Meditation in micro-doses One of our Black Belt requirements is 15 minutes of daily meditation. Finding or making a contiguous 15 minutes of time with family, job (and early AM calls), karate class & training and other personal obligations has and continues to be a challenge for me. Of course, one must be disciplined and practice through repetition as to …
Week 50 – David Brezinski
Another night of blackout The last big storm that whipped through Sacramento caused a lot of power outages. Fallen trees and limbs plus overhead power lines do not make for a good combination. We lost power for 2.5 days but in the grand scheme of things it was merely an inconvenience rather than a hardship. Don’t get me wrong–being without …
Week 49 – David Brezinski
1,000 Acts of Kindness (3.5 acts per day ~13 months), black belt requirement When I first reviewed this black belt requirement with Sensei Oliver, I thought to myself, “How will I achieve that? How does one measure an act of kindness?” I believe it really comes down to a few key principles (and practices)–kind thoughts, kind words and kind actions. …
Cooper Riegel – December Summary
I started my test on the 1st of December 2022. Over the next year, just like Lucas, Dirk, and David, my goals are to do 50,000 pushups and situps, 1,000 rounds of sparring, and 1000 reps of a kata. December was a journey, I was very very sore from doing pushups and situps but it got better as the month …
Week 54 – Dirk Herfurth
The end of the year is always a busy time, especially if you work in logistics like I do. It’s physical inventory time, which means long days and long hours of counting, sorting, and organizing. And to make matters even more challenging, I have to spend a lot of time in the freezer (-20 Celsius!) doing inventory of frozen goods. …
Week 53 – Dirk Herfurth
Unfortunately, I was hit with a sickness just before Christmas, which meant I had to power through at work and lost a few practice days at the dojo. However, now that Christmas has arrived, I’m looking forward to some downtime and the opportunity to catch up on my training. In fact, David san and I have made a plan to …
Week 52 – Dirk Herfurth
I am excited that a new round of the Ultimate Black Belt Challenge is starting at the beginning of December. This time, we will be following the journey of Lucas san and Cooper san as they work towards achieving their black belt goals. David san and I will be on hand to provide tips and tricks along the way. We …
Week 48 – David Brezinski
New Year’s Day 5-mile bike ride and finish with Gumbo! What a way to start the new year! A friend of mine who is a local and well known chef hosted a bike ride and lunch of gumbo with rice and cornbread muffins (with honey butter). We left his house in Campus Commons and proceeded to the American River Bike …
Week 47 – David Brezinski
National Airborne Day – August 16th I meant to post about this back in August but neglected to do so. Some of you may know I was a paratrooper (Airborne) and served in the U.S. Army, 1st Special Operations Command, 112th Signal (AIRBORNE). Being Airborne qualified opened up a door of options for me to work with and share in …
Week 46 – David Brezinski
Oh no, another cold! Right before the Christmas holiday, of course! The Wednesday before, Sensei Oliver was not feeling well and asked me if I could cover the Wednesday night adult class. The class went well but the next day for me, I felt the symptoms of a cold coming on. Some congestion, runny nose, a little tired. I took …