Michelle Ray Cox

A personal blog
Michelle Ray Cox
  • About Michelle Ray Cox
  • Tag: martial arts

    • Character and Leadership from a Martial Artist View

      Posted at 10:06 am by Michelle Ray Cox, on August 11, 2019

      Courtesy

      Integrity

      Self control

      Before every class, seminar or tournament, we would recite those words as well as Perseverance and Indomitable Spirit. Important words but not germane to this blog. At a large tournament there might be hundreds of voices saying our Taekwondo Tenants in unison.

      I thought they were powerful words and principals then. I still do.

      I taught character development and leadership classes. I broke down what the meaning of those words were, we talked about what the action of the word looked like in real life. Here are some of the synonyms we came up with. Indulge me and take a few minutes and do your own list.

      Courtesy: Kindness. Helpfulness. Respect.

      (Be nice.)

      Integrity: Honesty. Decency. Fairness. Honor.

      (Do the right thing, even if no one is watching)

      Self Control: Impulse Control. Self restraint. Anger Management.

      (Control your words, your emotions, and your body)

      Character Development is one of the primary reasons parents enroll their kids in martial arts classes. Yes, we want them to learn how to defend themselves, and we know that strength, hand eye coordination and flexibility are good physical building blocks. But physical prowess and skill without character and leadership qualities is downright dangerous. Not just for kids, but for adults.

      I have returned money and declined to teach children and adults who I felt would not comply with the principles I taught. I felt they would be a danger to themselves and others, and that I had a moral responsibility to do the right thing, as I defined it.

      Now before you start pointing fingers and saying “but you did …( insert the crime)” Yes, I admit to not complying with my own teachings. I admit to failing, over and over in many ways. Because I will readily admit that I am not perfect. No one is. But I’ve also admitted it, and when possible made amends.

      While I owned a martial arts school I took my leadership role very seriously. How can you lead with integrity except through example? In public and in private

      How can you expect your child to learn about the how and why of behavior and morals if you do not demonstrate those characteristics yourself?

      Hypocrisy: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.

      Let’s talk about the deficit side of those character traits. Care to come up with your own? You can google it.

      The opposite of Courtesy?

      Rudeness. Contempt. Vulgarity. Making fun of.

      The opposite of Integrity?

      Dishonest. Deception. Corruption. Lying.

      And the opposite of Self Control?

      Rage. Greed. Lack of restraint.

      If you brought your child, or enrolled yourself in my school, I hope you would see kindness. Respect. Fairness. Decency. From myself and my staff. A culture that you felt was positive and worthwhile.

      If you saw a culture of rudeness, contempt, lying, greed and rage? I hope you would run as fast as you could. Even if the teachers were the greatest technical martial artists in the world, and could teach you unbelievable stuff, I would hope you would run. Because disregarding character to obtain a goal is hypocrisy, a type of prostitution in my opinion.

      I’m not going to talk about religion here except to say this. There are universal standards of morals and character in all spiritual practices. Even those that do not believe in a higher power (atheists) have a code of conduct, a belief in right and wrong. These character traits are covered under the Ten Commandments.

      If you know me, you know how I feel about Trump.

      This is why. This belief, perhaps naive but from deep within me, that a leader should demonstrate character. That putting a few dollars more into my bank account or watching the stock market increase is not a reason to accept this man who daily demonstrates all the worse characteristics that a human can show.

      I watch him, hear him, read him. This is not the media influence me. This is straight from his mean little mouth or his tweeting fingers.

      I see and feel the pain and rage in our country. Friends turning against friends, families hurt and separated. Because at some point when do we acknowledge that character is important? When do we hold him to the same standard that we would hold a school teacher, martial arts instructor, coach, employee?

      Take a week worth of his tweets. List them. Note the name calling. Contempt. Lies.

      Then tell me if you would want that individual teaching your children.

      I am disgusted down to my very core.

      Are you?

      If this post offends you, tell me why. I’ll give you the courtesy and respect of listening.

      Posted in politics | 2 Comments | Tagged character development, leadership development, martial arts, trump
    • Competiton and Fear

      Posted at 2:19 pm by Michelle Ray Cox, on March 8, 2010

      We went to a tournament in Fayetteville this weekend. The entire Sellers family; John and Jennifer, Sarah, Hannah and Ben competed in the white/yellow belt divisions for their age group. Heidi Mullins also made the trip for her first competition.

      Early in the day I was able to give Ben a big hug when he walked out of the ring carrying his two trophies. Because I was judging in another ring, I didn’t have the opportunity to see all of our guys compete. I caught little glimpses in between the action in my ring. But all of the LRMA students came home with two trophies each.

      That is not what this is about.

      While placing and winning a trophy is great, what impressed me was that these students got out on the floor and competed. I realize that many of our students could not make the trip because of other commitments or finances. But I wonder how many did not even consider competing because of fear.

      Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown.

      How often do we keep ourselves from experiencing something really great and rewarding because of fear?

      I wish you could have seen the huge smiles on our guys’ faces after their events. Yes there was fear, trepidation, nervousness beforehand. But that was overcome. Each of them stepped into the ring. They faced their fear.

      Look, you can’t grow if you don’t get out of the house. Yes, you may fail. You might mess up. And horrors! Someone might be better than you. So what? At least you got out there and DID something!

      To my students that have had the courage to step out on the mats and learn martial arts, I applaud you. So many want to do what you have done and haven’t the courage.

      To my students that have competed, you ROCK!

      To those of you that are still sitting on the sidelines, what are you waiting for? Here is an invitation…start right now. Take martial arts with us, or with someone else. Martial arts or ballet, soccer or oil painting, it doesn’t matter. Take this time you were given on this earth and grow in courage and confidence by getting off the couch!

      Posted in Life, martial arts | 0 Comments | Tagged competition, fear of competition, fear of failure, martial arts, tournaments
    • The thing about jumping rope is….

      Posted at 12:13 pm by Michelle Ray Cox, on January 9, 2010

      I’ve been getting some feedback from my students about our conditioning warm-up.  Some of the feedback has been non-verbal and consists of groans and rolling of eyes when I tell the class to “grab a jump rope”.   However, a couple of the students have been so enamored of jumping rope that they have written about it!

      Richard Schreiber wrote a journal entry today on the LRMA site:

      “I am new at jumping rope.  I can play every musical instrument invented except for drums and flute, I got a pilot’s license, manage a multi-million dollar company, owned a restaurant at age 23, fathered children, am a happily dutiful clergy spouse, can cook, and was an usher at the International Barbershop Quartet Convention.  I am terrible at jumping rope.

      I am getting better.  I started this new hobby in August when I re-upped at LRMA.  In the days of Mr. Hudson and Mr. Turley real men didn’t jump rope…and then Mrs. Ray came along.  In August I couldn’t get that rope around twice, now I can make it 30 seconds or so before that little timer in my brain says, “Miss it, and miss it”!

      Pre-school girls can jump for hours and giggle at the same time.  All of the women in adult class skip over the rope perfectly timed to the thumping music on Mrs. Ray’s iPod. 

      And then there’s Mrs. Ray.  She doesn’t jump rope like a girl.  She jumps like a person possessed, in double time, occasionally glancing at the clock wondering if we should go another couple of minutes. 

      Someday I hope to be good at jump rope.  Not like “Cinderella dressed in yellow”.  Maybe like, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee“.

       Jennifer Seller on Face book yesterday:

       “I can honestly say I HATE JUMPROPES!!! I WILL CONQUER THE JUMPROPE!!!”

      So what is the deal with jump ropes?

      With the advent of the New Year, I’ve been on a mission to get back on my workout routine.  After my test December 11, I took a few weeks off from training.  (The fact that I couldn’t walk on my right heel for a couple weeks did have something to do with that decision.  Four inches of wood for a board break did more damage to my heel than the boards)

      The break was nice, but time to get back to the routine.  If you there on December 11, you probably noticed that cardio and conditioning was a major component of my 5th Dan test.    If you weren’t there, let me just say that I was really glad I had been working hard on cardio and being in shape.  If I hadn’t, I would not have survived the test. 

      One of my favorite conditioning warm-ups came from Master Dring.  It includes jumping rope. 

      Two years ago I went to Master Dring’s for a workout at noon.  He told us to get the jump ropes out.  Ten minutes later I was a ball of frustration and my toes had welts on them.  I felt awkward and uncoordinated, and I was not a happy camper.  I chalked it up to a frustrating day, and forgot about it.

      The next class…same thing.  And I was just as awkward.  Plus I was gasping for air.  In retrospect, I might have been winded because I was holding my breath while trying to concentrate on jumping rope without bruising my feet.

      By the third class in a row, it became evident that jumping rope was going to be part of the workouts with Master Dring. 

      When I got back to the school I got online and ordered 30 jump ropes.  If I was going to have to jump rope, I was going to learn how to do it.  If I was going to learn how to do it (because it was good for me, right?) then my students were going to jump rope also. 

      Here is the thing about jumping rope.  If you are in my classes, you have probably figured out that jumping rope is going to be a part of your future.  It’s a great way to get cardio in, and it works on footwork and coordination.  I don’t think it’s the cardio that is the challenge (although I could be wrong) I think it is the coordination and footwork that is causing the problem.  Yes, I do see the clenched jaws and frowns of frustration on my student’s faces.  I know learning this new skill feels awkward.  Been there myself.

      It took a while, but I was eventually able to jump for 30 seconds or so without whacking my feet to shreds.  That is when it started to be fun.  There was the challenge of how long I could go without tripping.  Could I make it all the way through “Right Round” or “Boom, Boom, Pow”?  There are variations with the footwork and rhythm….feet together…two each side then two together…knees up…slow/fast….

      So now we put the jump rope together with Master Dring’s’ conditioning workout.

      This is the “getting back in shape” version:

      1 minute jump rope, then 30 seconds each jumping jacks, shuffles, squats, mountain climbers, pushups, ab work.

      We do three rounds.  It takes less than 15 minutes. 

      That is going to be the warm up for the next few weeks.   Fair warning!

      The “getting into better shape” version:

      We will work up to 2 minutes rope, 1 minute each of the rest of the components. 

      By our next test in February everyone is going to be in much better shape.  Hang in there with me guys!

      Posted in martial arts | 1 Comment | Tagged danny dring, fitness, martial arts, Taekwondo
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