Off-balance with Purpose

It’s sort of weird, the timing of things. I was planning to write a note entitled “Balance and Force Projection”, sharing some of my thoughts on center-of-gravity, as it relates to karate-do. On Tuesday, I attended a motivational training seminar (ho-hum, I thought)…which turned out to be an extremely entertaining session, taught by a professional juggler, unicyclist, drummer, etc entertainer, who also taught some profound lessons in life. He also gave some short references to his church and pastor and talked about spiritual growth being one of the five major areas we balance in life. What struck me was that his lessons centered around the very subject I was planning to share, except where I was thinking about Balance vs Force Projection, he was talking about Balance vs being Off-Balance with a Purpose. He talked about learning to balance on a 6-foot high unicycle, then learning to move where ever one wanted to go, by leaning in the direction one aimed at. He also talked about the intracacies of juggling 3, then 4, then 5 objects and the necessary change-ups in patterns to do so. He talked about faith in taking risk, added to the responsibilities of due diligence prior [...]

From punching and kicking to praise and worship

This morning, our ministry sempais and senseis took a large step outside of their comfort zone and led praise/worship at todays’ NHPC church service. What started as a passing thought when members were talking story after a training session some months ago, ultimately became reality, powered by His spirit and our obedience. In that fateful discussion, someone noted how most of our senior members played various musical instruments and enjoyed singing. We laughed about creating a “karate ministry worship band”…but the joke was on us. As I was talking with Pastor Nando at Men’s Ministry early one morning and shared our “joke”…he immediately invited us to do so one Sunday, and asked for a date. And so it evolved that we actually committed to leading P/W one morning, early in 2006…during the two-week window that Sensei Trish would still be home for winter break (we’d definitely need the first two weeks of her break (late Dec) to do some practice). Sempais Doreen and Robert generously opened their home (complete with sound room) to our wannabe band and provided great snacks and hospitality. All band members were timely and tried to make it to practices during this holiday season. Everyone was [...]

Singing Karateka

Pictures from this morning’s adventures in leading praise & worship at New Hope Pearl Community are now available in the Photo Gallery. Enjoy!