The Price of a Beer in Boston

Weapons are tools of bad omen,
By gentlemen not to be used;
But when it cannot be avoided,
They use them with calm and restraint.
Even in victory's hour
These tools are unlovely to see;
For those who admire them truly
Are men who in murder delight.

— From the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

As last call was sounded at the Six House bar in South Boston last Sunday morning, someone spilled a drink. A few moments later, 26-year-old Adam Rich paid for it with his life.

As reported in the news, Rich was stabbed to death during a confrontation that was apparently sparked by a spilled beer. A friend of Rich's was also stabbed three times during the assault. He survived, but Adam Rich's life is over. His family is devastated. The life of Rich's alleged attacker, 38-year-old Bernard Piscopo, is forever ruined, too: I'm sure he didn't head out to the bar that evening thinking, "I'm gonna kill a man tonight." But somehow, that's how things seem to have turned out. And now, he's facing murder charges. It's a shame.

For heaven's sake, when did beer get so expensive?

The lesson for martial artists — for all of us — is clear: knives are dangerous and deadly. It's best to never use them (as Lao Tzu advised), or face anyone who has one. I hope that my students are paying attention — especially my intermediate-level students, because I'm currently introducing them to knife attack techniques and defenses. Defensively, I teach my students how to move against a knife-wielding opponent, how to protect their vital areas, how to disarm someone wielding a blade, to be aware of one's surroundings, and — above all — to always, always, ALWAYS keep an eye on the knife. Offensively, I teach my students the various ways to grip a knife, along with knife strategies, tactics, and the vulnerable points for attack. We train with serious intent, but with rubber knives, padded floors, and a collaborative training environment, I sometimes wonder if I'm really getting through to them. Perhaps this incident will help to drive my point home. (Yes, pun intended.)

Do I have your attention now?

The reality is that knives are everywhere. I carry a pocket knife myself. It's convenient. I'm almost never without it. After all, you never know when you're going to need to slice open an envelope, open a stubborn package, or cut a piece of rope. And, being a folding knife with a single-edged blade that's under two-and-a-half inches in overall length, my knife is perfectly legal to carry. (For those of you who are interested, the Boston ordinance on the carrying of knives can be found here.)

In my classes, I cover the principles of using deadly force in self-defense situations. I stress to my students that they should get away from a dangerous situation if they can. I teach them that nothing they carry in their wallet is worth the risk of being stabbed or shot. And if my students should ever find themselves in a bar at closing time when someone spills a drink, I hope that cooler heads prevail.

Training in the martial arts is supposed to teach us more than just defensive skills — everyone knows this. As we train, we're also expected to learn about martial virtue. Respect, Compassion, and Discipline top the list of things that we study to help keep us balanced, calm, and under control. We are taught about the fragility of the human body in the hopes that we'll come to understand and appreciate the precious value of a human life. These are the lessons that we must carry outside the dojo walls. Everyone needs to learn these lessons, whether or not they train in the martial arts!

We teach peace and stress nonviolence in my dojo. I proudly walk this talk: lately, I've been studying mindfulness techniques and practicing nonviolent communication. I want my dojo to be known as a center building for life skills, a place for peace education. But still, if push ever came to shove, and if all other options were exhausted, I know that because of my martial arts training, I'm physically and mentally ready to use my knife to protect myself or my family. It's quite a paradox, really. I struggle with it all the time.

This week, a man's life has been exchanged for the cost of a draft beer, an apology, and a trip to the dry-cleaners. Earlier I asked, "When did beer get so expensive?" But the real question is this: "When did life get so cheap?"

What the World Needs Now

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."

— John Donne, Meditation 17, 1624

I won’t be teaching gun-takeaways in my next self-defense class, so please don’t ask me.

In the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui is being depicted as a “prototypical serial killer” — outcast, made fun of by his peers, a victim of years of constant jeers and insults. Now, Cho was clearly a very sick and disturbed individual. He was mentally ill. The last thing I want to do is oversimplify a tragic and enormously complex situation, or make light of the pain that the nation is feeling at this moment. But still, I can’t help but wonder what the cumulative effect of several years of hugs and encouragement (and yes, professional counseling and appropriate treatment) might have been in Cho’s life.

Have you listened to talk radio lately? Gun control advocates are stressing the need for increased firearm regulation, while their opponents suggest that if the other students in the Virginia Tech classroom were armed, they could have returned fire and stopped the assault. I don’t believe that more regulation would be effective, but we certainly don’t need more guns or a citizenry armed to the teeth, either. That’s not the world I want to live in. Definitely not the world I want my daughter to inherit. I believe that what we really need is more respect, more compassion, more tolerance, and more understanding. And making that happen will be much harder to do than getting any piece of legislation passed.

Many have expressed outrage that the media aired images and video of the “manifesto” that Cho mailed to NBC. The backlash against the media’s insensitivity is easy to understand, and yet, it seems tinged with hypocrisy: After all, we are the same society that glorifies “the Sopranos” (hey, that “r” is a gun!) and makes first-person shooter video games for our children to play. We live in a violent world, and we accept the violence as long as it is “pretend” or far enough away.

I see this in myself, too: It seems that on any given morning, I receive the news of a bombing that kills dozens half a world away, and I’m so indifferent, war weary, and numb that I barely pause to reflect before adding the cream to my coffee. It’s not in my back yard, so why not enjoy some java?

Well, as a newly aware global citizen, I see now that my back yard is bigger than I thought, and I’ve got some weeding to do.

Everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame, and yet no one is taking responsibility. Did the school system do enough? Did the healthcare system do enough? Where did the school administrators, mental health professionals, parents, and police go wrong? Would tougher or less restrictive gun laws have made a difference? Why didn’t people read the warning signs? And in his “manifesto,” Cho himself blamed everyone else for forcing his hand to kill. No personal responsibility there, either.

If nothing else, this week’s tragedy reminds us of our COLLECTIVE responsibility. It seems to me that our indifference and lack of compassion kills, too. The death of Cho Seung-Hui and his victims lies, in some part, with all of us. I don’t know what I could have done differently to prevent this tragedy, but I’m forced to ask myself, as a martial artist, what can I do to prevent this from happening again?

So no, I won’t be teaching gun-takeaways in my next self-defense class. I won’t be adding new firearm training requirements to my school’s Black Belt curriculum. Instead, I’ll be making peace education and training in nonviolent communication mandatory for my karate students. We’re all in this together. What are YOU going to do?

We Become What We Think About

"Your days are your life in miniature. As you live your hours, so you create your years. As you live your days, so you create your life. What you do today is actually creating your future. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, the food you eat and the actions you take are defining your destiny — shaping who you are becoming and what your life will stand for. Small choices lead to giant consequences — over time. There's no such thing as an unimportant day."

— Robin Sharma, The Greatness Guide

I've been reading up on the Law of Attraction, and I came across a new website, book, and CD collection called "The Secret." The movie clip on the website seems to be a kind of hokey combination of "The DaVinci Code + The History Channel + Oprah." And yet, there's something to the concept that's worth investigating: We attract the things we focus on into our lives. Okay, I admit it: I downloaded and watched the 20-minute excerpt from the film from Google Video, and I've been listening to the CD collection in my car during my commute to an from work. It's not the first time I've come across this concept, but in this format, the message that our thoughts become things seems to be sinking in for me.

So now, more than ever, I'm watching my thoughts, consciously directing my intentions, and doing my best to focus my attention on the things I want — and not on what I don't want. I'm "acting as if" and visualizing my goals as complete or coming to pass effortlessly. I'm paying more attention to coincidences, and listening to my gut. This practice aligns with everything I know about meditation, visualization, and the power of positive thinking. Easy to talk about, difficult to do, but my attitude has improved tremendously in just the last few days. Hey, that's gotta be worth something!

And speaking of coincidences, just this week I was contacted "out of the blue" by a non-profit organization called Conscious Consuming. They're an organization that seeks to increase awareness of sustainable consumption, and encourages people to live in line with their values by better prioritizing time, money, and material things. Exactly the kinds of things I've been focusing on lately!

Interestingly, though, the woman who contacted me said she did so because she found that her organization's message really resonates with people in the yoga community. (She had found the link to the yoga studio that shares our dojo space.) Now, I have healthy respect and strong admiration for yoga, but why doesn’t this message also resonate in the martial arts community? The masters of the martial arts — Funakoshi, Kano, Ueshiba, and others — taught that beyond the practical and the obvious, that the true aim of the martial arts is the perfection of character, the betterment of society, the fulfillment of what is lacking.

The martial arts, like yoga, link the body, the mind, the breath, and the spirit. The martial arts, like yoga, preach respect, compassion, gratitude, and other positive values. The martial arts, like yoga, can be a powerful vehicle for self-expression and self-discovery. So if the budo — the martial ways — are truly a path to enlightenment, then martial artists need to start taking more enlightened, responsible, compassionate actions! Since we don't have another planet lying around, isn't environmentalism and sustainable consumption “the ultimate form of self-defense?”

It's A Whole New Ball Game

Gandhi once said, "be the change you want to see in the world." So where to begin? As I look at making improvements in my life, I’ve put things into a few broad, intersecting categories:

1. Physical Fitness

I’d like to lose 5-10 pounds, and increase my strength and overall flexibility. To lose weight, I’m trying to burn more calories by intensifying my training, adding daily calisthenics, and lengthening my karate workouts. To get more flexible, I’ve been “studying” yoga – I say “studying” because I’m not taking formal classes with an instructor (who has time for that!?!). Instead, I’ve been reading yoga books and magazines (why isn’t there a Yoga Journal equivalent for the martial arts?), and working on various postures for 10-15 minutes in the morning or before bedtime – what a difference so far! With a 6-month old, there’s no time to go pump iron in a gym, so I’m working on increasing my strength by doing clubbell drills a few times a week. And okay, I also sneak into the “quiet room” at work every other day to do arm curls with the 25 lb. Dumbbell that’s strategically placed in there.

2. Conscious Consumption

I’m watching my diet, trying to eat a little bit healthier. At this point I’m raising my awareness more than anything else… I haven’t yet gotten around to truly cutting things out of my diet completely, but I did feel a small twinge of guilt after eating a fudge brownie last night. (OK, perhaps the “twinge” was actually the sugar rush kicking in!) I’m drinking less coffee and more green tea. I’m a long loooong way from a vegetarian diet, but I’m eating more raw veggies and increasingly seeing “organic” and “free range” on my food packaging. Seeking to become more informed about the social, economic, and environmental impact of my food choices, I’m reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

I’m also paying closer attention to what I focus on: beyond my diet, “conscious consumption” for me includes being more aware of the media, my choices of entertainment, my environment, my purchases, and the quality of my thoughts. I’m reading more and reducing the amount of TV that I watch – particularly violent TV (sigh… goodbye Law and Order!) – and I’m trying to be more aware of the impact that the daily news has on my attitude, mood and overall outlook on life. Haven’t kicked my Starbucks habit yet (even tough guys need a latte now and then), but I’m working on it. The money I save will probably put Ava through college!

3. Peace Education

At the strong suggestion of my mentor and coach Tom Callos I’m learning all I can about PEACE, nonviolent communication, and conflict resolution. In my opinion, these things form other side of the martial arts coin. As a former Marine, I’ve studied the strategy and tactics of ancient and modern warfare. As a martial artist, I’ve learned a whole lot about kicks and punches and chokes. But, by comparison, I know very little about non-physical de-escalation techniques, restoring or introducing calm to tense situations, and promoting creative alternatives to violence – these are the skills that are REALLY needed in today’s society. My teachers? Thich Nhat Hanh, Morihei Ueshiba, Deepak Chopra (yes, I said Deepak Chopra), Peace Pilgrim, Louise Diamond, and others. My online resources include The Peace Company, and I’ve even been visiting the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA once a month on my lunch breaks to spend some time there contemplating peace.

4. Community Service

Serving my community has become very important to me. Along with my wife and my neighbors, I’ve helped to establish award-winning Crime Watches in Mission Hill and Allston, and my dojo frequently engages in service activities. I’m hoping to inspire others to contribute to their communities. My students at the dojo are engaging in community service leadership projects to earn their Brown Belts – I’m very proud of them. Check out some of the good we’ve done together. I know there’s much more that we can do!

We’re all in this together. A goal of mine is to expand my personal definition of “community” until it includes the whole planet, all of its citizens, and our environment. To me, that means developing compassion and better communcation skills, learning more about and using “green” cleaning products, choosing organic foods, picking up litter in my neighborhood, recycling, and even purchasing a more fuel efficient car!

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m still pushing hard in the dojo, too, pursuing physical improvement, deeper understanding of and greater efficiency/proficiency in my chosen art. I still train with my sensei. I still want to kick higher, hit harder, move faster, learn new skills, defend the weak, fight for justice, defeat evil, and all that good stuff. The “warrior” in me is still very much alive. But I’m aiming to be an Artist of Life, not a cage fighter, and I’ve set the bar high for myself. Other areas I’m working on include improving my mindfulness and meditation practice, learning to express gratitude more, developing better time management and interpersonal skills, deepening family bonds, and improving all of the important relationships in my life – all while working full time to pay the bills.

No secluded, ascetic mountain meditation retreats for me, I guess. No, this is a new kind of personal development quest/non-trivial pursuit/juggling act/heroic mission. It's a whole new ball game.

New Year, New Beginnings

So, it's that time of the year when we all start thinking about how to improve our lives. I have many goals that I'd like to see come to pass in the next 12 months, but I think I can sum it all up by saying that I'd like to become a more inspired, involved, socially conscious, informed, contributing, inspirational, compassionate, fully-functioning human being, community servant, and global citizen. In short, my goal is to transform my life into a work of art!

Sounds a whole lot better than "I resolve to be a better person", doesn't it?

I know that this journey will have physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges... I'm looking forward to them all!

I run Emerald Necklace Martial Arts, a small karate school in Boston, and I want to challenge my students to be and do more than they think is possible. I expect them to train hard, play hard, and stretch themselves in entirely new ways by thinking in new ways, taking bold actions, and daring to grow in new directions. To do this, I need to set an example to follow. I don't promise that I'll always be a perfect role model, but I'll do my best!

And, I'm a new father of a beautiful baby girl named Ava, so I'm rapidly learning to be a better husband and father, too! BALANCE and PRIORITIES are quickly becoming the two most important words in my life!

Everyone warned me that being a parent would change my life forever... they were absolutely right! It's amazing how quickly an infant can disarm you and make you worry about things like nuclear proliferation, global warming, grafitti, and the potential negative effects of bio-engineered foods... As a martial artist, I see that I need to totally rewrite my personal definition of self-defense to include these new "threats" to my family, my environment, and me.

Let the adventure begin!