, not fear.
  • Stop “instructing” and start “teaching”.
  • Coach in place of punishment — ask the student to see you after class and discuss the issue rather than shaming them in front of everyone.
  • Utilize skills from Plan B problem solving.
  • Assume students want to do the right thing, but don’t always have the tools to do so. Then teach them the tools.
  • Never yell or “discipline” out of anger.
  • Stop bribing students and start cultivating their intrinsic motivation for learning.
  • Invite students to participate in the process of developing their self-discipline.

Remember, the goal is not obedience, but self-discipline. Let’s stop punishing students, let’s forget the “when in doubt, shout” model of discipline, and let’s start doing things with students rather than to them. It takes a healthier and more patient teacher to do this, but I have faith in you.

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