The fellow on the left is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt Flavio Almeida (read about his career, so far, here). On the right is Judo legend Mike Swain (bio on Wikipedia, here). I’m taking the photo out in front of Mike’s offices located in Campbell, California. Flavio came down 

to chat about what he’s up to with Dollamur mats and his organization Gracie Barra —and to teach a seminar at San Jose State University for the judo team that practices there 6 night a week (including judoka Marti Malloy, who’s headed to the Olympic Games (see here Wikipedia bio here). 

By the way, while I’m name-dropping, I should mention that I owe my renewed interest in judo, which was the first martial art I ever engaged in (my first lesson was in 1969), to UFC veteran BJ Penn. When I was last in Hilo, BJ told me he was seriously studying —and enjoying —judo, and that he wished he had started earlier in his career. BJ’s enthusiasm for what he was learning in his judo classes inspired me to start studying “the gentle way” again. 

On a funny sidetone to that, when I first started teaching and working out with BJ Penn back in the 90’s, I tried to talk him out of fighting. I told him about my kick-boxing friends who’d tried to make it as professional fighters and how hard it was and how little money they had made. I suggested, instead, that he let me introduce him to Mike Swain and that he should consider trying out for the Olympic judo team. I remember saying, “There’s no money in judo either, but at least it’s prestigious.” Boy, was I wrong. Obviously, BJ didn’t let that detour him from his path.

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The Almeida / Swain (Gracie Barra / Dollamur mats) Connection

I’ve beenhanging out with Mike Swain lately, as, well…not only is he a longtime friend, but if you plan to start taking judo lessons, who would be better to go to but one of the best coaches / judoka in the world, right? It turns out that’s also why Flavio Almeida flew into San Jose, CA; not just to get some judo pointers, but to connect Gracie Barra to the best mat surfaces in the world.  Gracie Barra has adopted Dollamur Mats / Swain Mats as the official flooring of all Gracie Barra schools worldwide. 

I asked Almeida why:

“Safety,” he said. “We have to put the safety of our students above all other considerations. Gracie Barra believes Dollamur mats are not only the best constructed mat surfaces on the planet, but that Mike Swain and Dollamur are committed to athlete and student safety as much as we are.”

When he said that, it didn’t come off as a “line” from a company press release, I could see that he genuinely meant it. I got to chat with Falvio quite a bit, we even drove over to Master Ernie Reyes Sr.’s “Mastery Test,” where about 100 of his highest ranking students were getting ready for a 5 day testing ordeal. More on that and more of my thoughts on Almeida, Gracie Barra, and some video from the seminar at San Jose State coming in my next blog. 

School owners, martial arts teachers, and staff members, it’s Monday! My favorite Monday line? Tony Robbins: “My Monday’s are better than most peoples Christmases.”

Monday’s the WEEKLY CARD REVIEW, one of 50 times a year that you and your team go through and evaluate each of your students, as though they were standing right in front of you and your team. “How’s attendance?” “Are we seeing the progress that reflects our potential?” “Is there some way we might better serve you?”

It’s the day when your staff each spends 5 or 10 minutes to tell you what they’re learning, applying from The 100. They tell you how they’re promoting the school, ingeniously, that week, and what projects they’re working on that both spreads the word AND mobilizes students in the community. 

Each week, you see, the best staff members reaffirm why they’re so valuable —and, in many ways, they get re-hired each week. 

Monday’s the day you and your team look deeply, ahead of any problem, as if you all had ESP —looking to catch POTENTIAL problems with students, long before anyone with less experience would see them. There’s no —or less —need for “DNS” calls (Did Not Show) when every challenge is caught FAR in advance of the “problem” stage. 

Monday is the day progress is measured —and nobody on the team is permitted to be the same person they were the week before. Progress: What’s been read? What’s the most amazing thing you’ve seen, done, witnessed, and dreamt up?

Monday is the day we decide who, this week, we will reach and affect. Is there a business in town we can help? Is there a student doing something that we can push forward? Is there a kid, anywhere in our town, who could use a big brother or sister to stand up for them? Is there anyone who, not in a million years, would expect someone to come to their rescue? Can we do that? 

Monday is 5 days before Friday, when we sit together again and talk about how we made things happen, how we engaged, who we helped, who we connected with, what we’ve learned, and what we’ve created. 

In our camp, it is never “Business as usual.” Every day is Christmas.

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Tom Callos heads The 100., a martial arts business association that starts anew, every day of the year, helping instructors create magic through their martial arts schools. If you’re a school owner and/or teacher of the martial arts, of any style, this is a week-long pass to our on-line dojo / campus. http://the100.me/?xgi=5YHew4Oyrkh0ya

Oh, and READING IS SELF-DEFENSE is a program, in development, courtesy of The 100. More news coming soon.

I stumbled across the Envirofit Stove in a magazine I was perusing this morning. Now here’s a company solving problems, which is, essentially, what I think martial arts school owners could and should be doing with their “product.” 

Perhaps when you look at Envrofit’s website, at their videos, and at the products, you see a company selling stoves? What I see is something I want my own business to me made of. I’d like The 100. to be a company on a mission to make life better for others, to make things that are useful, and smart. 

I’m giving my “Black Belt Thinking Award” to Envirofit —for inspiring me to do what I do better. 

In the end —and/or now —you could be a monumental force for good, for sanity, for connectivity, for education, for non-violence, for peace education, for clear thinking, for many, many good things in your community.

In the end —and/or now —you could be a Master Teacher of all the most important topics: Peace; kindness; service to mankind; compassion; tolerance; love; listening; art; sustainable living and thinking; forgiveness; awareness; simplicity.

In the end —and/or now —you have an opportunity to define your role as a martial arts teacher in a way that helps you, maybe even forces you, to become a genuine, centered, compassionate and wise teacher, student, leader, follower, dad, mom, friend, grandparent, activist, and engaged, sane human being.

In the end —and/or now —your work can allow you to self-correct, to contribute, to give, to heal, and to act like a master (like a “master” the world doesn’t often see).

How To

The only thing that really makes you a Master is what you do in your head —and what you do in the world as a result of what you do in your head.

In other words, mastery is found in what you think —and what that thinking causes you to do.

Greed is not the trait of a master. Hate, anger, misunderstanding, envy, and violence are not the way of the master. Selfishness, self-deception, attachment, narcissism, justification, apathy, and disconnection is not the way of the master.

Find some real masters. Find people who do amazing things and for all the right reasons. They’re out there. You can be one of them.

Your anger, it’s not her fault. That feeling like he just doesn’t understand, has little or nothing to do with him. That mess, is your responsibility. That car, that watch, that shirt, that house, that posing, that performance, that income, that thing is not you.

Be of the school of thought that says being a master of the martial arts is not about the martial arts at all, but about all the best things in the world. Embrace education. Embrace involvement. Embrace solutions. Embrace peacemaking. Embrace all the smartest, healthiest, most enlightened ideas.

This is the path to “success” that in the end —and/or now —is worth investing in and that will offer you the kind of ROI (Return on Investment) that will make your life’s work something of sparkling significance. 

(I am talking to myself)

About the Author

Tom Callos heads www.The100.me

I just finished a meeting with Isaak Egge from The American River Conservancy; we did a walk-about on the historic California property that was/is The Wakamatsu Tea Colony, which is “the cultural Preserve…site of the first agricultural settlement of pioneer Japanese immigrants in North America who established the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony on June 8th, 1869.”

Not only does this 272 acre preserve house what was the first Japanese settlement on US Soil, but it’s also just a mile from my home in Gold Hill. I’ve been told that this was the site of the very first Japanese person to pass away on US soil —and where the first Japanese person was born in the US. 

I am planning on hosting events with the martial arts community to help restore and maintain the property —-more to come. 

If what you are “doing” IS “working,” then this report isn’t for you. If you think there’s some “room for improvement” in your efforts, then feel free to read my ideas on the subject —and take from it what you will.

What’s Wrong?

You don’t use a Franklin Covey Day-Planner, which means your staff doesn’t either. If you’re not organizing and studying what little time you DO have to accomplish exactly what you want to accomplish, you can work and work and work and work and work —and work yourself right into an epic struggle. 

How can you manage the smart-effort of others if they don’t know how to manage and track their work and time? 

Whatever excuse you have for not using day-planners and training your entire help-team to do the same (except for, “I’m so bloody rich I don’t have to!”), is part of your own lack of knowledge and self-dicipline that keeps you from the success you think you deserve. 

On the other side, you’re busy as all get-go, but you’ve made the same mistake that 90-perent of us make 99-percent of the time: Mistaking ACTIVITY for ACCOMPLISHMENT. 

You spend too much money on stuff that drags you down. 

That $5 you blow off every day on (name your small vice here)_______, is costing you $150 a month and $1800 a year. Add to that the way-too-expensive cars you drive around to prove that you are special, the TIVO, the house that’s more than you need or can afford, the school rent that’s way too much of your gross income, the meals out, the clothes, and all the other junk you’ve been trained to feel represents “the good life” —-and you’re bleeding your freedom, your education, and the pleasure right out of running your school. 

DECREASE your expenses, get your overhead down —and increase your income. Need help with this? You probably do, as it’s not “an action,” it’s an ongoing process. Call me, I’ll help you look at all the options (Tom Callos, 530-903-0286). 

You’re not “Managing” —or really TRAINING others to help you accomplish the work. Oh yeah, your knowledge is VAST, but I have to tell you, the people underneath you aren’t THERE yet —and you’re not doing a whole hell of a lot to get them there. 

Your brain says, “Well WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?” And the answer is: “A lot smarter work with others, organizing their time, teaching them, and guiding them into helping the school (thus, themselves) to the best of THEIR ability.” Most instructors I know, on a scale from 1 to 10, with “10” being the best, aren’t even training their staff members at level 4. 

You’re not studying your numbers, as in what you’ve done, what you do, and what you need to do. Talk about flying the plane blind! Not studying your stats and knowing how to affect them is a career and business disaster of monumental proportions. You don’t even know —as if you did, I wouldn’t have to tell you.

You market your school like an amateur. 

I’ve seen how FAR TOO MANY schools “market” their wares —and my God is it a pitiful example of the craft. First off, if you’re still listening to “the industry,” you’re not doing your very best work. Second, everything you need to market your school today is FREE —and it’s not about YOU doing it, it’s about you organizing and orchestrating it. Every day you waste not doing this work, not paying attention, is another potential nail in the coffin of the energy and attitude that could get you out of the place you’re in. 

You’re not Talking About Your Future and How to Change.

When’s the last time you sat down with people you respect and really laid it on the line? When’s the last time you studied where you’re going —under the spotlight of people who might help you? Far too many instructors I know wait until they are in CRISIS MODE —and by that time it’s so painful and hard to turn the wheel that the owner may become her own worst enemy. 

Talk it out, endlessly (as it’s ever-changing), and with people smarter and/or more experienced than you are (if anyone like that exists in this dimension). 

Martial Arts Teachers, Molestation, and Community Activism: Real “Self-Defense.”

I’ve received 100 or-so e-mails / messages from martial arts teachers and practitioners over the last few days —after telling my personal story of childhood molestation at the hands of a man who happened to be a black belt instructor at a dojo I attended as a 12 year old. Many of the kind people who’ve written (and many have their own stories of molestation) have called me “brave” for telling my tale, but bravery doesn’t play a role in this story; compassion does. Compassion for others, for children and their parents and loved ones, is why I shared what happened to me. 

Growing up healthy, focused, and happy is hard enough as it is without throwing in the self-esteem, trust, and emotional issues that come with someone using you for their pleasure when that’s really the last thing you need. I don’t know about the scientific reasons that cause people to become pedophiles, in a day and age when it’s so absolutely taboo, but I do know that it’s just as much (or more) of a self-defense issue as is anything else we consider to be self-defense. 

This coming month, as her schedule allows, my sister-in-law, Tricia Sperry Jensen, who works for Utah’s Child Protection Services, will give us her perspective on what we can do —and must do —to work as advocates on behalf of young people who need the cautionary awareness and protection of adults. In the mean time, I am going to give martial arts teachers some suggestions as to how to becomea more active part of “the village” it takes to protect the innocence and health of the children in their sphere of influence.

• Right now, as I write this, people in your community are already working as advocates for children at risk of molestation —and with children who have already suffered at the hands of a predator / mentally unstable adult. I suggest you find out who these people are, as their are many of them, and connect to their work. You can help them. You can learn what they know. You can connect yourself to the stories, so that you don’t numb yourself to the reasons this kind of work should be at the top —or near the top —of the work a real “self-defense” teacher does in —and for —the world. 

• There are, right now, dozens of children (or more) in your community who have been removed from their homes or who have otherwise been traumatized —and who cannot, in their current situation afford the luxury of the care, attention, and education a martial arts teacher can offer. There’s no budget for it. Mom and Dad aren’t stepping up to enroll Little Johnny or Sally, for any number of reasons. This is something you can do now. You can step up and offer genuine loving, compassionate care for kids in need, profits be damned. I’d like to point out, too, that if you really go into this world and make a difference, without concern for your own needs, you will be crafting a “marketing and PR” campaign 1000 times more powerful and real than anything you could buy. All it takes is a genuine effort, without regard for return. 

• After you’ve really educated yourself —with your staff and loved one’s learning along with you —you can become one of the most vocal and persistent voices in your community about self-defense from abuse (sexual, emotional, physical, you name it). Self-defense isn’t about jumping into action AFTER an event occurs; it’s about prevention and education. Children don’t defend themselves from pedophilia with kicks and punches, they defend themselves with knowledge. What’s OK? What’s not? Who to trust? Where does one express concern if and when it’s warranted? I would challenge you, in the spirit of everything our training as martial artists is about (that’s not physical), to take 5000 action-steps in your community action and education program. Take 5000 steps with writing, with videos, with meeting attendance, with developing educational curriculum, with connecting with CPS in your area and other child advocates and social workers, with reading, with talking about the issues, and with finding just the right way to say the right things to children who need to know what to do, in advance, should they ever be in an unhealthy and dangerous situation. 

Oh, and never, EVER hide the fact that you know someone is a pedophile. If you have first-hand knowledge of an event, take action. Disregard your own ego —and do it for children who have not yet become victims.

That’s a good start. Why don’t you join me/us in a campaign to change the way martial arts teachers work in their communities —in and for a kind of “self-defense” that’s relevant to the world as it is today.

Tom Callos 

www.TomCallos.com

When I was 11 or 12 years old there was a black belt instructor at the school I went to in Reno, Nevada, his name was Carl Fernand (might not be the right spelling) and he molested me. It happened over one school year and summer; there were 5 to 10 or so events (I honestly cannot remember, a gift of emotional trauma), which ended when I started taking special care to avoid him and his offers of transport, food, money, or “special help” with my lessons. 

I was the perfect target for a pedophile, as I had a troubled home life; my father was working to support 7 children, my mother lived out of town, and my step-mother was not a friendly or helpful person. I would go to school without lunch money and in the summer I was locked out of the house from early morning until the time when my step-mother would go into her bedroom for the night. Essentially, I was completely unsupervised. The martial arts school I went to had a key attached to a string in the front door’s mail slot, so I could go there when I couldn’t go home. 

I was often unwashed and dirty, hungry a lot, the only money I had I earned doing yard work, and my family, due to my step-mother’s personality, didn’t have any friends I could turn to for help. I loved the school and my martial arts lessons and the people there were more like family than my family.  I wanted to attend classes, the school’s events, the second location my instructor started, and I needed a place to be, when the only other place to hang out was the library. 

Carl started by paying attention to me. He was complimentary. He frequently gave me money for food and he offered me rides to events, tournaments, and places I might like to go. And one day, he stripped me down and molested me. 

I was ashamed and embarrassed. I felt I had caused it, brought it upon myself. But Carl was thorough in his approach and he kept help coming when and where I needed it —and 1 event turned into multiple events. 

Now, 40 years later, I’m completely clear about what happened and how it happens, but for years I carried some weighty shame. My most damaging memory of that time was not from this twisted adult, but the memory of walking with my father, now deceased, and how I felt that holding his hand made me wonder if people thought he might be something other than my father. That hurt —and I still tear up thinking of it. What shame and confusion for a child to bear. 

I’m talking about all of this as I want to remind others that molestation is a terrible crime —one that cannot be tolerated or ignored or kept a secret. This coming month I’ll be interviewing a friend who works for Child Protection Services —and I will outline, for the martial arts industry, the specifics of what must be done when a child is molested by a trusted adult. 

It is not OK. It is not OK to keep pedophilia a secret, not when other children are then put at risk when people aren’t warned. 

Too much chocolate, as good as it can taste, will make you sick.

Too much training, as much as people say “more is better,” can cause you some serious joint damage, like it did me. The picture above is one of my two artificial hip joints, now more than a decade old.

Many of my peers are enjoying their new hips too, although let me tell you, there’s NO PLEASURE in what leads up to a hip replacement. It’s all discomfort and pain, back, leg, and hip pain, loss of movement, and a slow and agonizing realization that you’re dreading the walk to the car, to the store, through the airport, and/or anywhere (forget running to catch a ball, backpacking, or performing martial arts at a high level).

But the great news about hip pain is it’s your hips! It’s not your neck! Or lower back. This is a joint that can be replaced and, literally, give you your life back. 

Now let me ask you, what’s the equivalent of the worn out hip joint to too much focus on “business?” What wears out when you do things, over and over, that have the potential to wear out parts of you that are both hard to find and costly to repair? I see it all the time in martial arts school owners. 

They wear out their passion. When school owners get caught up in the trap of sales, sales, sales —they wear out their sense of mission and intent and purpose. So my organization, The 100. —is fast becoming the repair shop for career-inspiration-replacements. The work can’t be seen in an x-ray, but it can be found in the bounce of the step in people formally hobbled by a focus on endless sales and membership campaigns, giving pizza parties and ice cream socials, looking at every student as just another pay-day, and losing their focus on the here and now.