5 Year Plan

Today I was asked what my 5 year plan was.

I responded like a deer in the headlights.

Which felt pretty miserable. I know the things I want to do and become, but I wasn't sure how to articulate them. And of course when I was asked my answer mattered.

I spent the rest of the day thinking... What IS my 5 year plan? What DO I really want to do? What do I want my life to look like in 5 years?

Initially the things that came to mind are "I want to have learned more, I want to be more capable physically and mentally, and I want to have a vast wealth of knowledge and understanding when it comes to the human body."

Really, the answers need to be more substantial than that. Over the last few months, Nick and I have been talking about my strengths, my weaknesses, how to grow my massage business, among other things. We've come to realize one very critical thing about me. I'm an excellent facilitator. I am really great at helping other people achieve their dreams, but I tend to stumble when it comes to spending time on my own things.

I've given that some more thought... is that really such a bad thing? Maybe I should embrace the fact that that is what I'm good at. Maybe that is my dream, I just haven't realized it yet?

I've gotten to where I don't enjoy working for other people primarily because I've had terrible managers the last several jobs, and I like my job to have a lot of flexibility with my schedule. When I think about why I wouldn't want to work for someone else, it is 90% percent because I don't want another crapy manager, and 10% because I want a more flexible schedule, or I want to have an easier time scheduling time off, which I ask for very rarely to begin with. I think I'm usually excellent at scheduling things around work. The truth is, I function much better with a set schedule. I just don't like to admit it.

I will bust my ass for a manager who cares about me. I will work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week when needed, if I know that later on down the road when I go to my manager and say "Hey, I want to take a weekend off next month to do an obstacle run." and the manager helps me work it out, that's awesome. I will walk through hot coals and go to the ends of the earth for a manager or co-workers who really care about and work to support each other like that.

So what if I found a job that could be like that? Would I still want to be self employed, or would I want to go back to working for someone else again? I could easily see myself in more of a management type roll for another business. A manager who leads by example and jumps in and helps their employees vs. a boss who sits back and demands a commands, to be specific. I could see myself doing it, and being very happy if I had great leaders above me.

It's definitely given me things to think about recently.

Back to the 5 year plan. If I had full 100% control over where I am in 5 years, what would that look like?

The Snapshot I saw in my head when asked "What is you 5 year plan?" was this:

• I will be working for Dan & Ryan at Axistence Athletics as both a trainer and an unofficial physical therapist. I will teach group classes, teach stretch and mobility classes, and assist in running the business in any other way needed.
• I will be working for Nick at his Martial Arts school in the same capacity as I am working for Axistence Athletics, teaching group classes, teaching mobility classes, and assist in running the business in any other way needed.
• Partner my business with Axistence and Nick's school to offer one on one massage therapy/physical therapy type sessions to really help people become pain free and live the awesome adventures they want. *(Whether this looks like contract work through my business, or whether the businesses decide to just hire me on and offer that service through their business, however that works out best for all parties involved)
• Nick and I will be Debt Free! 
• I will have a completed at least one comic book or novel.

In a nutshell... that's what I'm aiming for. Those are my professional/work life goals.

Yes, that's like... 3 jobs. But... if you love what you're doing it's not really work. And that's honestly where I see myself. And happily. Axistence Instructor by day, Martial Arts Instructor by night, Artist in my down time.

To make my 5 year plan come true, there is going to be a lot of work involved. There will be lots of steps to make that happen, including getting lots more certifications (Personal Training, CrossFit Level 1, CrossFit Gymnastics, Gymnastic Bodies, etc), finishing getting my black belts in Aiki and Karate, and of course using my free time to actually make art instead of surf Facebook as I tend to do... ¬.¬

The cool thing is, I WANT to learn. I want to do ALL that hard work so I can know ALL THE THINGS.

There is a saying, If you ever find that you are the smartest person in the room, it's time to find another room. Well, I'm not sure I've ever been the smartest person in the room, but I definitely feel like I am finding new rooms with lots of very, VERY smart people in them. I want to learn all they have to offer so I can really learn and know the human body inside and out, how it works, what it's capable of, and how to fix it when it gets stuck or 'broken'.

I feel good about all this. I feel like I'm headed in the right direction. I need to sit down and prioritize and map all these things out, but for now I feel good to have gotten them written down. I read or heard somewhere that writing your goals down makes it more likely they will be accomplished. So here it is. Just don't ask me about my 10 year plan... I think my head would probably explode.

All the best!

Samurai Girl

Humble Pie - Asking for support for advanced training

Wow.

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I last posted. I can't even begin to explain how many things have changed. Denver is awesome, but it's been a very stressful last few months. Between October and now I've had maybe 12 - 15 days off in total. I finally was able to go back to being seasonal at Barnes and Noble so I have some time to study for State Board Testing and start really job hunting in April. I am currently in training at a Spa down in Castle Rock, which is really exciting.

I am one month away from finishing school at the Aveda Institute. I will be dual licensed in massage therapy and aesthetics/esthetics. I am working on lining up some jobs, and the good news is that full time employment for massage therapists is around 32 hours a week, or four days. This will give me lots of time to go back to training in the martial arts and drawing. But I digress.

The main reason that I am writing this post is because, as some of my readers know, I made the decision to switch careers because I wasn't really happy in the design industry. I like art, I just don't like doing graphic design and advertising for a living. I didn't feel like I was really making a difference in anyone's life. I wasn't interacting with people or reaching them on a personal level. I know graphic design has the capacity to do this, but I just wasn't feeling fulfilled. I sort of wandered around for a while and considered many other careers, including personal trainer and physical therapist, but I eventually settled on massage therapy. After going to school for massage I can definitely say that I picked the right choice.

I absolutely love getting to make people feel great. The benefits of massage are AMAZING! Better health, better sense of well being, reduced muscle pain, better digestion, relief from stress, tension, anxiety, better mobility and range of motion, etc. Ultimately I've decided I want to specialize more in modalities that allow me to work deep tissue work and to work with athletes and/or very active people. Not that I can't work on anyone, but being around martial artists, cross fitters, LEO, etc. I want to work with people who work with their bodies a lot. Especially after working on the guys at my gym (Axistence Athletics) and seeing how even a few sessions has made a difference for them.

The problem is that deep tissue work can be incredibly hard on a massage therapists' body. Especially for us smaller massage therapists. Even with really good posture and body mechanics I am finding that I can be a little sore at the end of the day. And I only do massage two days a week in school. I'll be doing double once I'm graduated and employed. Many massage therapists have incredibly short careers, lasting between 2 and 5 years before they destroy their shoulders, wrists, or thumbs, from repetitive motion strain. AHHH! This terrifies me! I don't want to be in pain all the time or have life long problems with my shoulders, wrists or thumbs! I want to help people with their pain, stiffness, anxiety, etc and still take care of my body too.

I have really fallen in love with this line of work and would love to be able to do it for years to come. Nick's massage therapist in Oklahoma practices a modality called Ashiatsu. (Which is where I first heard about it). Ashiatsu (Ashi = feet and Atsu = pressure) is where the massage therapist can walk on the client's body and use their feet and their body weight to apply pressure. They get to use their full body weight and gravity to do all of the hard work and it saves the massage therapist's body. When I decided on massage therapy I knew that I wanted to learn this as soon as possible.

Now that I am at the end of my program, I started looking into attending an Ashiatsu class. I was lucky enough to receive the last spot in the April class here in Denver. This is actually the place where this modality was made and I will get to study with the lady who developed it! Here is a Link to the Deep Feet School in case you're curious. So the end of April is going to look like this:

April 22nd - Last classroom day at school
April 23rd - Take the MBLEX (this test lets me get licensed in the state of CO)
April 24th - 27th - Take Ashiatsu barefoot basics and the anterior and side lying class (Missing my last clinic floor day at school to take this class)
April 28th - Graduation

I can get everything all wrapped up at once and hit the ground running once I graduate! There are few hurdles I still have to overcome though. This class if pretty expensive, and I'm a little financially strapped due to being in school and only being able to work part time, I'm having to sign up for all my state testing which is about $400 in testing fees, plus insurance, plus background check and fingerprints, of course my car just died last week and I am having to get a new one; anyone who has even been self employed, especially in massage therapy, knows that it will take a while to build up a clientele, so I might not be making much money at all my first few months out of school. Basically, typical life stuff.

I have had friends in the past who have had really good luck with GoFundMe, so I thought I would try it. I only need to raise about $800-900. The class is $795, which if I could just get that much that would be great! After that there is about $100 or more in supplies I will need to buy before I attend. I even posted reward levels similar to how KickStarter does it, because I want people to know I genuinely appreciate their support. From hand written thank you letters up to a free massage. But when I posted a fundraiser online and linked it on Facebook I got a lot of feedback about people who didn't want to support me through that website, or who were uncomfortable about how much information that website took, etc.

So I promptly took it down. At this point I honestly feel really strange and awkward about the whole thing. I feel bad asking for money. Like, I have that sinking feeling of "Why, God did I even post that? Why did I think it was a good idea? Can't I just take it back?" I feel pathetic and I feel really bad for posting it, I should have just kept my mouth shut and tried to figure out how to pay for it on my own. It's a humbling feeling, having to ask for help.

I was talking to a good friend Indi about it this evening. ( Check out her stuff! --> Indi's Business Facebook and her Webcomic: Dissolution. Indi is a huge inspiration to me because she took the leap I've been really afraid to take for a long time. She jumped in with both feet, quit her job, and started making a living as an artist by doing comic books and fan art. I really admire her for that and hope to do the same someday when Nick and I start our own business.)

Anyway, she mentioned that she remembered it feeling awkward and uncomfortable when she was running her KickStarter campaign to get her comic printed. The feeling I have now is definitely an icky feeling, but I also remember being able to back her project. I've backed several of my friend's projects and other projects on KickStarter over the last two or three years and it's a really wonderful feeling. I get so excited when I can donate money to someone to help them reach their goal and get their book published or their movie made or their board game manufactured. It's something I will continue to do as long as I can. Even if it's just a few dollars here and there, it really makes a difference for those people trying to achieve their dream. So Indi suggested I type up a blog post with my story so she could link it to some of her friends since some people might be willing to donate via PayPal or send a check in the mail. You never know until you ask. And everyone has to start somewhere, right?

So I have done just that. I still want to send people hand written thank you notes, drawings, and give free massages to people who donate to help me go to this class to show my appreciation. Obviously the massages are a little harder because I know people all over the country and all over the world, but the offer still stands. But I don't expect people to just give me money, I want to do something in return for them if I at all possible.

If you are interested in helping me get to this class so I continue to help make martial artists and non-martial artists alike feel relaxed and pain free for years to come, please let me know. I would be incredibly, genuinely, and sincerely thankful.

You can e-mail me at Tiffani.Sahara(a)gmail.com  or send a donation via paypal using that e-mail address. (Please note that my name is spelled with an "i" and not a "y" at the end, so if your phone/computer auto corrects the spelling and you don't change it back, it will go to the wrong place)

Thank you for reading and I'll be sure to post something more soon. I have had a few ideas for posts I've been wanting to get written up, I just haven't had time to do it yet. @.@

<3  - Tiff

Aikijutsu Video

Hello.

In my last post, I mentioned Nick and I were going to make a video, and we finished it this weekend.

Not super happy about how it turned out. We didn't have a great camera to shoot with and we didn't really  have time to do a practice run so I am incredibly awkward on camera. I sound like a valley girl. I promise I'm not like that in real life. @.@

As mentioned several times it's just something for fun. It isn't meant to be a practical application video. It's more of, here are some fun techniques in Aiki and how the correspond to certain joints in the body.

I'm not a shodan yet, but Sensei Nick let me wear Hakama anyway, for fun. :D I'm only a mid rank and I've been out of class a few months so my techniques aren't that clean. I request you don't critique my technique since that isn't what this video is about.

I think that covers about everything. Without further ado: THE VIDEO!!!

*Edit, watched the video after uploading it on YouTube... I have NO idea what YouTube did to my video, but the text shouldn't bounce around like it does. Sorry about that. : /

Wilder Seminar Review II

A few weekends ago Nick and I got to attend one of Mr. Wilder's seminars. If you haven't had a chance to attend one of his seminars, you need to. This seminar presented different material from the last seminar that I attended with Mr. Wilder, which was pretty cool for Nick and I.

The first day/evening we took some time to review material from the last seminar. The closest seminars to us are hosted by Eric Parsons (who runs Karate 4 Life, which is pretty cool because it utilizes Martial Arts to help people, and all his seminars go towards fund raising, etc) in Missouri. By now, I feel like I kind of know everyone who attends the seminars and it is nice to see all the familiar faces. It feels like family. ^.^ Almost everyone there had attended Mr. Wilder's last seminar in Missouri, so it was neat to see how people have taken his teachings and incorporated them into their own practice.

There are definitely a lot of fundamentals that I need to improve on, and it doesn't help that I haven't been able to attend classes or work on Marital Arts a lot over the last several months. It's just another reminder that I need to make sure I make time for this and find a way to make a living doing what I love. But I digress.

Wilder uses structure and linear force to generate power. He talks about stacking the bones in your body and when he hits, it's really cool to watch. As I said in my last review of a Wilder Seminar, it's like Martial Arts Guru magic. It's neat stuff and it really works.

Day two delved more into the newer material. One of the first activities we did was to discover if we are a Runner, Grappler, or Striker. To do this exercise you need three people. One person stands in the middle and has one person behind them and one person in front of them. The person in the middle does something to get their heart rate up and to simulate stress. I.E. Running in place or doing fast jumping jacks. The person behind them positions them-self somewhere behind the person in the middle. The person in front watches to see when the person in the back is ready, and when the person in the middle is sufficiently stressed. They then yell "GO!" and the person in the back rushes the person in the middle. The person in the middle should then respond according to instinct. You need to do this several times (roughly 5) and see if the person in the middle runs toward, runs away, engages, or does something else, like assuming the fetal position.

After you have done this a few times you can look at your tendencies and determine if you are a Runner, Grappler, or Striker. The person behind you should mix it up a lot to make the situations different to see how you respond. Nick is grappler. I tend to be a little more situational.  If the person is very close to me, or I am caught off guard/by surprise, my first instinct is to run. If I can see them coming then I move in to engage.

So the point of all this is to practice to your nature. Wilder says that your nature is your nature, it is who you are and it isn't going to change, so you should embrace it and practice to your strengths. Particularly when you practice kata, you should practice with your tendencies in mind so you are thinking of applications that suite your instincts. Is that box block a grab and strike, grab and strike, grab and strike, or is it really more of a shihonage? Depends on if you are a striker or grappler. Work to your nature and practice accordingly.

We then talked about striking from a distance, which is more psychological than anything. Using your eye contact and your body language to control people. This is pretty cool stuff, and something I need a lot of work on. Homework: PEOPLE WATCH. Watch how people stand when they talk to each other, or when you talk to them, and them move your body to a different position and see how they react.

After lunch we covered kicking! I am particularly fond of kicking because while I don't have a tremendous amount of upper body strength, I DO have a great deal of lower body strength. We covered a few different types of kicks, including suni geri and two variations on a shomengeri kick. Wilder does a great job of explaining how to use structural/linear force and the stronger muscles in your hips to power your kicks as opposed to the rotational force we see everywhere else. I won't go into any more detail here because Wilder is really the best instructor for this.

Wilder then took the last hour of the seminar and turned us into monks. With ice cubes. It was epic.

Wilder also briefly covered something he calls the "Macta Bacalas" (and I'm probably spelling that wrong, Mr. Wilder, if you're reading this, please correct me) which is the warrior's path. I find myself really drawn to discussions and ideals of this nature regarding Martial Arts and Martial training. It's not that I idealize violence, but when Wilder talks about the difference between a warrior and a fighter, I can't help but want to be the warrior. I don't care about playing the game, or dragging the fight out, or winning for glory. I want to be the warrior that ends it, immediately. The Samurai mentality to some degree... knowing you could snap that ass hole in half like a twig, but not doing it because it's not worth it. It's very hard to articulate for me... I'll have to think more on it and post about it in the future. By the way, if you ever meet Mr. Wilder, he has some pretty amazing Samurai eyebrows when he does his Samurai face. You should ask him to show you.

ANYWAY, I of course wanted to know more about this "Macta Bacalas" but when I asked Wilder said it's something he created, which he covers in his newest book, which isn't out yet. I have since pre-ordered my copy of Dirty Ground and am hopeful that this topic will be covered in more depth.

Overall, it was another great seminar, and a good reminder that I really need to stop filling my life with distractions so I can work on what I really want... as soon as I figure out what that is. For now, I will continue with my art and once school is out I will go back to training. (Although I am very glad I took Anatomy and Kinesiology as the class was very interesting and I hope to have a video posted soon of a project Nick and I are working on inspired by the class).

Till next time, ja mata.

Learning Styles

There are three basic/common types of learning styles. They Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.

Visual learners learn by seeing/looking/observing. Here are some clues that you might be a visual learner:

• take numerous detailed notes
• tend to sit in the front
• are usually neat and clean
• often close their eyes to visualize or remember something
• find something to watch if they are bored
• like to see what they are learning
• benefit from illustrations and presentations that use color
• are attracted to written or spoken language rich in imagery
• prefer stimuli to be isolated from auditory and kinesthetic distraction
• find passive surroundings ideal

Auditory learners learn by hearing/listening. Clues you may be an auditory learner:

• sit where they can hear but needn't pay attention to what is happening in front
• may not coordinate colors or clothes, but can explain why they are wearing what they are wearing and why
• hum or talk to themselves or others when bored
• acquire knowledge by reading aloud
• remember by verbalizing lessons to themselves (if they don't they have difficulty reading maps or diagrams or handling conceptual assignments like mathematics).

Kinesthetic learners learn by doing and touching. Clues you may be a kinesthetic learner:

• need to be active and take frequent breaks
• speak with their hands and with gestures
• remember what was done, but have difficulty recalling what was said or seen
• find reasons to tinker or move when bored
• rely on what they can directly experience or perform
• activities such as cooking, construction, engineering and art help them perceive and learn
• enjoy field trips and tasks that involve manipulating materials
• sit near the door or someplace else where they can easily get up and move around
• are uncomfortable in classrooms where they lack opportunities for hands-on experience
• communicate by touching and appreciate physically expressed encouragement, such as a pat on the back

So, they're pretty straight forward. Also, it's not uncommon for people to have two stronger learner styles and one weaker one, or even use different learning styles for different tasks. Once you know what kind of leaner you are it can help you absorb information better. For example if you know that you are an auditory learner, reading flash cards or notes aloud to yourself will work better for you than just looking at them or writing them.

Most martial arts instructors will teach using a combination of all three of these to accommodate all learning styles. They will demonstrate a technique for the class (visual) while explaining what they are doing (auditory) usually followed by having the students work on the technique or by working one on one with the student (kinesthetic).

If you tend to go through the motions as you watch your instructor do the movements, you are probably a kinesthetic learner. If you are able to just observe and absorb the instruction that way, you are probably visual, and if you find yourself listening more than watching or repeating instructions back to yourself, you are probably auditory. 

For more information about this read "Way to Black Belt" or "Teaching the Martial Arts". One thing that Wilder and Kane discuss in "Way to Black Belt" is that once you have identified your learning style you should discuss with your instructor what your learning style is.

If you are uncertain as to what your learning style may be, just google "Learning Styles" and you'll come up with information as well as quizzes to help you determine where you fall. :)