One

"Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things. As if it were a straight road mapped out on the ground ... These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard."                           -Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

 

I'm taking Musashi's advice. "You must study hard."

 

This is the first post that will record my studies. I am a teacher. I intend to make myself accountable to my students through this record. I want them to see that I am also still a student. I am willing to expect of myself what I expect of them. I intend to show my struggles, share my successes and express the deep desire that I have for experiential understanding of what I teach.

 

The catalyst for this project was finding out that 2012 is the last year Tom Callos will offer the Ultimate Black Belt Test. I decided now was the time, went online to register and found this post instead: The UBBT Post (If you've never heard of the UBBT you can read that and see why I wanted to do it. It's such a cool thing. In my opinion Tom Callos is just all around super cool.)

 

So, after being bummed about it for a bit, I decided I would just do my own UBBT. This is my version, I will log the experience here.

 

Over the next 12 months I will:

1. Log 1000 entries in a public journal.
2. Log 1000 acts of kindness.
3. Log 1000 meditation sessions.
4. Log letting go of or saying no to 1000 things.
5. Ask myself 1000 questions that I will answer with a direct experience rather than accepting someone else's experience as truth for me.
6. Log 1000 tabatas.
7. Log 1000 repetitions of the first black belt form.
8. Log 1000 repetitions of my current form.
9. Log 1000 sets of 10 push ups.
10. One more thing that I haven't decided about.