Dear Teachers, Students and Parents,

We had a great trip to Kansas City where we helped with their black
belt test and had the opportunity to train together. It looks like
they are going to respond by bringing several people out to our
testing and seminar next month. In attendance were Kyoshi Roger
Greene and Kyoshi Dan Kennedy, as well as other prominent martial
arts teachers. Hope everyone puts our yearly training session down on
their schedule – May 11th – so they won't miss this training
opportunity.

Next weekend is the Pikes Peak Martial Arts Championships. There are
some tournaments, which we don't support because of the officiating
or the dangerous rules. The Pike Peak tournament has always been a
friendly and safe event and because of that, I encourage all our
students to support this event if they want to try a tournament. The
cost of the event is $40 for all events, which means a competitor can
do forms, sparring, weapons and all team events for one price. They
are also the only ones to give family discounts for parents with more
than one child that wants to compete. The event is going to be held
at Air Academy High School and begins at 9 am. For those wanting to
help score keep, referee or judge, there will be a training session
at the main dojo at 7 pm Friday evening. See you there!

Lesson Of The Week:

The Heart of the Warrior

The true warrior understands compassion and understanding. Although
their goal is one of Black Belt Excellence in everything they do,
they recognize that we live in a world that edifies mediocrity. The
modern warrior has to learn to become tolerant of human weaknesses
and incompetence.

Living in a proactive world, the martial artist understands the ease
with which a conflict can break out in even the simplest of settings.
The warrior understands how hard it is to maintain their balance in
all things and learns to accept others as they attempt to understand
the universal truths in life, no matter how pathetic an attempt it
may be.

An expanded heart is one of those simple truths in life. The amount
of opposition you experience in life is in direct proportion to the
amount of compassion that you display in your life to others. Having
a bigger heart means less resistance, fewer enemies, and fewer
battles to fight. Besides, having a bigger heart is more fun. When
one learns to accept people with all their inadequacies, you will
also see that they are pretty brilliant in some areas as well.

Expanding ones heart is fairly simply, but takes time. You start by
opening your heart, one small step at a time. First let in a few
ideas, concepts or phrases and try and understand them from the other
person's perspective. Soon you will find your comfort zone is
expanding. You will learn to reframe your perspective to include a
wider experience and greater diversity. The ultimate goal of Black
Belt Excellence is to make the entire world and everything in it, a
part of your comfort zone.


Respectfully,

Terry Bryan