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150 Jump Ropes Made by Students of Balanced Life Skills

Friday July 22, 2011 Annapolis, MD – Balanced Life Skills students and families came together and made 150 jump ropes that will be sent with Brian Williams and Think Kindness to an orphanage in Kenya. The name of the orphanage is Tumaini. Through the very high temperatures and high humidity the outside work was done, like cutting and sanding the handles and carturizing the ends of the rope, while taping the handles and putting the ropes together was done inside Balanced Life Skills studio.

Children as young as 3 helped while mom’s and dad’s and students of all ages did there share of the work. With some volunteers arriving at 9 AM all 150 jump ropes were completed by 12:30 PM. This was a great effort by over 30 volunteers, as they made very quick work of the project. Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts encourages all of their students to take part in community service as a part of their training in the martial arts.

Last year, I had the privilege of traveling with Think Kindness to Kenya and spend time at the orphanage, delivering shoes, school supplies and jump ropes. In addition as a group we were able to help them purchase chickens for their use on the grounds that will compliment the gardens that feed the children.

Late this year in December, I will be returning to Kenya with Brian and others, including doctors, dentist and nurses, to assist in the establishment of a medical clinic, and of course, spend some time with the children. Spending time with the children is so exciting, as they all have a story and you must just love their smiles. I hope you enjoy the video we made of making the jump ropes.

Here is a link to some of the photos we took at the jump rope making event. PHOTOS

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My Younger Older Brothers

As you may have seen in movies, the Kungfu community here has a family and generational structure. Our master would be the father figure (Shifu), his master is the grandfather figure (Shiye), anyone who studied under our master’s master would be our aunt or uncle (Shushu), and anyone who studies under our master is our brother or sister. Brothers are further divided into older and younger, those who started studying before you (Shixiong), or those who started after (Shidi). Respect flows up this structure, as you might expect. So in my bumbling foreign way, I try to show respect to those above me and do what they say.

I am becoming more and more aware of the strange ways this structure juxtaposes with other issues in my life here, specifically in my interactions with my older kungfu brothers who are younger than me in age. I owe them respect, both because of tradition and because they are very skillful teachers. Further, they are at home in this culture and I look to them for guidance in how I conduct myself. So I frequently find myself imitating them almost unconsciously. Oh, that’s how I should do that stance. Oh, that’s what I do when Shiye visits.

Seeing them as role models in these ways sometimes blinds me as to their actual age, and I find myself imitating pretty immature behavior. Because in addition to kungfu teachers and Chinese natives, they are also 15-18 year old kids going through all the same bewildering stuff I went through not all that long ago. They are learning what professionalism means, what accountability means, learning about relationships, and learning about the world beyond the walls of the kungfu school and beyond the borders of China.

So I find myself in the strange situation of having to sometimes be a role model for my role models. It is difficult, because one frequently forgets if one should be learning or teaching at a given moment. Two people teaching each other at the same instant tends to devolve into an argument, and sometimes two learners becomes a case of the blind leading the blind. In truth, more often than not we all fall down and all behave like children, but I hope that in some ways I am having a good impact on them even as I learn from them.

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Making Jump Ropes for the Children in Kenya

This year ThinkKindness.org will be traveling to Kenya once again to visit and support the orphanage in Tumaini. Though I am unable to make this trip, I will be returning with a group of medical personnel in December to establish a medical clinic.

For the time though Balanced Life Skills students will once again make jump ropes for the children in Kenya. We need your help in making them. Please check out this short video for more information.

 

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Life Skills: Answer the Question Why to Teach Children To Persevere

Teaching character and life skills to students

The R in SPARK stands for REASON.  If we are going to persevere to reach a goal knowing why we want to do something gives us a great deal of push to accomplish that goal.  Part of goal setting should always include the answer to WHY.  Any goal worth reaching must move us in a way that we feel that it wouldn’t just be a nice thing to have happen – but rather – we must.

For an example if someone wanted to lose weight.  Answer the question WHY first.  What will losing this 15 pounds do for me, save me from, or affect my life?  How will my children be affected?  How will I feel?  What will I be able to do that is hard for me now?  Why is this important?

Getting the reason firmly planted in our mind and heart will keep us going when the hard days come and it is difficult to stay on our path to our goal.  Asking ourselves the right questions will move us to continue taking action.

In the next month I will be writing about the questions we need to ask ourselves to be sure we stay on the path to reach our goals.

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Life Skills: Persevere to Your Goals By Getting Knowledge & Skills

Teaching character and life skills to students

The K in SPARK stands for KNOWLEDGE.  Wanting something or wanting to do something and knowing how to get to that goal surely are two different things.  I may want to rock climb, but if I have no knowledge of the techniques, tools or where to go, it is not likely that I will become a successful rock climber.

If I seek out a skilled teacher though who guides me with the basics, shows me what equipment would be good for me to have and takes me to a place to practice, now I will start to have the knowledge and skills I need to reach my goal.  The same is true for any practice that we would like to take up, whether it is computer science, playing a game, or learning how to study.

Part of gaining knowledge and skills though is our willingness to be coached.  When I have a student that is ‘coach-able’ I am speaking of someone who will listen to the suggestions (new knowledge) and then try to put it into practice.  While it is good to ask questions of your coach to gain deeper knowledge, it is not good to question the validity of the suggestions made by the expert (why do I have to do this?).  We may not understand how this change or suggestion is going to help us reach our goal, but if we practice soon enough we will see how it helps us with details later.

When dealing with children or anyone new in a practice, getting the basics is key to the building blocks.  It has been suggested by some researchers that unless gross motor skills are developed in children before they are asked to perform fine motor skill tasks – they will never reach their greatest potential.  The same is true in math, reading, studying or leadership.  Gaining knowledge and skills in the correct order will help us maintain our perseverance to complete our goals.

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Life Skills: Teaching Children Perseverance by Taking Action

Teaching character and life skills to students

The A in SPARK stands for ACTION.  Before we can persevere we must take the first step – we must act on our goal – even if we are uncertain of the outcome.  Not being afraid of taking action, or afraid that our action may not yield the result that we hoped for is an act of courage and confidence.

As a parent we can praise the effort or the actions that our child has taken to reach their goal.  We can also teach our children how to break down a very large goal into smaller steps and accomplish them one by one in a consistent manner – with the end result being reaching your goal.  In our martial arts training we may want to reach a goal of being able to do 50 push ups on our toes without stopping.  To reach this goal we need to break it down into do-able steps.

doing perfect pushups develops perseveranceHere is how we might reach that goal by taking action.
1. commit to doing 5 good push ups 5 times every day. (using a timer allow 10 minutes between each set of 5)
2. after one month start doing 10 push ups in the same pattern. (at first this may be a little hard, but soon you will be able to do it without any problem)
3. continue adding 5 every month to your set and if you persevere, you will be able to do 50 in less than one year.

The key to this is you must take ACTION 6 days per week and not skip days.  You must persevere!