The one constant is change...

Has it truly been this long since I've blogged? Since 2011? 

Well, in that time, I made some major life decisions that began on June 1, 2011 when I decided to burn my written journal that I had been keeping for nearly 20 years. There were aspects of my life that felt incomplete... inauthentic... dreadful. I didn't want my children to one day find this book and read it. That was the impetus for me to burn it. I then reset my course, and tried to figure out a few things in my life. I had earned my black belt in karate and continued to practice. My work in comics as a writer and artist had been on hold since 2006. I just knew that I wanted to find direction, earn a graduate degree in order to help me in my profession by giving me the tools I needed to lead and hopefully help me earn better pay. 

In that time, I decided to go to graduate school where I earned my Master's Degree in Management and Organizational Behavior from the University that I am currently employed at as Manager of Marketing and Communications. When you're in that role and a spokesperson for the University, you really don't have the liberty to blog and just talk about any topic that you want in a forum like this as it would be picked apart and someone would worry that my opinion might reflect somehow on my employers. Not that I'm censored, but I have to watch just about anything I say and any social opinion that I want to express that may seem controversial or counter to the teachings, ideology, hallmarks, etc. etc. etc. It was easier to just not post a blog in order to "stay safe" in my job.

Somewhere there, while I was going to graduate school, things changed at the workplace, at home, and in the karate organization. Heck, things changed in my marriage and personal life. I realized that I had been living in a marriage that was inauthentic and disconnected. It felt that way to me and thus was MY reality. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved my wife and wanted this to truly be until death do us part, but I realized that the marriage had been dead along time before that going back to the first few years of it. I'm not going to sit here and tell you our dirty laundry out of respect and decorum. I know somewhere in there she loved me, but things were so dysfunctional between us. We separated in November 2012 after even she admitted were "17 years out of 20" of an unhappy marriage where we were divorced in October 2013 due to irreconcilable differences after technically 21 years of marriage, plus four years of dating previously to that, and the birth of two wonderful children. 

I'm still thankful for it all in those times and experiences. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It has made me who I am and where I am today. It wasn't all bad and ugly. There are parts of me that continue to miss her, but there are constant reminders that it wasn't healthy for either of us. 

I am sorry that my marriage failed, but it was necessary for us to both move on in order to live a more authentic life and find happiness. I want only the best for my ex-wife and friend. She is a wonderful mother. But we were terrible for one another as husband and wife. 

So, you see... life did throw me some curve balls since I've last blogged. A divorce. A graduate degree. I converted to Catholicism. And did I mention that I helped create a new karate organization with my fellow black belt pals? 

During the middle of going to graduate school, the karate organization that I was apart of had a falling out with the head sensei. It was truly too bad, because there were efforts made to patch things up and trying to fix things that did not happen. In the midst, a group of black belts decided it was time to leave this older organization and begin our own new karate organization where we shaped the mission, vision and values. It was probably one of the greatest things we did in continuously improving our art. But it too, was like a divorce in its own separation. 

I regret that in decision-making that concludes with parting of the ways between individuals... whether it was Shooting Stat Comics in 2006, the karate organization in 2011, or my marriage in 2012... it can be devastating to friendships and those you love. It is something that I have to live with and just pray that time will help heal. Forgiveness can happen. We can move on. 

The one constant is change. 

Change. I'm facing a world of change in my life right now. I wasn't forecasting this point in my life just five years ago when I earned my black belt in Yoshukai Karate. I'm in uncharted territory and I do not know where I will be a year from now or even five years from now. I'm sitting here in Daytona Beach, Florida right now as I write this. I'm on vacation with my two teenage children. This will perhaps be my last "hurrah" with my daughter as she is about to go off to college and enter adulthood. 

Change. I'm facing a world of change right now and it isn't anything I can blog about just yet. My cards are still being played close to my chest, but I am both excited and yet feel some anxiety that I must suppress and just let go. I must trust that I am taking the steps that I must now. And in this, I'm living a more authentic life, being the man I want to be, and I've unexpectedly learned to fall in love again during the midst of all of this. (Okay, I just showed a card).

Photo Album - Karate Photos

 Me in the Yoshukai Karate dojo testing our students with the other black belts.

 

 

 

My Karate Kid bow off the floor

I’ve been blogging on and off for over a decade now. At times, the things I write gets personal as I share some part of my life with the world out there. It feels like I’m venting into outer space. It is like placing a message in a bottle and you have no idea who in this world might read it. Someone you don’t know, perhaps YOU whom I’ve never met, reads some very personal matter in my life that most folks would keep to themselves and not share if they were normal folk.

You wonder sometimes if you will get a response back. Perhaps some message in a bottle floats right up to your own shore with a reply. But for me, I’m writing this right now to express my feelings and make sense of my thoughts.

I mean, how often are you told that it’s not good to put your business in the streets?

And here I am putting it out on the information highway.

Here is my message in a bottle today:

There is a part of me that grieves today, but at the same time, I’m going through a process of accepting change in my life and those of my children. I had to accept this change in order to keep healthy relationships with my family.

Five years ago, I returned to my study of karate after a seven year absence. At that time, my daughter joined me in the renewed venture. She went to the dojo with me night after night for a few years. It was helping her with her health and provided her mother and me with some comfort knowing that she could defend herself. She actually became very talented in her karate skills. At some point, all the demands of studying karate became too much for her as she progressed. She made a decision that she wanted to quit. As her father, feeling confident that she could defend herself under most circumstances, I was able to let her leave without much fuss. Sure, I encouraged her and tried to convince her to stay (mainly for the health reasons to stay fit), but I was unable to convince her. She had a mind of her own and was grown up enough to make her own personal decisions.

Almost four years ago, my younger child, also started karate. He was already very physically fit, but I saw that he needed the discipline and the ability to defend himself. I wanted him to also feel confident as he walked the halls at school if a bully should ever bother him that he would be able to take care of himself. I wanted to work on his character development, focus and discipline. As a father to a son, I wanted to help give him an edge to become a man.

Last night, he came to me with the notion that he wanted to quit karate. He has thought about this on and off for the last year, but last night, it was something he was sure about. My son was at a point that he was nearing a mile-marker where he would test for his brown belt. Over a year ago, I told him that for him to pass that test, it would be solely up to him if he wanted to earn that rank. He would want to have the desire and drive to practice his karate and train hard. It was up to him. Physically, he was there. Skill-wise, he was doing fine with his kata, sparring, self-defense, etc. But mentally (or emotionally), my son was not prepared to continue studying karate. His interests went elsewhere.

Karate involves the balance of mind, body and spirit. His mind pushed him and his body obeyed, but his karate spirit had left the journey. I appreciated the honesty and respect he showed in handling this maturely, but he let me know last night that he wanted to take an extended leave of absence from his karate training to pursue other interests in life that included baseball.

I love baseball. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m sad that my son won’t be going with me to the dojo to train any longer.

I could have forced him. There were times that I did in the past, but I knew last night, I had to let him quit and make up his own mind. I actually made him write an essay last night putting into words what he felt he learned from karate and explain why he was temporarily leaving. He did so and I know it was a difficult thing for him to do. But he did. He signed it and I’m keeping it for posterity.

Like his sister, he had a mind of his own and was grown up enough to make his own personal decisions.

He learned a lot from karate. I didn’t even have to read what he wrote. Still, it helped quantify it and keep it as a record for his future should he go back and re-read it one day. Maybe, hopefully, he will reconsider and relight that fire where he will want to study karate again.

Karate has helped shaped him into the young man he is now, but I know that I cannot force him to continue. It would damage our father-son relationship.

I see firsthand all the time how parents struggle with letting their kids quit from some sort of sport. The kids aren’t having fun, they have short attention spans, they want to play video games, they lose interest, they don’t like getting yelled at by coach, and they get embarrassed if they don’t score. Whatever the million reasons are. It is a part of life.

I had to ask myself if the decision to push him into staying in karate was going to be my decision or his, and then I realized at this point, this is his own journey and not mine. As difficult as this was for me, it was time to let him discover on his own what he wants to do, rather than me making the decision for him and pressuring him into becoming someone or something against his will. I led him to a point that he’s done well and I’m proud of him, but it is his decision.

I have to remember that this was difficult for him, too.

I studied karate from ages 12 to 17. I quit. I then studied karate from ages 26 to 29. I quit a second time. I returned. There is hope.

I was more mentally and spiritually prepared for karate as an adult and it was my body that has been tested to its limits. Karate, over the decades, has become such a huge part of my life that I can no longer separate it from my beliefs and what makes me tick. Karate is one of the major ingredients that make up the essence of my soul in who I am. It is more than punching or kicking. More than self-defense and feeling confident. It is so much more. Those that study budo arts and the philosophy understand.

Karate is much more than sport or a hobby. That was the thing that I’ve tried to instill into my kids. I still don’t know if it sunk in or not. I think perhaps the seeds were planted. We’ll see what happens in the future.

If anything, their time studying karate will have helped them in their own lives in some way and will have allowed them to perhaps understand their abnormal father just a little better.

Looks like I need to brush up on my Triple Lindy because I'm going back to school

This morning as I headed out the door for church, I sensed something and knew to open the mailbox. Sure, the post office delivered on Saturday and I hadn't checked it yesterday, but I knew that as soon as I opened that mailbox this morning, I would find a letter addressed to me from my place of work at Benedictine University at Springfield.

Sure enough as I opened it, there was the letter that I had been waiting for. I had visualized this moment happening and there it played out for me.

I flashbacked to a moment when I received a similar letter from Illinois State University when I was eighteen year's old. Now, at age forty, this comparable letter gave me a sense of déjà vu as it was once again my acceptance into college. This time around, it notified me that I was accepted into Benedictine University at Springfield where I'm now officially enrolled in the accelerated Master of Science in Management and Communications program.

I'm going to officially be a student again.

I do feel the weight of this all and have mixed feelings on this day. I do feel joy, excitement and a sense of accomplishment (for just getting myself to this point of acceptance), but I also feel a bit of trepidation and anxiety. I am proud that I am going to be a Benedictine student and future alum. I have already vested a part of my soul into this place as a member of the faculty and part of the staff. I do take pride in my work and want to see the Springfield campus grow and succeed. That is part of my own personal mission. I had re-dedicated myself during the changes that began in October 2009 and embraced the new opportunities presented to me by Benedictine University. I will now experience Benedictine in a different light as a student where I hope the experience will allow me to come out of the other end much stronger than I am today. I hope to be a positive person of influence for the institution and those people who I come in contact with at the University and in other areas of my life.

I know there are going to be days ahead when I'm going to feel that I've bitten off more than I can chew. There is already a small voice in the back of my head wondering why in the heck am I'm adding something more to my plate when I'm already pulled at in all directions by work, karate, family, comics and my interests. I also think about past regrets. For years, I've felt that I should have already gone to grad school and already earned my master's degree, but I accept the decisions that I've made in my life where I've done the things that I've had to do. If that makes any sense to anyone reading this. It makes clear sense to me knowing what I've endured.

Yet having these feelings, my martial arts instincts kick in and cancels the negativity. As I get in touch more and more with my budō spirit, the more noticeable I watch myself appear numb to it all. It just seems a matter of fact. Deal with it and don't overthink it. That is the karate mindset.

I found a moment of quietness recently where I thought about things going on in my life and how I got to this point. The direction my life has taken. How my skills have strengthened. How I've acquired an array of personal experience. I'm all over the map it seems. Especially starting out of a fine arts background where I found myself drifting over into the marketing and communications field. Yet, somehow, while this point where Management and Organizational Behavior may seem miles away from any profession in art and/or where some others may think I should be somewhere different � I know I'm in the place in my life where I need to be at this moment in time. This will round out some areas I need to focus in on myself.

And now perhaps I may finally earn that elusive master's degree in 13 months that I've put off for nearly two decades.

I'm recording my thoughts today. I want to remember the excitement and anxiety, yet there is a calmness that I'm feeling also that cancels both out. It is what it is. I'm moving through a moment and I'm neither overwhelmed nor taking this lightly. But I do feel a sense of pressure now to once again succeed. I want to do so with an empty cup that will allow itself to be filled.

Yoshukai (�秀会) kanji translates "training hall of continuous improvement" in Japanese. Though I'm "officially" a student again, I've always been a student. I'm always moving up the mountain just a little further. This is another formality that is testing me.

This 13-month program is a weekend format. Just about every third weekend, I will spend in the classroom. I will be reading, studying and writing several papers. Interacting with others. I'll buckle down. I'll still be able to work my day job and will juggle the rest. I'll do it. Some things may need to go to the backburner for a year, but it'll be worth it as I walk through that door and earn my degree while hopefully coming out the other end of this experience with new tools and a refined perspective to help myself be able to help others in a position of leadership.

Change management is a field that I've found myself drawn to lately. My mindset has been molded by a mantra that in life we're presented with three choices when it comes to making a difficult crossroads type decision: to keep it status quo, to change, or to quit. In life, being able to adapt and manage that change is something I feel that I'm mentally equipped to do in my troubleshooter mindset. We'll see where this journey takes me further down the road.

And in the back of my mind, I also know that right after I finish this 13-month program, I may be testing for my nidan (second degree black belt) rank in karate. I need to stay on target.

Over the next fifteen months, I need to focus on one word to get me through this challenge. I need to persevere. (忍耐)

I realize now after writing this, this isn't really a blog entry written specifically for YOU, though you may end up taking something from it. As I write this, it is a letter that I'm writing to myself and you're getting to glimpse what I'm contemplating at this moment of time.

Hopefully, in December 2012 I will remember to re-read this again and tell myself mission accomplished. Someone will hopefully remind me.

 

Battling Asthma (Inhaler Free?)

I’ve waited to post this blog for a while now because I wanted to see if it was a fluke, but I realized today that I’ve just hit my two month mark on something extraordinary that I thought I would finally write about.

I haven’t had to use my various inhalers for my asthma in two entire months.

TWO MONTHS!

I used to use my preventative inhaler twice a day and my emergency inhaler (for actual asthma attacks as they were happening), sometimes, three times a day, because of my asthma and shortness of breath. I was going through one emergency inhaler per month. Sometimes two albuterol inhalers. I pretty much had to use that emergency inhaler ALWAYS at least once a day. I had it in my pocket at all times. Sometimes I even panicked and had to stop everything if I forgot to take it with me. I would go back home because I was so dependent on it and frightened to be without it.

But I haven’t had to use any inhaler for the past two months. For me, that is remarkable because I have been dependent on inhalers for my entire life since about the first grade.

Now, I’m not saying I no longer have asthma or I’m cured. I have had two minor asthma attacks in these past two months… once from incense burning mixed with a woman’s perfume that walked past me. The other time was from someone burning leaves outside in my neighborhood as I was getting into my wife’s car. Those scents triggered asthma attacks but I was able to “breathe” through it and stop them on my own without using an inhaler. I relaxed, got in the right mindset, and concentrated with breathing techniques that I learned in karate which relaxed the constriction in my lungs so that I wouldn’t have to use my inhaler.

Everything returned to normal with my breathing and I made it through those two minor attacks. I probably should have used an inhaler on the second attack from the burning leaves, but I managed. I put my training to the test.

I’ve even been able to start cutting grass again – and this time, without a mask.

I do take asthma very seriously. It is a medical condition that some call a disability. It has hindered me my entire life. My wife’s uncle died of an asthma attack. My entire family, in-laws, outlaws and all of the above, are concerned about me.

But I’ve quit carrying my inhaler in my pocket. Maybe not the wisest thing, but I’m not going to be psychologically dependent on it any longer that I just have to reach in my pocket for the quick fix. It isn’t my crutch that I constantly carry with me. Honestly, after the first month of not having an asthma attack, I just plain started to forget about carrying it. Amazing.

I do have those emergency inhalers in key spots at home, at work, at the dojo, in my car, etc. so that they are always just a few extra reaches away, but I’m striving to only use them if I feel it is imperative to my life and if I possibly am unable to get my breathing under control. It is a choice that I’ve made for myself.

I feel for the first time in my life that I have taken the upper-hand and control over my asthma. There perhaps is also some mind over matter where I’m psychologically taking it on also. I mainly credit it to two things in my life… karate, and perhaps even some recent chiropractic care that I’ve received. More on the latter later, but first with karate…

With Yoshukai Karate, I’ve been working out several times a week for a year-and-a-half in which breathing is imperative to the art and techniques. Since earning my brown belt in March, I’ve been practicing a new kata called Niseishi. This kata has a very strong emphasis on breathing techniques that I’ve been particularly working on for the last 2 months.

2 months – Coincidence?

The kata uses both calm and explosive techniques that take 24 steps to make. Some have likened this kata to the ebb and flow of the ocean. This kata feels so right for me. The breathing is such an important aspect of the Niseishi kata that I practice in my Yoshukai Karate training.

It is my understanding, that Dr. Tsuyoshi Chitose, a Chito-Ryu Karate sensei who taught Yoshukai instructors Sensei Yamamoto and Sensei Foster, originally learned the kata from Okinawan Karate Master Aragaki Sensho*. Chitose O’Sensei also made minor modifications to the breathing techniques in the kata for health reasons based on his medical background.

And all these years later, I’m benefiting from it.

(* A point of digression, but I’ve been reading a couple of books on Okinawan masters and was just reading about Aragaki Sensho by coincidence before I realized he had originated the kata based upon some of the Chinese dragon styles of kempo.)

Dr. Chitose noted in his book, Kempo Karate-do – Universal Art of Self-Defense, the following about the benefits of deep breathing during training: The thorax widens and the diaphragm gets pushed down, the volume of the thoracic cavity increases and because the pressure within the cavity changes, air naturally flows in the lungs, which increases lung capacity and allows oxygen into the blood, which increases energy, another benefit of Karate-do training.

He also noted in his studies that the average lung capacity of someone that does not do exercise is 3350 cubic centimeters. A swimmer’s lung capacity is 4900 cubic centimeters. A karate practitioner’s average lung capacity is between 6000 - 7000 cubic centimeters.

What I notice is that I believe I’ve been only breathing with 33% to 45% air capacity in my lungs for most of my life in everyday life and normal breathing. It always felt like I was breathing with only the top third of my lungs. I took a breathing test in November 2006 with a pulmonologist when I my regular doctor sent me to this specialist for my asthma and sleep apnea. Shortly after that initial breathing test, I returned to karate in January 2007 after being away for more than a decade.

I took the same follow up breathing test in November 2007. My pulmonologist did a double-take right in front of me when he looked at the comparative results. He said that I had doubled my lung capacity in one year with my breathing and even he couldn’t believe it. Again, credited to the deep breathing of karate, weight loss and exercise.

Six months later and I’m breathing better than I believe I ever have in my entire life. I truly believe that the deep breathing exercises in association with working out in karate, a bit of zanshin meditation I do with breathing now, and especially deep breathing exercises with kata has allowed me to open up air passages and tubes that have been closed. I’m breathing deeper and deeper into my lungs and opening my diaphragm. There is a lot of visualization that I do while breathing that I believe helps when I breathe air in and tighten my core to expel the air for conditioning of my body so I can take a physical hit in karate by an opponent. I also breathe out all of the stale air at the bottom of my lungs and then breathe back in deeper.

I first heard Sensei Dugan state over a year or so ago that karate will eliminate asthma. I constantly had shortness of breath when I sparred or performed kata. No disrespect intended, but I doubted him. Not me. I’ve had asthma my entire life where I dealt daily with usually at least one attack. Doctors used to say when I was a child that I would outgrow it. It only got worse.

Karate gave me the tools to improve my health. Sensei Dugan was right. Karate has allowed me to take control of my breathing and mindset in ways I did not foresee when I got back into it after all these years. I feel more positive than I have since I was probably about 16.

But, there is something else that I have to acknowledge that I believe might also possibly be helping me. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor named Dr. Tana Frisina since December. The time frame where I began was about a month after my follow up trip to the pulmonologist where we saw I had doubled my lung capacity.

For these past six months, I’ve receiving chiropractic care at the insistence of my wife. I had a back injury that has bugged me for 20 years, arthritis in my hands, and some injuries from sparring.

The basic principle of chiropractic care is that spinal adjustments can improve many health problems that are related to the nerves, skeleton and muscles. Problems such as spinal conditions can be helped, and it can also assist to improve a person’s general state of health and wellness.

Spinal joints that are not working properly can irritate the nervous system. Chiropractors use manual treatments, referred to as spinal adjustments, to realign the joints of the spine. Once the mechanical structure of the spine is working properly, the body is able to maintain its own health and wellbeing.

In my particular case, I injured some of my vertebrae during my teen years from a diving board accident where x-rays have shown that vertebrae misalignment and pressure were pinching nerve endings in my spinal column that are associated with respiratory function. Those subluxations that caused my spine to pinch certain nerves made me more prone to asthma attacks according to Dr. Frisina.

She has been working on a series of adjustments to relieve the pressure while I’ve been more actively involved with yoga-like stretching and warm ups in karate.

Now, I know that there is great debate about the benefits of chiropractic care. Some think chiropractics are quacks. I still have my skepticisms but I’ve felt that it truly has made my quality of life better. More and more as I deal with the Eastern side of medicine and theory, I’m learning more about joint control and pressure points in both karate and chiropractics. I tend to believe there is something there with the holistic aspects that many in traditional thought kind of poo poo the ideas.

Balance and alignment are integral to karate. It is integral to chiropractics. It is integral to living and health. I’m working on getting aligned.

I'm embarrassed to say that I spent nearly 20 years letting my body go. I’ve spent almost 2 years now on the path to recovery. I cannot undo all the damage that I’ve done that quickly, but I’m seeing with patience, strength and persistence, I’m continuously improving. I still have a long way to go. I’m still unhealthy in many aspects, but I’m healthier than I have been in a decade. I feel like I'm at a turning a point of change in my life and with my health.

Each day, I’m feeling a little bit better than the day before.

I just have to remember to breathe first.