Dear Students, Teachers and Parents,

I hope everyone is having a great 3-day weekend. I am getting ready
to head out to the Chinese New Years celebration and help Gu Ping
with his demo but wanted to get the lesson of the week to you and
remind everyone that the school is closed Monday for the holiday. We
are also having a tonfa seminar next weekend if anyone is interested.
Please let Mary know right away if you are planning on coming so we
know we will have enough tonfa on hand.

Lesson of the Week

The Fearless Warrior

One of the attributes we relate to the tiger is courage. To
understand how and why a martial artist develops courage, a brief
overview of fear needs to be discussed.

Fear is probably the greatest threat to human potential and
performance. Fear robs us of our happiness and fear causes us to
settle for far less than we are capable of. Fear is the cause of most
negative emotions, our unhappiness and most problems in
relationships. If fear is such a damaging problem, where does fear
come from?

Children are basically born with only two fears – the fear of loud
noises and the fear of falling. All other fears are taught to the
child by their parents, probably by the age of 6 years of age. Some
fears that turn into an awareness of danger are a good thing, like
learning to look before stepping out into traffic. What we are
talking about here is negative fears that impact human potential,
often not based on reality. While a child is born fearless and
uninhibited, it is the parents through creating a perception of a
withdrawal of love, verbal commands or physical punishment that is
the root of all fears in our adult lives. All inhibitive or
compulsive behaviors that are based on the fear of failure or the
desire to please others are learned habit patterns. The good news is
that if it is learned, then it can be unlearned.

The way we combat these fears, is through the development of high
self-esteem and self-confidence. Basically, the more that we like
ourselves, the less fear we have of the world and those around us.
Our method of teaching in the classroom is designed on an all-
positive reinforcement teaching style, designed to reward each small
step in the overall growth process. Each time a student earns a
stripe or a new belt, he or she is one step closer to achieve the
black belt excellence goal of "No Fear".

An assignment for each of us would be to write down the following
statement and answer it in as many ways as possible. This exercise
will help you set goals and truly see how fear has impacted your life.

" If I were totally unafraid of anything or anyone, what I would do
differently in my life would be…."

Good luck with your homework.

Respectfully,
Terry Bryan