A man who I respect very much, who I played football under, is at deaths door with terminal cancer. This man did not get involved in every detail in my life, but when I decided, against his advice, to play football, he pushed me as hard as I could be pushed. Therein lies where a sensei needs to be. He is involved as much as he needs to be. There is a middle ground, and for some people that still won't be good enough. Those people just need to find someone else, or not study the MA.

My Sifu is the same kind of man as coach is. He truly cares about his students, not just because we are his source of income, but because the ones who do stick around are going to be a part of something bigger. We do help teach classes. We do help when maintenance is needed on the dojo. And he doesn't go to deep in our personal lives.

When coach dies, I'm going to mourn the loss of a great coach and mentor, and a good friend.

When Sifu dies...

I've had my share of martial arts "teachers" including some excellent ones that positively gave me more than my money's worth. I am very pleased to have studied with them. And then I've had my Sensei- for whom I'd do just about anything.

My "Sensei" is a little less than half my age. One day, several years ago when I was in the mid-level color ranks, he was trying to teach me some stock self-defense moves against a front choke or attempted front choke in motion. Out of the clear blue, I started to cry. I did not want to cry. I wanted to learn my lessons and practice the material. After several attempts, it was obvious that it wasn't going to happen easily. Embarrassed a bit, I told Sensei what was happening to me and why I was crying. Sensei stood a respectful distance away, and listened. He let me be in control of if I wanted to move on to something else, continue with this, and if so, how fast, how intense, just the approach, whatever. I wanted to get through the whole thing. I didn't want to leave there conquored by it. He let me manage the situation my way. We worked on the choking drills. I got them, barely, but I got them before I left the dojo that day.

Sensei helped me prepare for my black belt. He has seen me through every crisis I've had since I've been a black belt. I'm sure that during some episodes of tough "martial arts life lessons", he has struggled for me as much as I have struggled with the tough lesson itself. He is SENSEI.

Thank you Sensei Cody.

I think the best teacher is a good leader, show both technical prowess and the people will know you have what it takes to teach them something, show understanding, patience, compassion and determination, and they will eventually learn and respect you

if it's all about mentality, those with it already, or who are not interested in it will get bored, if it's all about skill, those with it or who are not interested in it will get bored


if you teach both at once in an interwoven lesson of life, there's no way to seperate it, each part of the lesson exists to complement the other parts of the lesson


that's what I've learned from my teaching people a little, it wasn't in martial arts, but good leaders are good leaders