Fathers Day is this weekend – and the question I have for all the fathers in our community is, “How is your health?” Let’s start with a simple measure of health and that is your blood pressure. Did you know that 1 in 3 adults has high blood pressure and does not know it? It may not be obvious at first that your blood pressure is raised above what is considered healthy, but left untreated the damage can be very serious.
77 % of Americans treated for a first stroke have blood pressure over 140/90
69% of Americans who have a first heart attack have blood pressure over 140/90
74% of Americans with congestive heart failure have blood pressure over 140/90
High blood pressure can lead to many other health issues too and no one is too young to be checking on their blood pressure, as some very simple changes can make a difference.
Dad’s on this weekend when your children and your spouses are praising you for all you do – do something for them and yourself – Get Your Blood Pressure Checked. You can do it at the drugstore or your doctors office – just do it. If it is over 120/80 then you are in at the very least a prehypertension category and need to take action NOW, for the sake of you and your family.
Trying to lower my stance with a straight back at May competition
It’s been well over a month since my last post. Our training schedule has been in chaos for the last month, and it just seems like every time I might sit down and write, there is a competition, or a performance, or a meditation period, or a bad internet connection, or something else to get in the way. A change is as good as a holiday, though, and I feel refreshed and ready to go now that training in Wudangshan is settling back into normal routine.
The month of May and the beginning of June were fairly stressful, because it seemed like we were never going to get a real day off to recover from all the events mentioned above. Everyone in our class, I think, felt this tension building under the calm we are trying to maintain. The harder we tried to keep a lid on stress, the more rigid our emotions became, and that rigidity fanned the embers of the stress inside. The calm produced was not really calm at all, but a facade over inner turmoil. One has to somehow face stress while staying light and happy. This seems impossible; the two seem mutually exclusive. One feels one must either escape the stress or embrace unhappiness. But we can’t do either.
This balancing of seemingly mutually exclusive elements is a reoccurring theme in my training. From day one, coaches yell at us to sink our stances lower, but keep our backs straighter. This seems impossible. To keep balance, you feel that you have to stick out your butt and lean your head forward if you want to get your stance lower. Or the coach tells you to do the movements faster and clearer, but you are already going as fast as you can and you feel the only way to go any faster is to fudge the movements. But though you ask the coach again and again to choose one of the opposing criteria for you to focus on, he keeps you on both horns of the dilemma. And then one day, through long, hard work, low and straight becomes possible, and fast and clear becomes fierce.
Often in our decision making, and particularly in the processes by which we find our emotional response to stimuli, we are too lazy to seek an ideal answer. Instead, we try to determine which extreme reaction will give the best result most of the time. Psychology calls this heuristics, and it is a very real part of how the human brain works. These shortcuts save time and reduce the amount of thinking we really have to do, but they also oversimplify our inherently subtle world and thus make our path through it clumsy and misguided.
I think this is one reason meditation is so important: meditation changes the way one values time and helps prioritize balanced thinking instead of headlong speed. By slowing down and observing with greater sensitivity, we can hope to face each challenge with the right calm-happy, lazy-driven, optimistic-pessimistic, black-white, free-disciplined, push-pull, fast-clear, low-straight, give-take, yin-yang response.
In just one week I will be presenting on four occasions the topic, Creating a Culture of Peace in our Schools at AACC. For months now I have been preparing this presentation because of my belief that it is not about rules, posters and punishments that will change what is happening in our schools – but rather an examination of the culture in each and every school. As adults we have the responsibility and the power to help our children to learn to be peaceful, but creating peace starts with one – and that is ourselves.
In a recent interview the director of the documentary, Bully, touched on this point in a very powerful manner. His comments are found in the video. In the coming months we will be working to bring greater awareness to this subject, and I encourage each parent in our community to have this discussion at their school . I am available to speak to this subject with parents and teachers in any school here in Anne Arundel County as we pursue peace in our schools.
Sunny and breezy, with beautiful mid-70 degree weather… this past Saturday was a terrific day to spend outside. Instead of hanging at the beach or lounging in a downtown coffee shop, I arrived bright and early at a build site in Baltimore City to partake in a house demolition and reconstruction job!
Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity has been a dream of mine, but taking off for a week to build a house abroad just never seemed feasible with work and school. Who knew that Habitat for Humanity has local chapters that allow you to volunteer for day jobs (about 7 hours) during the week and/or weekends? I didn’t!
That is, I didn’t know until I came across Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake during a routine internet exploration. Registration is a breeze, and the site offers information about lots of different volunteer opportunities. If you’re not interested in labor-intensive work, maybe volunteering in the office will suit you better! You can request to do gardening and landscaping, or offer up your muscles for power tool duties. Either way, as long as you’re 16 or older, there is a job available for you!
The local chapter, Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake, has about 6 different sites in Baltimore city that they are focusing on over the next few months. In addition to novice volunteers (like myself) at the sites on build days, there are Red Hats who are veteran volunteers that have gone through additional safety courses and commit to two build days each month, Americorps members who are on job assignments with Habitat for 11-month contracts, and site supervisors who are employed by Habitat for Humanity and provide volunteers with wisdom, friendliness, and tasks!
I had a WONDERFUL experience getting to know other volunteers and spending the day ripping out old windows and frames, and reconstructing the exterior walls! The experience was so wonderful that I have already gone online and signed up for four more jobs over the next two months! If you, or anyone you know, have an interest in volunteering in your community, I highly recommend Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake.
“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.”
Connor S. is a student at Balanced Life Skills. This Saturday on June the 9th he will be taking part in a fundraiser for Bello Machre, ” Every Step Counts” with his team – Dust Off Your Dreams. Why is this so special? Here is a letter from his mom and a video of Connor speaking to nearly 200 Middle Schools Students at Severn School about autism.
For the last 40 years, Bello Machre, a locally based non-profit organization, has dedicated their energy to helping children and adults with developmental disabilities. The “Every Step Counts” fundraiser is their biggest of the year, and it accounts for a large portion of the money used to fund their services. Bello Machre provides much needed support to families and group homes to hundreds of people of all ages with disabilities of all types. For the last 9 years, Bello Machre has supported our efforts in bringing Connor out of his autistic shell by providing us with a yearly grant that we use to help defray the costs of his treatments. Half of every dollar we raise in “Every Step Counts” is added to Connor’s grant account to be used specifically for his treatments.
We have been blessed that all of the medicines, doctors appointments, therapy appointments, specialized medical tests, friends, family, aides and teachers have come together to bring Connor to a very high functioning level. It is a wonderful thing to be able to dream of a future for Connor not totally dominated by the world of autism. Unfortunately, for every one like Connor, there are 10 others who haven’t been so lucky. We would love to have your support once again as we attempt to raise money for a very worthy organization. Any donation, big or small, is greatly appreciated. If you wish to donate, you can send a check to us made out to “Bello Machre/Every Step Counts” to our home address listed below. If you would prefer to donate online, go towww.bellomachre.org/events/every_step_counts.php. Our team name is “Dust Off Your Dreams,” and that name would need to be included on the online donation form in order for us to receive credit.
We thank you in advance for your support, and the hundreds of other individuals served by Bello Machre thank you as well.
Gratefully,
Bob, Lori and Connor Skalitzky
2513 Windy Oak Court
Crofton, MD 21114
P.S. If you would like to see Connor’s amazing speech given on World Autism Awareness Day (which also happens to be his birthday), check out this video:
If you would like to see how we will talk about COURTESY with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of JUNE or come in and TRY A CLASS.
Dad’s on this weekend when your children and your spouses are praising you for all you do – do something for them and yourself – Get Your Blood Pressure Checked. You can do it at the drugstore or your doctors office – just do it. If it is over 120/80 then you are in at the very least a prehypertension category and need to take action NOW, for the sake of you and your family.
