Dear Students, Teachers and Friends,

The dojo's will be closed from December 24th through the 28th for
the Christmas Holiday. The dojo's will also be closed December 31st
and January 1st for regular classes.

We are having a New Years Eve sleepover for all the kids in the
dojo. There will be games, snacks and lots of fun. Students and
their friends are welcome to attend. See your Sensei for more
information.

Come and join Kyoshi Bryan and start the year off right with a New
Years day training class. Open to all students, the class will be
held at the Central dojo location and will run from 9:00-10:30.
Starting the year off with a good strong spirited workout is a
traditional concept handed down for generations in the martial arts
world. The central dojo is located at 2304 East Bijou, across the
street from the old Montgomery Wards building.

Quotes of the Week
HELEN KELLER:
I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The
world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes,
but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
JOHN WESLEY:
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways
you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all
the people you can, as long as ever you can.
LIN YUTANG:
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art
of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the
elimination of non-essentials.

Lesson of the Week

Kaizen no Michi –
The path of constant and never ending improvement

The word Kaizen has been adopted by many success and quality control
groups to help identify their mission statement and objectives. In
the martial arts, when you see an expert perform a kata you notice
the speed, power and grace of the movements and yet that proficiency
did not occur over night. The process includes identifying things
that need improvement and then by working on them one at a time you
see that level of improvement. This is why people see karate as a
lifelong journey, a path of constant and never ending improvement.

For the new student they sometimes disbelieve that they have the
capabilities to perform in a matter that they see in some of the
elite black belts. And yet slowly but surely they proceed down the
path and eventually find themselves a member of the black belt
family. The pursuit of excellence is all about identifying what is
important and working to improve those tasks while at the same time
identifying unnecessary or wasteful tasks in their movements.

This same process works in other areas of ones life as well. One
must set goals based on what is truly important to them and then
identify what tasks, skills, knowledge and actions will help them
reach their goals. At the same time a person needs to identify time
wasters and unimportant activities, and either delegate them to
others or eliminate them all together.

As we get close to New Years, I encourage everyone to go to our
www.street-wise.org site and download the goal setting information
and begin to work on things you want to accomplish in the next 12
months. Begin with the values clarification and then proceed to the
overall goal setting worksheets. I think you will be impressed with
the results if you set clearly defined written goals for the next 12
months.

The path of constant and never ending improvement is a lifelong
journey and needs to be directed by your personal goals and
objectives. Like the journey of a thousand miles, great achievements
are accomplished one step at a time.

Respectfully,
Terry Bryan