Dear Parents,

When I get a call or email from a new parent wanting to start karate they often ask “When does your next session start?”

It is funny but these words still throw me off even though I have been asked the same question hundreds of times. I am thrown off because my mind says “WHAT?”

I say “what” because that question just does not make any sense to me when it comes to karate and to learning. Learning here never starts or ends. The most important concept and attitude you and your child will develop here is that learning never ends. Highly success people are life-long learners”!

So that’s why this question throws me off – I just cannot even think of learning as something you start and stop. It is just something black belts do all the time? It is just who we are and just what we do without thinking?

I was once told that a survey found that 55% of Americans never read another book after high school. At first I thought “That can’t be true” but after thinking about it more I realized that it was true.

I think we do it to ourselves. Most families unknowingly develop this pattern -they start school in September then stop school and learning in June? So no wonder many adult “stop” learning when high school is over. They have been living that way for 13 years!

But, some families refuse to follow this habit. They read, travel, experience, and learn even more over the summer. That is our standard and expectation here. Our objective is to have a community, or “village” with a HIGHER STANDARD. As you will see as our new “Leadership 3.0 Program” gets into full swing next month, the best and easiest way to raise your standard and performance in life is to “hang around with people with higher standards than you”! We will set that standards for both your child and for you as a parent. Then all you have to do is aim for it!

One quick note before I let you go. We are now starting weapons training. I love weapons training because it creates an amazingly powerful learning experience for your child. Here is what happens: Weapons training seems to easily create frustration and the impulse to give up in young students. This is so good for kids. You want them to experience HARDSHIP and then persevere and power through it to success.

So that you are prepared to capitalize on this here is what you can expect and what you should do: Much like many difficult things we learn in life our progress and the results we get are not “linear”. In other words, often you will pour in tons of effort and work into to learning something hard only to find out you get very little in terms of progress or results. You will work and work and it just seems like you are not getting it. You get frustrated and even say “I will never get this!” But then, like the “lightbulb going off”, what will happen is “boom” all of a sudden you get it!

So when your child gets frustrated and wants to give up, use this special learning opportunity to teach them three concepts:

1.) Keep working hard because the “lightbulb” will go off and surprise you! - that is the way the world works,

2.) Most people give up right before they were about to succeed!, and

3.) The only way you really fail is when you give up – if you never give up you will always get it!

Till next week…….good parenting,

Sensei

Ohana Karate – “Actually we do make Ninjas and Superheroes here………………we turn kids into Ninjas and we turn their parents into their superheroes!”