Jake Living Hero Blog Post 1

My living hero's name is Nicolas Vujicic. He is an Australian motivational speaker born with tetra-amelia syndrome, which is characterized by the absence of all four limbs. He's been traveling around visiting high schools and colleges speaking to audiences about struggling with disabilities and how it impacted his life and still continues to impact other student's lives around the world. He also spoke about how he was able to overcome his disability, and now has a wife and a double bachelor's degree in  accounting and financial planning at Griffith University. I believe this man is a living hero because he was able to get past a massive obstacle in his life, which was mental and physical, and now inspires others to climb over their obstacles by speaking to them publicly at large gatherings.

Nick once said, “Life isn't about having, it's about being. You could surround yourself with all that money can buy, and you'd still be as miserable as a human can be. I know people with perfect bodies who don't have half the happiness I've found. On my journeys I've seen more joy in the slums of Mumbai and the orphanages of Africa than in wealthy gated communities and on sprawling estates worth millions. Why is that? You'll find contentment when your talents and passion are completely engaged, in full force. Recognize instant self-gratification for what it is. Resist the temptation to grab for material objects like the perfect house, the coolest clothes or the hottest car. The if I just had X, I would be happy syndrome is a mass delusion. When you look for happiness in mere objects, they are never enough. Look around. Look within.”

I truly believe that Nick is a living hero, for he has accomplished so much in the first 33 years of his life.

New stuff/Oregon trip. Chelsea H.

Finally, I'm back from my vacation in Oregon and hopefully will be staying put in MA for a while. Ever since May it's been a bit hectic being away so much. I realized I've been away for a little over 6 weeks total since mid May. I feel a bit rusty at the dojo even though I kept up a practice routine but I'm sure my fellow students will get me back to speed in no time.

I had an awesome time in Oregon! I climbed mountains, walked the desert, hugged a giant redwood tree, kayaked 6 miles down some really scary yet exillerating rapids, lifted and busted big rocks, walked around in thigh high fast moving streams looking for cool rocks/gems (a good stance is handy for more than fighting it seems!) Had some great bonding time with my husband and our friends and saw some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen.

The best part? I had the strength and energy to do all this stuff!!! I was amazed at how many times I did something really rigorous and wasn't tired or sore! Also another cool thing? How many times I used a technique from training in traversing the terrain. A strong balanced stance in the fast water, using tiger crawl to climb back up a steep mountainside "trail", conserving my energy and knowing when it was appropriate and how. Woohoo! What a great show of proof for myself that all the small routines and exercises really do add up!

Thanks everyone for helping me become a better martial artist and person. I look forward to seeing how much we all continue to grow in time

Favorite act of kindness gifted to me this week: My husband taking our dog for her walk when I was busy at the moment.
Favorite act of kindness this week: buying more suet for the birds

The Last 4 Weeks/Living Heroes

  The last four weeks I was at sleepaway camp in Maine. It was my third summer there, and this year I decided to do a program called Junior Maine Guide. I spent the first 3 weeks studying for it, chopping wood, canoeing, memorizing a map of Maine, learning first aid how to use compass, and various other wilderness skills. The last week I spent at test camp, with JMG candidates from 10 other camps. There are 21 tests I had to take, 11 majors and 10 minors. We stayed in tents and cooked every meal, and were tested on every meal. This past week was probably one of the hardest of my life, but also one of the best. To complete the JMG program was one of my goals for the Mastery Program, and I am glad that I made it through. Not a lot of campers pass on their first year, and I am really proud of myself because I did. I did a lot better than I expected. I think one of the reasons for this is because of something I learned at karate, which I kept in my mind during these tests. Sensei always says, if you mess up, mess up with power. Mess up with confidence. During my physical and oral tests, I kept my confidence, so even when I didn't know the answer, it at least looked like I knew what I was doing. 
  The only reason I passed ANY of the tests was thanks to one of my living heroes, K Buldoc. K preps the JMG's for test camp, and she's one of the testers at test camp. Thank goodness I couldn't have her, because she's a strict tester. But she's also one of the nicest people I know. K started going to sleepaway camp at age 7, and she did the JMG program in 2 years. Then she became a Maine Guide as an adult, which is a much harder version of JMG. She's been a Maine Guide since then, and is one of the few Master Maine Guides alive today. She's also almost completely blind. It is insane to watch her chop wood- she'll reach out and feel it, raise the axe, and split it right in half better than any seeing person I've ever met. Canoeing with her: she'll tell you you're doing the stroke wrong, and how to correct it, and you're just like "how can you tell"- she can feel the difference in the way the boat is moving. A brain tumor caused her to lose all of her sight in one eye, and almost all sight in the other. She has to use sticks to walk so she doesn't walk into anything, yet she still leads all of our prep trips, and brings us to test camp. She hasn't let her lack of sight slow her down in any way, and I think that makes her very admirable. I certainly owe my JMG certification to her. 
  Can't wait to see everyone! I've missed the dojo so much. See you Tuesday!! :)

JMG CANDIDATES - 2014

check up 7/27

Update on The mastery team, and how its going for me so far.
    Non Physical requirements:
I have read the amazing book Zen in the Martial arts, and wrote a blog post raving about it. I have completed three out of three personal goals (adding more cardio to my life, performing my fan form in a tournament, and leaving a smaller carbon foot print.) I've done blog posts for two living heroes, the dogs helping with the 911 search and cleanup, and Louis Zamperini. I've blogged roughly every week. I have raised over $600 for Alabama
     Physical Requirements:
I've practiced my forms. I've done 100 push ups and sit ups every day. I've done 25 squat jacks, and 15 pull ups each day as well. I have worked hard to learn all of the moves that are required of my if I am to reach black belt. That means I need to memorize the whole curriculum. I'm pretty sure I got it down, fingers crossed.
Anyway, the provocation or this log post is simply that the Mastery program/year long black belt test is drawing to a close, quit soon in fact. In the middle of august, I believe. So I thought I would reflect back and see just what I've done, and what I need to do.

living Hero 7/24

Louis Zamperini was born in Olean, Ne York on  January 26, 1917. After Louis developed Pneumonia in 1919, his family moved to Torrance, California, where Louis would live till he got drafted as an airman in the army. Once in the army, Louis manned a gun aboard the plane Super Man. After a battle, the Super Man was in no shape to fly. In need of a plane, the team was assigned to an undependable plane called the Green Hornet. Sure enough, Louis was in the middle of a rescue mission when his plane crashed into the ocean. Only two other crewmen survived, Russell Allen Phillips "Phil" and Francis McNamara "Mac". They ended up floating for forty-seven days, during which they survived on a few fish, and the birds that landed on the two rafts. Mac died during this journey. Louis and Phil were slowly starving to death, and it was a miracle they had survived for as long as they did. After being captured, they were sent to many prison and punishment camps. The camps were horrible terrible places, where they had almost no food, and were worked ruthlessly day after day after day. Louis in particular was picked on, by a brutal tyrant called The Bird. Finally, Louis was set free when the war ended.

But this is not the only reason that I consider Louis Zamperini to be a hero. The thing is, after he survived all this torcher, he went through a span of depression, alcoholism, so severe he almost killed himself several times, and threatened his marriage. Its amazing, though because he got a grip on himself and raised himself from perdition. He did this by attending several sermons in L.A. After this he started to toar the world, speaking of his experience. He also started a camp for juvenile delinquent boys. he got countless medels for his efforts, and was praised almost every day. Louis passed away just last week, after leading an extremely inspirational and active life.

I found out about him by a required reading book, Unbroken, By Laura Hillenbrand. I would recommend it to anyone.

Living heroes 7/9 olivia

   There are heroes that everyone remembers. Firefighters who lost their lives saving others. men fighting in the army for our country. But there are other heroes who slip under our radar. Quite literally in fact.
   In 9/11, 40,000 people helped with the clean up and immediate response, and got universally recognized for their efforts. Every year we see blog posts and newspaper articles about those people. But even those people had help. You see, just as the police use guard dogs, and blind people use guide dogs, the rescue people used the rescue and cadaver dogs. And people never gave these animals much recognition. 
   I never even knew that there were dogs used in the rescue attempts until this year, when I stumbled upon an article listing some unknown heroes and their accomplishments. The 9/11 dogs were on that list, and I decided to research them further. As it turns out, there was one dog force, called Operation Nobel Eagle.

This was in the care of Officer Jim Lugaila from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. He had been a dog handler since 1988, and had a lot of experience. He brought a workforce of cadaver dogs, who are trained to compare odors in order to find human remains, sometimes no larger than a dime. These dogs were implemented into teams that mostly worked eight- to ten-hour shifts, twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. After the dogs were done searching, they would be watered down and taken to a park area where the handler and the dog could cool off.  The dogs were washed and visited by a vet tech for a medical exam. These dogs worked more than most of the humans. They were constantly out there, often going into more dangerous places than humans dared to tread. And because they were dogs they asked no recognition, and were overlooked in favor of the many human heroes in those rescue attempt.

So ya, these are one of my three heroes. They are dogs, I hope thats okay. But I truly believe they were heroes.

Jake blog post 7/6/14

This week, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about potential. She believes that many people do not see their own potential and spend most of their time not trying to reach their fullest potential. I completely agree with her, because I have a decent amount of friends who just don't see the kind of impact they can have on the world. On a side note, I'm currently on my way to summer camp! Really excited about that. I'll be back on Saturday, then I'll be leaving again on Sunday for another week, and this repeats one more time after that. So 3 weeks total! I'll blog when I get back, have a great week everyone!