In this issue, I would like to bring to your attention the reason why it is more important than ever for your child to return to karate.
If I were to sum up the reason why it’s important in one sentence it would be this: We owe it to them. In Africa, there is a saying” It takes a village to raise a child.” That sentence cannot be more true, especially now. WE, the adults, in our communities are caretakers and stewards of our children’s future. They are not capable of making important decisions about their futures on their own, so it is up to us to establish a pathway for them to succeed and provide the means for them to follow it.
There may be some of you that say,” My child is not an animal. He or she is a human being with a will of their own; I won't make them do anything thing.” To that, I say, ”Do not quibble over the term MAKE we make our kids into the things that we want them to be all of the time: we make them Christians, we make the Jews, we make them polite, and we make the contributing members of society.”
What we do not always do is make them successful. The single most important reason why parents do not make their child successful is that they do not know-how. It is for that reason that parents who know that they don’t know how to make their child a success bring their children to someone who does, someone such as me.
It is my job to instill into your child the skills that they will need to become anything that they want.
I came from a New York ghetto and became a World Champion!
You all know my story, it is one of overcoming hardship and poverty to become a World Champion. The key to my story is not that I became a world-famous kick-boxer, it is that I became a winner in life, a successful business owner, and s highly respected leader in my field. It is in that vein that I established my business to give the skills that I gained (DAGPAW) to kids so that they can have what I never had, a fighting chance. Sure, I became a World Champion, but most of my journey was by luck.
What I want for the kids that I am blessed to work with is to take the luck out of it.
The pandemic is providing us with a huge opportunity to teach kids how not to walk away from a goal just because it gets hard. This is a silver lining that we must take advantage of.
Arlington, will not be offering an on-site karate class this Fall, because I chose not to teach one, here’s why: I was contacted by the class coordinator and asked if I would like to offer a class this coming Fall. Initially, I said yes, but when we got into the details of how the class would work several setbacks became apparent: The first setback is that classes would have to be held outside. My feeling is that the Fall is not the best time to conduct outdoor classes because weather, invariably, would become an issue. The second setback is that classes had to be limited to, not more than, ten people. This meant that a majority of my students would not be able to take the class and because I work with all of my students on goals accomplishment I did not want to have only the lucky few be able to continue their development.
Although, I did give the possibility of teaching class serious consideration, and I could not see how I could overcome the hurdle of not working with a majority of my students and therefore let all of the gains that we have made together fall to the wayside. Because of the difficulties caused by the pandemic, I am offering a virtual Fall session, specifically, to keep our kids on track with the accomplishments of their goals. I look forward to working with your child again this Fall. Sign up can be done on my website: wcrbkarate.com. Sign up early and receive a generous discount.