For the next 31 days Bully Prevention Partners is placing messages on their front page discussing issues of bullying. They will include what is bullying, why kids do not tell parents about bullying experiences, examining the effects on the bully, the victim and those that witness the behavior.
Along with all of this some of our students will be making presentations in their classroom to raise awareness and we will be encouraging everyone to take the Stop Bullying Now Pledge that will soon be on the Bully Prevention Partners website. Please join with all of us who are interested to raise the awareness and to let our children and others know that we want to continue to cultivate the culture of peace in our schools.
Look for our announcement of Bully Prevention Seminars for students on October 21 with follow up seminars on a monthly basis for the rest of the school year. Lets work together to Stop Bully Now.
This post is going up a little later than planned. Sometimes my internet connection is spotty, and it has been getting in the way of my posts.
Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is one of China’s major holidays along with the Spring Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. In the lunar calendar, it falls on the 15th day of the 8th month, which in our calendar fell on September 12th this year.
The food associated with this festival is called a moon cake. Moon cakes come in different sizes but are generally pastry sized, with a very dense pastry outside filled with sweetened, um… anything. Foreigners like myself usually go for fruit filled ones, but there are also sweetened meat, fish, egg, or nut filled cakes. Some of these flavors are pretty novel to my tastes. A savory shrimp pie might sound good, but wouldn’t you find a shrimp doughnut a little odd? That’s what this is like, and I certainly did find it odd.
Class 3's "Matrix Pingpong" inspired act
For such festivals, our school has some traditions. There is a big meal served, followed by a variety show performed by the students, followed by karaoke on the school’s karaoke system. This year, class three (my class), put special effort into our variety show performance. We took our inspiration from the online video “Matrix Pingpong,” and choreographed a fight scene using the same blackout theme. We were very proud of the way it turned out. Other items in the program included choreographed dances, dramatic skits, and a performance on the traditional Guqin (a many-stringed plucked dulcimer-like instrument). It was a really fun evening that bridged all ages and several cultures.
Family
Before I came to this kungfu academy, I celebrated a few lonely, puzzled festivals in China. I was an outsider and had no idea what the festival involved. I searched for some intrinsic significance to the holiday, and found nothing I could grab ahold of. It made me reflect on our western holidays. Maybe they lack intrinsic meaning as well. The power of holidays comes from community, family, memory, nostalgia, and ritual. It’s not something to be understood, it is something to be lived. It is only with my new family here that I have been able to live these traditions.
For that reason, I think I have some advice for anyone seeking, as I have, to understand another culture: Don’t. I mean, read up, do your research, anything you like, but ultimately you need people who will be your bridge. Find something that is important to you, something that means enough to you that you are able to set aside your own cultural assumptions to get closer to it (this was harder for me than it sounds). Find people who are important to you, and give yourself to them. Only by giving up yourself will the culture you seek to grasp finally be opened up to you.
This year in 2011 we are commemorating the 30th anniversary of Peace Day. The video below is a live stream of activities and thoughts about creating peace in the world that we live.
The school year has open and is well underway. It is time for all of us to show our support for teachers in our community, as they are one of our most valuable resources. Grants4Teachers is now accepting grant applications from AACPS teachers for those special projects in their classroom that will not be funded by others.
We are looking for creative ideas that teachers would like to implement to bring the love and joy of learning to their students. If you are a teacher please think about what you could do special with your students if you only had the money for the supplies. If you are a parent, be sure to share this opportunity with your school and all the teachers. We have supplied violins, trips, and some very special art project materials in the past and we are looking forward to doing the same this fall.
Life here at the Kungfu Academy, by design and by nature, puts a lot of pressure on those who study here. It’s not the same as the pressure of family and a job, but it is the pressure of discipline, of high expectations. Watching myself and others metamorphose under this pressure has got me thinking lately. I feel that the pressure is moderated by our meditation practice, but different people respond to the meditation differently and thus cope with the weight of discipline differently. If you’ve read my earlier post on internal self defense, you’ve been exposed to the idea of the power our choices about our outlook have on our lives. This is another case of the power of choice.
I want you to understand why discipline is necessary here. We all have a concept of our limitations that stops our forward progress. It is very difficult to break past these limits alone. Even harder are the limits we can’t conceive of, the blind spots in our development. Only someone who has walked the path before you can push you past these limits. And the only way a Master’s pushing can have an effect is through discipline, through the willingness to conform to his standards.
The discipline we experience exists on different levels. Showing up to class on time, being accountable for our activity during practice, demanding the most of ourselves when we train: these are all instances. There are many times when one’s individual wants must be subordinated to this discipline. I think for some people, this is difficult. I sense, from their words and actions, that subordinating themselves threatens their sense of identity. They begin to feel like a robot, unthinkingly obeying commands. Their visceral response is to act out, to assert their individualism by rejecting the patterns of the group, ie, cronic tardiness or sullen reception to instruction. By acting out, they convince their teachers only that they are in need of more discipline.
Choice enters at that moment of subordination. There is no freedom in the choice to follow group expectation or not to, because the definition of the group still defines you either way. The empowering choice is the choice to be free of these terms of self-identity. One can choose not to define oneself in terms of the group at all, so following or not is irrelevant.
Once this freedom is found, there is only one worthwhile test for whether to follow expectation or not: happiness. Which choice makes you happy? If respectfully following the group enhances your training and allows peace of mind, you need not fear becoming an unthinking robot. You are following your feelings. You are no longer bound to the group by heavy chains of discipline, but are freely moving in the same direction as like-minded people. It does not matter that you are meeting external demands, because they merely coincide with the demands you make of yourself.
Many people will accuse me of performing a semantic illusion, of covering over reality with empty words. They will assert that if you follow, you are not free and self-determining. All I can say is that, if you are striving to be free and self-determining but also suffering from anger and depression, maybe it is time to re-examine some of your assumptions about choice. For me, this is the only way forward in my training, in which the expectations of my Master and teachers help me to raise my own.
Joey S. gets it. He has been working so hard over the last year as he trains in tae kwon do and in his personal training too. Joey has become one of the physically strongest students in class – in fact one of the most improved too. This summer he accomplished a very tough goal – biking the Great Alleghany Passage Trail from Frostburg to Meyersdale and back. A total of 32 miles. His goal was a 25 mile trek. What a great accomplishment.
In addition he has not forgotten the importance of doing for others. For the past 4 years when he has a birthday party, Joey invites his friends to make food donations to the Lighthouse Shelter instead of gifts. This year was no different. His family and him delivered the food this past Saturday. Happy Birthday Joey and congratulations on your bike ride this summer.
