Kettlebell & FMS Workshop and Seminar Scheduling Changes

In keeping with my promise to spend more time with my family and devoted to my OWN training, I've decided to postpone the Australia and New Zealand Hard Style kettlebell training & FMS certification workshops until early 2010.

Right now, we're looking at late January for Australia (Sydney & Adelaide), and early February for New Zealand (Auckland). I'm working with my local coordinators in Australia & New Zealand to set dates & venues. So if you'd like to help out, please drop them a line.

The extra time will allow us to arrange for bigger, better, international-level learning experiences for you Down Under & in Kiwi-land. Rest assured that if you're anywhere near Oz or New Zealand, the workshops you come to of mine will be worth every penny, Yen, Won, Dollar, or RMB you spend to get there. I guarantee it!


I know this is a bit of a schedule change from my previous post, but it's all for the good.

Why? For a few reasons...

1. First & foremost, I'll get to spend more quality time with my family. I can pretty honestly say that my family life's never been better... and I'm LOVING it that way.

2. My physical training is slowly coming back to what it should be. I'm getting some good hours in on the mats, practicing throws, doing a little rolling, training with some of the best & brightest in their chosen styles, schools, and systems.

If it's a choice between some money & notoriety or having a first rate, once-in-a-lifetime learning experience with Southern California-based legends like the peerless Dan Inosanto, Combat Shuai-Chiao champion James Lin, Tsutomu Ohshima disciple Tom Muzila, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu genius Roy Harris, or Hwa Rang Do grandmaster Taejoon Lee, the choice is obvious.

Even visiting masters like my Krabi Krabong teacher Col. Nattapong Buayam and Sambo master Dr. Vadim Kolganov make it REALLY hard to want to leave right now.

The same can be said for my own kettlebell training with RKC Chief Instructor Pavel Tsatsouline. The chance to train with my mentor at the October Hard Style Ventura workshop is a large reason as to why I decided to reschedule.

Why am I prioritizing this so highly right now?
Teaching around the world has taught me one very clear lesson. There are plenty of people who'd gladly cut off a finger (theirs or mine) to be in my shoes, to have access to training with the people I have on speed dial, and to enjoy the kind of relationships that I've worked to cultivate and enjoy with these very special individuals.

I've seen that kind of jealousy manifest in many varied ways, and the only thing that I can do to properly and professionally address that sort of sentiment is simply to work HARDER to be deserving of the relationships, rights, and privileges I enjoy now. The skill sets that I'm learning and researching are not for me to hoard jealously. Rather, the workshops that I'm teaching are for the express purpose of improving the quality of life for each and every participant who comes to learn THROUGH the optimum application of those skill sets.

Remember... it's all about social synergy for me. If your agenda's different, that's on you, not me.

3. I WILL be heading back to the US East Coast sooner than expected. I'll be making a stop at City Wing Tsun to meet Grandmaster Leung Ting in late September, and then teaching an in-depth RKC prep course in Hamilton, New Jersey with George Samuelson, RKC II, CK-FMS during the October 3rd weekend.

We've JUST finalized the details on this workshop in the past 24 hours. From what I gather, however, spots are ALREADY selling briskly..... AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN FORMALLY ANNOUNCED THIS YET!

So please visit www.thisfeelsgood.com and register ASAP before the pre-reg spots all sell out.

Re-evaluation: Goals for the rest of '08

Being sick has some advantages, I suppose. It forces you to put the brakes on and re-evaluate where you've been, what you've done, where you're headed, and how you're going about it.

Sometimes, I let the excitement of living my life get the best of me, and I run myself a bit ragged. Maybe it goes back to all those years living under the roof of a Chinese mother... hearing constantly about how the other kids are working harder, getting better grades, achieving more athletically, have more friends, until later it turns into stuff like getting better jobs, marrying someone from a more prominent family, making more money, etc., etc., etc.

Thank God that it's not like that these days with my Mom, but I guess some of that is still hard-wired into me. I remember hearing my Mom talk with great esteem about my Chinese godbrother and how he was such a stud in social & athletic circles and how he went on to work internationally and fly here & there and jet-setted around Asia for a living. He even married a Hong Kong starlet in a posh ceremony in Thailand.

So what do I find myself doing now, even when the stimulus is gone?

Making lots of friends, doing elite martial arts & kettlebell training, practicing and teaching Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), flying all over creation to do these things, and making damn good money in the process.

So what's the problem?

There's no real problem per se, but it may be time for me to re-evaluate what my goals in life are. Talking with one of my former students from the UCLA Kung-Fu days, I realize that so much of what we spend our energies on these days revolves around our kids. Family's undeniably important. And no matter how successful someone is professionally, the public always wants to know about their inner personal life.

How you live your family life defines you. How you treat those who are closest to you speaks volumes about who you really are. And what you do to nourish the good points and weed out the bad points in your family life decides TONS about how the rest of your life will turn out.

So while I've been saying it for a long time, I'm going to be forcing myself to nourish the good and weed out the bad with my own family. That's priority #1.

What comes after that? My own health, and it's actually a tie rather than a subordination.

And what's involved in my understanding of health? - the triduum of mind, body, and spirit.

Mind:
- 1. More focused study of Gray Cook's FMS technologies
- 2. More diligent research into optimizing business practices
- 3. More disciplined review of Pavel's extensive writings & the RKC system

Body:
- 1. Optimizing athletic fitness (getting back into prime fighting shape through a combination of MA & RKC kettlebell training methods)
- 2. Learning & internalizing new neurological combative skill sets: Combat Shuai-Chiao, BJJ, & both traditional & non-classical standup MA
- 3. Eating more cleanly

Spirit:
- 1. More family-nourishing time
- 2. Regular endurance training
- 3. Focusing more energy on nourishing those who themselves nourish the social synergy that is needed to succeed

Let's see how much of that I can accomplish for the remainder of 2008!