#ubbt

[alexander-evers]

Just finished my 4th degree black belt test.  I passed the physical portion, I still have a few requirements left to finish.   Shoutout to these guys for all the help and support they gave me along the way.

[alexander-evers]

1000 Acts of Kindness.  These acts have helped me realize all the kind things that go on around us every day.  Unfortunately, we tend to focus on the negative ones, instead of all of the positive things that happen around us.  We need to work on this. 1000 Acts of kindness... Finally coming to a close.  My Black Belt Test is almost here.  But after it’s over, the lessons I've learned will stay.  And I will continue to hit as many acts of kindness as I can.

[alexander-evers]

How to Give

I am a Christian, and part of being a Christian is giving.  Growing up I didn't really know about tithing or offerings, etc.  But my parents always gave.   I eventually grew up a little bit and it became my turn.  Then the questions came.  How much do I give?  Why should I give?  How should I give?  Give to who? I believe these questions need to be answered by individuals, Christian or not.

Many give to the church.  In my opinion a great cause.  I go to church like many Christians do, however, I feel like I make the most impact in my business.  

When I was a kid, I used to think business was stuffy guys in  suits.  But after purchasing my own, I love the entrepreneurial process.  I love the numbers.  If I do A with this person and connect them to this person I can get B and I can leverage B with C and with patience I’ll get X.  There are so many possibilities.  Entrepreneurship makes me feel like I can change anything.

With this in mind I started to question.  Do I have to give to the church?  Or do I think I can make a bigger impact giving in another way? I stumbled upon https://www.kiva.org Kiva is an incredible site.  Kiva allows anyone with $25 to make a micro loan, to people in 84 different countries.  People that can do a LOT with $25.  People ask for $750 to buy materials to start a clothing shop, $500 to purchase beads to make jewelry, or even $250 to buy seeds to plant their harvest for the year. The incredible part?  These loans have a repayment percentage of 99%! These people really need the money, and are so grateful for it they make sure that it is returned.  When the money is returned, you can pull it back out, or like I do send it back out to another person in need.   Eventually, if you keep reloaning, and adding in your new giving amount, you will be lending Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.  Think about how this helps developing countries.  And how it continues to help 1 person then another then another.  And one day, if you feel the desire, you could pull all of that money out, and go build a school house with it, or a community center, or put it all into a fund where the interest funds a scholarship for years to come. Kiva fits my needs, my style of doing things.  If you’re like me, it is definitely worth checking out.

https://www.kiva.org

[alexander-evers]

2 Days without Sight

Finally, taking this blind fold off.  And MAN, is everything bright.

Spent the last two days without sight.  The purpose of this exercise is to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes."   Instead of shutting myself in for the two days, I did my best to make it the best two days possible. I ended up getting a ride to Jiu-Jitsu and Rolled for an hour or so, went to a friends house for some bbq, and even went to the movies.... It sounded like a pretty good movie. I enjoyed this experience much better than my two consecutive silent days.  During those days I felt very cut off from everyone around me.  During my blind days, when no one was around, I was incredibly bored.  However, when my plans finally came together I had a really good time.  Of course I wish I was able to see during the activities I was doing, but I still had a good time.   Glad to know I have such supportive people around me.  I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am today without them.  And I definitely wouldn't have been able to get into that movie without them.

tomcallos

http://stillwatermartialarts.com

[buildvention2014]

John Bussard Donates Mats to The Alabama Build-Vention. A Note of Thanks.

I must take a moment to again thank John Bussard for his generous donation to The 2014 Alabama Build-Vention of 2000 square feet of ZEBRA mats. John, they have arrived --and will serve the Greensboro community in a multitude of ways, for years to come.  The Alabama Martial Arts Build-Vention 2014 is a martial arts business convention, definitely the most unconventional business training event in the martial arts world, where the learning happens, the exchange of ideas, and the classes --while we build and renovate homes and other structures in cooperation with Pam Dorr and the team at www.herohousing.org.  John's donation of mats gives us some of the tools we need to help the martial arts take root in Greensboro --next to the landmark work of Pam, Samuel Mockbee (http://samuelmockbee.net/) and www.rurualstudio.org ---and alongside the work of John Bielenberg and his Project M (http://www.projectmlab.com/).  For 10 years now I've been taking martial arts teachers, instructors, and their staff members / students to Greensboro --to sleep on the floor, to eat local food, to get dirty while operating power tools and hammers, to help a community in transition, and to live the simple life of volunteerism for a short-week ---all for the purpose of re-thinking how we teach the martial arts, how we impact the places we live, and how we inspire students to take the work out of our dojos and into the world.  This is a completely not-for-profit event that survives only on donations from the international martial arts community. We fund it thru small donation from students and teachers who appreciate the work, who are moved by it, and who want to support the movement the work represents away from the crass and blatant commercialism, up-sells, and product-mongering abundant in the "industry." The link for info and to donate is here: www.ubbtAlabama.org It's working; more martial arts teachers than ever before are starting to blend community activism, serious, grass-roots volunteerism, into their agendas ---inspiring students from age 5 to 75 to see our training as something more than learning how to fight.  This year we host one of the most prominent and important environmentalists of our era, Ms. Julia Butterfly Hill --who is coming to further the dialog we've started about "Environmental Self-Defense" and how we, martial arts teachers, might come to serve the movement for more sustainable, sane, and sensible living --in ways that cause less harm, less exploitation, and less irreparable damage to the world we all inhabit. John, your donation greatly enhances our ability to do this work. Thank you.

[buildvention2014]

The Alabama Build-Vention, a Zero Waste Event

Head's Up, the Alabama Martial Arts Build-Vention 2014 will be a ZERO WASTE EVENT. All participants will be required to bring their own plate / bowl, chopsticks or fork, knife, spoon, hot beverage container, re-fillable water bottle, and washable napkin.  We will, to the best of our collective abilities, limit all throw-away waste to the absolute unavoidable minimum. Plan accordingly.

[buildvention2014]

How I Never Met Samuel Mockbee; How I Came to Greensboro

In mid 2001 I boarded a plane to go teach a seminar somewhere --and in some magazine I'd picked up I came across a "pod" built from bundles of waxed cardboard. Students of Mockbee's Rural Studio built their own "pods" to stay in, little experimental structures of their own design, while they worked under their teacher.  I was enthralled. There was a clip with the photo about some of Mockbee's philosophy --and reading it I came to the conclusion that Mockbee had genuinely transcended his subject matter --and had gone way deeper as a teacher. I wanted to go way deeper as a teacher.  After running across two or three other mentions of Mockbee in various publications over the next month or two --and feeling a real pull to meet him, maybe even to go there to Alabama and find some way to help or engage him, one day I just got on the phone and started calling the Rural Studio and Auburn University. Nobody answered any of the numbers I called. That night I went to Borders, the book store; I walked in, went straight to the magazine rack, picked up an Architectural Digest, flipped it open randomly --and boom, I had opened it right to his obituary. He'd passed just two months before.  I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, like I'd lost a friend and a teacher, even though I'd never met the man. The more I read about him, the more I realized I wanted to do something (anything) like what he had done, but in my own career, in the martial arts world. A few weeks later I connected with Pam Dorr. It took me a year of calling and writing and proposing this and that, offering help, before I had dreamed up the Ultimate Black Belt Test --and then decided that, as a part of the test, we'd all go down to Greensboro and do something, anything, to pitch in.  This will be the 10th year of pitching in. While I was never able to meet Samuel Mockbee, I see the work I help organize there as a way to honor his influence on my own career. While my accomplishments and influence pale compared to his, I am grateful to have the opportunity to be connected, albeit in the smallest way, to the work he envisioned and executed.

[tomcallos]

The Ultimate Black Belt Test. What it is, In Part, for Me

The "Ultimate Black Belt Test" isn't a thing. It isn't a product or service. It's an idea that people embrace and put to work --based on the question, "What would be my ultimate black belt test?" For me, the ultimate is getting my black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Man (for me), that's TOUGH! For me, it would be in getting 1000's of teachers of the martial arts to embrace the following concepts: 1. Transparent and honest pricing; 2. For the world's martial arts schools to adopt a rape-culture education course, to educate young people about rape, what it is and what it isn't. As I've read that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, I can't see a reason we, collectively, wouldn't embrace and execute an awareness and education program; 3. To bring food dialogue and food production dialogue and education to every martial arts teacher's curricula. It's time we connect food and food production to self-defense; 4. To have 100 / 1000 teachers embrace anger management teacher training, so as to arm young people with anger management skills, before they need them, as a form of self-defense. 5. To bring the saying "out of the dojo and into the world" to the lips of every martial arts teacher in the world --and to see, before I pass, thousands upon thousands of community-based projects, executed by martial arts students, encouraged to do so by their teachers, as the ultimate expression of our teachings.  It's frightening and unnerving to start another UBBT, as we're doing now, as there is so much room for failure and, worse, for nothingness, as in "nothing happens." Nevertheless, nothing at all will happen, for real, if we don't step up to the plate, bat in hand.