My Master's Birthday

Me with Sifu and Simo on their birthday

Last week, I had the honor and privilege to celebrate my master's birthday with some of his family and close friends who were able to attend. It just so happens that Sifu's wife (the wife of the Sifu is known as the Simo) has the same birthday as Sifu. We went to Cuban Pete's in Montclair and it was a night of laughs, fun, and love.

I had a very long month, and I get into that funk where I don't want to do anything. But when Sifu invited me to join in on their birthday celebration, my heart leaped. I was honored he even thought of me, but even moreso, I felt that I belonged. I really wanted to be there to celebrate these two wonderful individuals, but it was also a very much needed night out for me. I was so happy to be there for them both.

I know just about everyone who attended. Some were long reigning kung fu students who I have come to know in the last couple years, especially John, Patty, David, Andy, and Quaasim. And I even met a few new faces a little more. It was nice to be in a different setting and enjoy my time with the kung fu family in a different atmosphere, and they made me feel like I belonged right in there. Even Sifu said to me at one point "You belong with us," which put a big smile on my face.

I got to spend a little time with Sifu's mother and had a few laughs with her, I met Sifu's brother and sister-in-law, we ate plenty of food and had plenty of laughs, but I also got some personal time with the Simo! We kept taking pictures and laughing, and I heard the Simo version of how the two met. I am sure the Sifu version has some tweeks in it, or so she claims, lol. But the room was full of love. Sifu always provides an atmosphere filled with love and you felt it in that room. And the love between Sifu and Simo is such a beautiful display of love in the world. I wish the two of them many blessings in the upcoming year and hope the two of them had a very happy birthday! (BOWS)

Me and Simo

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO

The Flower Lady

Last year in May, an older woman walked in during the Trento's Angels' Black Belt test. She had a basket of beautifully wooden carved flowers painted and scented as roses. She was selling them for Mother's Day. She came in early one day, and many people walk in to sell things sometimes. But when I saw her, she had a warmth in her smile that was contagious. I asked her to return to the school when I knew there were a lot of people, hoping she could get a little business.

So she left and she did return, but before pitching her flowers, I was still in the middle of the Black Belt test and she sat down as a spectator. I remember afterwards coming over to her and her response to the test was unbelievable. She was in awe at what she saw these three girls doing, and she was so happy for them as if she knew them all her life. Black Belt tests can have that effect on you here. She said she would never forget that part of the test she witnessed. I was so happy it had such a positive impact on her, just by watching. It also made me feel good as a master instructor that someone could recognize what I was doing with my students and saw how proud I was of my girls.

Nine months later, I am working on my computer on a Saturday and I hear my door open. I go to see who it is and I see the flower lady has returned with her big basket. I greeted her with a big hello, recognizing her immediately. She greeted me with that same warm smile, but she commented on my smile. "I love how I am greeted with such a loving smile as if I am an old friend!" I told her "You are an old friend!" She laughed and sat down and we talked.

She is a very spiritual lady, and she couldn't believe how much I remembered about her from our brief encounters nine months earlier. We talked about my students, keeping busy, using our minds, spirituality, and how her faith in God helped her survive cancer. I shared with her my own story of dealing with health issues, and people I know who have done amazing things with their health. But a lot of it stems to gratitude and laughter. Thats what this woman was filled with.

After a long time talking, I invited her back to come sell her roses during Mother's Day week again. I told her my doors are always open to her, as they are to everyone. She looked at me and said "This is a very safe place here. It feels good to be here." That meant more to me than anything else. I am happy that this woman felt that safe energy of the sanctuary my school gives. She gave me her blessings and told me to continue the work I am supposed to do. And I will. (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO

Hugs Not Hate

In spirituality, in psychology, in life, the duality that exists stem from two very opposing sides. Love and Hate. God and Satan. Spirit and Ego. Love and Fear. One cannot be more different from the rest. Sometimes we act in accordance to our love in the world. When we do things that are love-based vs fear-based, we make better decisions for our lives, we interact better with people, we response instead of react, and we are solution minded with our selves, circumstances, and with others.

When we come from a place of spirit, we make a "truer", if you will, choice that aligns us the our higher selves in fulfilling what we are meant to do with our lives. My mentor taught me that in each religion there is a "satanic" being and the word Satan in Hebrew means opponent. And that Satan uses ego to get people to do his dirty work. He uses superstition, paranoia, arrogance, and hatred to control people. And people who succumb to these traps end up suffering a worse punishment unto themselves. Remember, God and religion are two different entities, don't confuse the two.

"Love one another: that was his greatest commandment." You will find this line in the bible. Not a church going person? That's fine, you don't have to be in order to exude love unto others. To come from a true place of Love, one can find TRUE gratitude, TRUE forgiveness, TRUE happiness, despite life's circumstances. When one comes from a place of hate, only chaos and destruction can come forth.

Hate must not be met with hate. There are some people in the world who would love to convince themselves that they are not "hating", they just feel justified by their anger, or their view of reciprocity, or they are indifferent and not caring. But the truth is, sometimes inaction can be just as bad, if not worse, as an act of hatred. I have said in many blogs you should never go out of your way to hurt others and hope for the suffering of others. And karma, a very real spiritual energy in this world, goes a long way.

I have taught over 15 years about bullying and abuse. We all are guilty of doing it in our lifetime, consciously or subconsciously, and we have all been victims of it as well. Growing up, any sign of hate or bullying, or abuse, acts of ignorance always enraged me and I wanted to stand up for it. Maybe it's my martial arts training. Maybe it's a accumulation of my own life experience.  Either way, I stand up for what I believe is right.

For the second time, in the back of my school, there was a large group of kids gathered. A fight broke out between two people. When I heard it, I ran and opened my door, and I couldn't believe how fast these group of kids ran. I was enraged. I don't know what made me more angry. The fact that one kid decided it was a good idea to throw punches to physically hurt someone just because the other kid was irritating. The fact that the opposing kid felt he had to egg on and antagonize this person because of peer pressure. The fact that a group of kids were pressuring their peer to such an act. Or the fact that a group of what seemed like 20 kids stood there and watched everything and did nothing.

Trento is pissed. Evil thrives when good men do nothing. People say "I don't want to get involved." or "It's none of my business." MANKIND IS OUR BUSINESS! Shame on anyone who says otherwise. We are taught to cower away and stay out of things, ignore it all. So what people are being taught is to do nothing which sends the message it is okay to allow HATRED in our world because we won't do anything about it. I already called the parents of the two kids. I am calling the principal. The principal will say well it didn't happen on school grounds. Too bad, that's where the problem stemmed. I am going to get into this school and do something. 

Some people may say it's too late. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do, especially if it brings in more good in this world. Especially if I can get a love-based mentality. Motivation and encouragement is needed for these kids and they need to get it from somewhere. They need to be taught how to be human beings, not just math and writing. I will make a difference.

Enough of pissy attitudes, arrogant hissy fits, ignorant remarks, close minded actions, entitled behaviors. Enough is enough. This is why there is discrimination against races, cultures, sexuality, skin color, religions, and things need to change. And they will.

My brother put this video up on his Facebook wall. Growing up, watching movies, TV shows, or hearing stories of such hate and ignorance always made me angry and emotional. I believe in mankind too much and have faith in the people we can be. People cannot lose hope. This video had me in tears mostly because I was proud of the responses of some of the bystanders, but the last bystander took the cake. I am a new fan of her acronym H.U.G.S: Helping Us Grow Spiritually. We need more HUGS in the world. I am a big hugger. Studies show 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance, and 12 for growth. We need to do more hugging!

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO

Operation Babs!

Operation Babs in now in progress. I made a goal back in May 2013 and I even put it in my blog post entitled Bye Bye Barbara. Since my freshman year of high school I have followed and studied the work of the icon Barbara Walters. She is a pioneer in the world of journalism, making history not only becoming the first woman anchor of a morning news program, the first woman anchor of an evening news program, but also for doing the work in the industry no other journalist, male or female, would ever do.

The goal is to meet my long time idol in person, just just as a hand shake greeting, but a sit down interview, maybe luncheon type of meeting. I have approximately four to five months to do this since she has announced her retirement last May. Sometimes you have to make a goal that is so big that when you achieve it, you know there is nothing stopping you from achieving anything in your life.

Barbara Walters had a tremendous influence on me in my work life. She does tremendous amount of research and homework. She gets the interviews no one can. To note, in politics she has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltson, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and Fidel Castro. She interviewed every huge infamous case such as the Menendez Brothers, O.J Simpson, Martha Stewart, Jason Williams, and Robert Blake. She got the first interview with rivaled politicians to sit down with one another. The first interview with Martha Stewart before her trial, and first interview only hours after her sentencing. The first interview with Christoipher Reeves after his accident, the first and ONLY interview with Monica Lewinsky.

Barbara Walters is also known for her specials. She did an Academy Award Special before the Oscars for 30 years, her 10 Most Fascinating People Special for over 20 years, anchored 20/20 for 25 years, and numerous other specials. The specials were a way of her doing what she wanted to do and cover topics she felt were important.

So I know she lives in Manhattan. She doesn't drive and walks to work. ABC is on 66th Ave in New York City. I am on my way! I have no idea how this will be achieved, but I know it WILL! I have a few thoughts of getting the ball rolling. But this is a goal I am going to work VERY hard to making come true! I will be keeping everyone updated. (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO

Righting my Wrongs

     I remember the above saying when I went to see The Lion King on Broadway. Boy did it stick out for me in a huge way. I've heard the saying also to stop looking at the past because you don't live there anymore. I can harp on the past a lot. But I also love to learn, and learning from our histories, especially when you're trying to make huge personal changes, is just as important. But we cannot get stuck there. I think people confuse the idea when people research the past for answers and understanding and jump to the "stop living in the past" mode, which I can find ignorant at time.

   I got a very interesting response to my last blog on maturity and I'm glad it got people thinking. So this is kind of a part two for me. A friend of mine once said to me "I give advice to people, not because I think I am better than everyone else. It is because I want them to be better than me!" I very much have that view myself when I speak. I don't share my lessons just because I call them as I see them, or because I have it all figured out, it's also because many if not most of the times I have discovered them through my own struggles or I STILL currently struggle with them. Whether it be embracing the lesson itself, or putting into action.

Randy Pausch said "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." And truth be told, experience can be priceless. And sometimes, it can lead to big bruises. In my post about maturity, I did not want it to come off as if I was on my high horse and sound like I have maturity all figured out and am the most mature human in existence. Forgive me, that is not the case. I was VERY mature in many ways at a young age, but the lack of emotional experience limited me in my maturity in the bigger choices in life. I moved out on my own at 19 years old, and I had a lot of maturity in some things that made it work well, and in other areas I lacked maturity that would have allowed me to function much better. And don't get me wrong mistakes are good, but sometimes in your process of making mistakes and gaining that experience too soon or too late, can cause pain to others and you don't even realize it.

   The hope is that you come back with a renewed sense of self and intentions to become a better you which will overflow to others in a positive way. My martial arts training is not just training my body, it has been a journey to training myself mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and I take that very seriously. My martial arts is no joke. That being said, when I take serious strides to better myself, that means the mistakes can be very serious as well. As part as my journey to maturing, my mistakes also hurt many others in the process. What is very important to me is to have enough humility to take responsibility for myself (my choices, actions, decisions that hurt others, and my words), and have enough integrity to right my wrongs.

   When righting your wrongs, it starts with self. I've been working on self for . As long as I am alive, I am always in a state of becoming. But you must also do the right thing. I am a believer in communication. The mind is like and umbrella, it works best when it is open, and interaction fuels action. One of the biggest problems in our society is that there is less communication and less laughter in the lives of people. People would rather pound their feet and strut with an attitude and be angry and hold grudges and hold onto their problems. I can say this, because I would do it too. And why not? That's what we know and it's comfortable. The martial artist in me never gives up either, so I am amazed that other people give up so easy. They give up on situations, people, dreams, and it amazes me. What a shame it is.

   I've done all these things too. I never wanted to be that kind of person to hold grudges, but I did and it only hurt me. When we do things against our own values, it errodes from our self-esteem, and when we don't face our own fears and issues, we self-sabotage and we attack others, usually the ones we love the most. I am absolutely guilty of this. It doesn't matter whether you intended to or not, it doesn't matter whether you realized it nor not. Because sometimes we do things and have no idea what we are actually doing. This is called disassociation. I've heard about it, but never understood it until I experienced it myself. These were hard lessons, and I felt horrible realizing I could commit such hurtful behaviors. This was part of my personal journey to maturing. But like becoming our full self, we are always maturing into new beings as well. This is how I came to the lessons of my last blog on maturity.

This above poster can be fanned out into many areas. How about being committed and loyal to your SELF. I built up my "self" for years and then left it to fend for itself. That's not how self-work works! But for others I have remained loyal and committed. Don't get me wrong. I have had many moments where I wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and I may have said I would, but I never went through with it. It's not in me. Even when I didn't want to, I remained committed to never giving up on others. It's something I always did, and no matter what, even if there are people who did not "deserve" or never did transform positively, at least they know one person never ever gave up on them in their life, and that was me. So you can imagine the hurt I got when people gave up on me in my life. Ooooof! Did it hurt.

That's part of maturing. Enduring those kind of experiences. They come from mistakes, they come from successes, but maturity is not a just behavior or a way of acting, it is a level of behavior due to experience that comes from enduring good achievements and bad mistakes. And making the attempt to right your wrongs is a high level of maturity. Sometimes people close off so much, you will never get the opportunity to right those wrongs, and I've seen it with others and experienced it myself. My opinion, that is immature and unfair. But only my opinion. But we have to do the best we can, and we do everything in our power to be consistent and not refer to the old habits of being that caused us to hurt ourselves and others. That is a mark of maturity.

We cannot victimize. I've done that too. The poor me mode is an illness, so avoid it. But if someone is making a genuine effort to make changes in their life, allow them the opportunity to right their wrongs, because most people never think they're wrong. And be sure to admit when you are wrong or contribute to a problem, because every situation is never one sided, and we all contribute to a conflict. "Ye who have no sin throw the first stone." Mhmmmm!!! The collective WE must be mature enough to take responsibility for our part, and to show forgiveness to others and attempt to right our own wrongs. I share this lesson in maturity because I too am applying it. I too struggle with it. I too suffer on the receiving end of it. I have great successes and I also have great failures in my lessons of maturity.

   None of us will ever be 100%. I know I desperately want to be, but I'd be happy with an 80/20, having the positive be the tipping point. I have righted a lot of wrongs in my self. I could not believe the positive response I have received from doing so and I am so grateful, and surprised. By being true to myself, so many areas have fallen back into place. The hardest part of fulfilling my own maturity is righting the wrongs of my past, whether it be my own self-sabotage or hurting others. Many if not most have allowed me that opportunity. There is a small few who are completely closed off to it, and they know that hurts me more. It makes me feel like a bad person, or the thought that I would never change is a sense of giving up on me. It's as bad as when people said to me in the past I would never open my own martial arts school. Shame on anyone who tells someone they will never do something, and the same goes for those who want to make a positive change for themselves to better themselves and better others. But I guess that too is a part of maturity. Knowing that with understanding comes acceptance, and when those who want to remain stuck and hold onto pain and disappointment, when those don't want to understand, we have to allow enough maturity to shower those people with compassion and forgive our own selves.

   Fight through the FEAR: Face Everything And Recover. Never lose FAITH: Feeling As If There's Hope. And always have HOPE: Hold On Possibilities Exits. These lessons come from SPIRIT and stays away from EGO. That is how we better ourselves and help others in the process. My lessons in maturity come mostly not from my successes, but from my shortcomings, my mistakes, and my failures. I share this so you can all be better than me. (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO