What's the point of youth sports?

A black belt instructor and international competitor who I really admire wrote on her Facebook page,

I feel sorry for those athletes and parents who have nothing in their lives but sports and the desire to win.

I completely agree and I was discussing this exact point yesterday with someone, let’s say their name was Bob, because it wasn’t and the sport was the McCluskey, North Dakota pee-wee rugby, because it wasn’t that either.

Bob was upset because his team wasn’t winning and he fumed,

No one can train with a coach who isn’t an expert. Why can’t you support my position?

I told him with my usual sweetness and diplomacy,

“I’m sorry but I can’t vote for your motion on the grounds that it’s a stupid idea. “

First of all, I have trained under plenty of coaches who were not experts and a couple who were complete morons. It’s up to you to get better. It’s you out there on the field or mat or in the ring.

What’s the point of youth sports?

No one cares who wins the North Dakota pee-wee rugby state championships except for the people who competed in it. Half of them don’t care either and the ones who do will have completely forgotten about it two years later. I won hundreds of local tournaments in my life and I remember almost nothing about any of them.

The value in amateur sports is much more than getting in better shape and learning some skills handling a ball, throwing a punch or applying an arm bar.

One thing you should learn is to persevere in the fact of difficulty. A second is to make accommodations to overcome obstacles, to man-up, woman-up and suck it up when things don't go your way. A third is to develop independence. A fourth is work ethic.

Here is what you do if you are on the McClusky pee-wee team, you get up, go to practice, work as hard as you can and try to get better.

Another thing you hopefully gain is a realistic perspective on your abilities. Unfortunately, the opposite often happens. As I helpfully explained to Bob,

Contrary to your belief, the entire team of the New Zealand All Blacks is not currently engaged in a fist fight over who gets to have the privilege of coaching the McClusky pee-wee rugby club. You have a coach who shows up to practice faithfully, is not falling down drunk and makes your players work out, so just hush.

But I can hear Bob now,

Oh, no, how can you say that! The McClusky Pee-wee Rugby club has potential to be the greatest rugby team that ever walked the face of the earth.

If that is so, when it occurs, I am sure they will get better coaching.  For now, though, all I see is a bunch of whiners who have missed the point of youth sports.

Fact check and disclaimer: There is in fact a place named McClusky, which a woman from there I met last night explained, "is located in the geographic center of North Dakota, which makes it literally the middle of nowhere."  There is in fact a sport called rugby and it is asserted by people who edit wikipedia that the New Zealand All Blacks are the greatest team in the world. I do not know whether McClusky in fact has a peewee rugby team and a resident named Bob, nor do I care.

================= Shameless Plug============

For other amazing coaching and life advice, as well as how to choke and armbar people, buy Winning on the Ground. Jim Pedro, Sr. and I wrote it.

What's in the Ronda Rousey Basket?

If you go to church events even a little bit you are probably familiar with the baskets that are raffled or auctioned off.

If you don't ever go to church then not only are you missing out on church (duh) but you are also lacking in cultural knowledge such as this.

Basically, whoever is organizing the event calls up various people and asks if you can get together a basket of something around a theme. A movie night basket might have popcorn, movie passes and big boxes of candy. A relaxation basket might have candles, bath salts and a pass for a spa.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is having a Casino Night on January 24, 2015 (yes, Saturday as in tomorrow) from 6 - 11 pm.
3883 Baldwin Park Blvd.
Baldwin Park, CA 91706

There is also a silent auction and raffle. It costs $30 and that includes card games, all you can eat and drink and brownie points with God thrown in free.

In case you are interested in going and bidding, here is what is in the Ronda Rousey basket. You can see the items picture above.

Autographed items
Large autographed poster
Medium autographed poster
8x 10" autographed photo
Autographed copy of Winning on the Ground
Autographed UFC  shirt

Non-autographed items
I will arm bar your soul t-shirt
2 Ronda Rousey American Beauty patches

Here is the link for more information on the Casino Extravaganza  - yes, the church has a Facebook page.

I won't be there, unfortunately, because I'm flying out to North Dakota on Friday night for the roll out of our latest game.

If you're in the area, though, drop in. You can probably pick up the basket for a much lower bid than something like this on ebay and Catholic churches in LA usually have amazing Mexican and Filipino food. Let me warn you, though, be CAREFUL with the margaritas. Those 80-year-old Mexican abuelitas can drink you under the table. I speak from painful experience.

I have no real problems

Here are my biggest problems today:

1. I had to turn down a couple of paying gigs to concentrate on building games. Our latest game, Fish Lake, is coming out next week and we have already started working on the next one. However, people don't pay you for the games that are "coming soon", so I turned down work that would for sure pay for work that I hope pays off.
2. I have annual passes to both Disneyland and the Aquarium of the Pacific, but since Dennis is working so hard on finishing the very last (ha!) bug in Fish Lake, I felt too guilty to take the day off work, even though I've worked the last 9 days straight. So, I stayed in and worked.
3. We only have Angry Orchard hard cider. I kind of liked that Twisted Pretzel beer and Shockolate Wheat we had at Christmas and now we are all out of both. There probably won't be pumpkin beer again until October. (The title of this post IS, I have no real problems.)
4. I have to be up by 10 am at the latest tomorrow to meet someone at the office and then I dress somewhat respectably because I have another meeting at 3:30, need to drive across LA in rush hour to be at the Santa Monica New Tech Reunion by 6:30. So, yes, I have to talk for one minute and have free beer and pizza (I told you I have no real problems).

My point is that we all get stressed out about things when, at least at the moment, we have no real problems.

Yes, if we don't sell enough games, then we won't be able to continue making them, we will have to lay people off and either Dennis or I might have to take a job that involves getting up before 10 a.m. EVERY day, driving into traffic EVERY day and  get dressed more or less respectably EVERY day  - or at least five days a week.

But wait, you might say, if you were still with me here, that is a REALLY HUGE problem, having to lay people off, etc. etc.

Well, yes, if it actually happens but we don't have any particular indication that it will. In fact, Fish Lake is going into six schools in five school districts the week it comes out and then we have another school scheduled for the following week, in a sixth district.

My point is that like most people, what I have are problems that fall into the three unreal varieties:

1. POTENTIAL problems. Maybe at some point we won't sell enough games. Or maybe we will, and we will make ONE TRILLION DOLLARS, everything will succeed exactly as planned and better and we will all be kings! Hurray! Either way, right now what I have is not a real problem but a potential problem if this happens and that happens and some other thing happens. Really what I worry about much of the time is things that could possibly happen - and they usually don't.

2. Problems that we choose to have. We live in Santa Monica. There are a great many places in the world where we could move that have a vastly lower cost of living. We could go live in a trailer in central Florida and pay $200 a month rent, live off of our retirement funds and never work again. That may seem like an extreme example, but the truth is many of us think we have problems because we have a certain material standard of living we insist on having. Having a choice isn't a problem. It's a privilege.

3. Problems that are actually minor inconveniences. I got a parking ticket because I forgot to move the car and Julia's car was parked in the garage downstairs. We are out of my favorite kind of beer. I have to get up earlier than I would like. I can't find a flash drive. My candy stash is low.

Next time you find yourself stressing about not finding a parking space, being late to a meeting or out of your favorite kind of beer, just remind yourself,

"I have no real problems."

When You Think of South Los Angeles, Think of Gompers Judo

When most people think of south Los Angeles, I don't think this is the picture that comes to mind, but here it is, a great photo of our new judo room. There are some great kids in south LA and I am so privileged to have them on our mats.

We got a room!

Ever since the judo program at Gompers Middle School was started we have been limited by the mat size. My sister donated money in my mom's name for her 80th birthday (my mom was turning 80, not my sister). She reasoned that after 80 years, you've probably bought whatever you wanted. 

We added more kids then, but shortly we had outgrown the mat area again. Well, a generous donation enabled us to buy some additional mats. Then, an even more generous donation from Dollamur Mats we were able to DOUBLE the mat area.

It gets better - with all these mats, we needed somewhere to store them. Well, the school moved us to a different building from the old gym where we had been practicing and now we have a PERMANENT JUDO ROOM AT THE SCHOOL!

How awesome is this?

 

Just let me brag a minute, too. Let's focus in on these pictures some. 

Because we had more mat area, we were able to allow another six students to join the program. I put each of them in with a group of two experienced players who had been doing judo six months or more.

Look at the picture above. One of the young men has been in judo at Gompers for 2 1/2 years. When he first started, I asked Jose Gonzalez, the teacher who sponsors the program,

Are you sure he can talk?

He said,

Yes,  I'm pretty sure he can but I've never heard him talk.

Now, here he is explaining to a new student how to do ippon seoi nage.

The picture below shows a couple of the young women teaching a new student. They could not be more different from the "mean girl" stereotype of middle school.

 You can also see another new girl being taught some of the finer points by Jimmy Sanchez, another school staff member who assists with instruction.

One reason we need an adequate mat size is we have a 4:1 student-teacher ratio, with usually four adult instructors on the mat for 16 students.

There wasn't any point to this blog post today except that I am super-happy about our new facility and equipment. I just wanted to share these pictures with you all and thank everyone who made it happen, from the bottom of my heart.

Sometimes You Need to Move On

Somebody can be the best coach in the world but that still doesn't mean that they are the best coach for you. Somebody can be the best coach for you now, but that doesn't mean they will be the best coach for you forever.

That was brought home to me today watching Ronda at practice.

Ronda has gotten noticeably better.

When she left Boston and started training in mixed martial arts, I suggested that she should still ask Jim Pedro, Sr. if he would coach her in judo. Jim is plain one of the best coaches in the world, and he also is a good person. Ronda agreed with that assessment and that he and his son, Jimmy, Jr. had taught her a lot of judo. However, she said that she thought it would be better just to train with the people in Los Angeles. Watching her train today, I was convinced that she made the right decision.

She has gotten better not just at mixed martial arts but also at applying her judo. If she had stayed in Boston, she would have been doing judo the way Jim has his players train, and why not? They have been the most successful judo program in the country for a decade. 

Sometimes, though, success is not your friend. I have seen this in judo at all levels, from the kid who has won the junior national championships three years in a row to the one who made the world team. I've seen it in mathematics, in business. When a suggestion is made for improvement, the answer is always,

We must be doing something right. We have won 25 junior national medals/ put 4 people on the Olympic team/ aced high school Calculus/ made a $100,000 profit.

Maybe you want to do something else , though.

What I noted watching Ronda today is she is in the driver's seat much more in her training. That is working for her. She has 17 years of experience competing in combat sports, eleven of those years at the highest possible level, in Olympics and mixed martial arts.

If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. Is that enough?

For some people it is. They like exactly where they are. For others, it's not.

The point many people miss is that moving on is not a bad thing. How many of you are at your first job, with your first boyfriend/ girlfriend? Many of you probably aren't even in your first career or first marriage.

That doesn't mean that those other jobs or people were horrible. It doesn't mean that those positions or people wouldn't be a wonderful fit for someone else. It just means that a time came when you thought the best thing to do was move on.

After I earned my Ph.D., I left the University of California and moved several states away for a job as assistant professor. No one at UCR said,

That ungrateful bitch! How could she do that after we taught her so much and supported her on fellowships for years?

On the contrary, they were all very happy for me and proud that I was doing well.

In martial arts, too often, when someone moves, we treat it like they abandoned their family, when we ought to be looking at it more like they graduated from college or got a new job.

What I learned this year

Today is a good day to reflect on what I have learned over the past year.

To admire people who admit they are wrong. 

It started a year or so ago when I ran across Tavis Smiley's book, Fail Up, in the public library. I'd never paid the slightest attention to him or his show, but the book was thought-provoking. Here was someone who talked about his most embarrassing failures.

I have run across a couple of columnists writing about what they got wrong in 2014, for example, this one on political predictions from fivethirtyeight.

 Many people grow up in environments where every mistake is attacked, taken as a sign of weakness or stupidity. As adults, they're less likely to admit to being wrong because they have equated making a mistake with being inferior and they have a giant need to prove themselves.

Being able to admit that you made a mistake takes maturity and self-confidence. Sometimes it takes overcoming your childhood.

That if I find myself repeatedly thinking, "I should ...." then whatever it is, I should just buckle down and do it.

Three examples of MANY

1. I bought a bike. I've been thinking for years of buying a bike. Now I bike into the office 2 or 3 days a week, do my banking and other errands around town on my bike. It helps me keep in shape, and being outside getting exercise puts me in a better mood whenever I get to wherever I'm going. I can't believe I didn't do this before. 
2. I cut back on other consulting and teaching so I could focus more on making games. I love my life and am shaking my head that I did not make this shift a year ago.
3. I replaced the carpet downstairs with wood floors. I had been meaning to do this for years. It looks much better and is so much easier to keep clean. I've probably saved half of what I spent on it already on carpet cleaning bills I didn't have to pay. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

To be grateful every day.

I read a good book with the title, Help, Thanks, Wow - the main point was that these were the only three prayers most people need. When I was young, there was a lot of, "Help!"  Now that I'm older, it's mostly, "Thanks."

I'm thankful for the good weather, even if it is a freezing 46 degrees right now, I remember living in North Dakota when it would not get above zero for six weeks or more. So, I'm grateful I live in Santa Monica.

I'm grateful that I'm as rich as I can possibly be in material terms because I have that most elusive of all possessions - enough. 

Jenn got married this year, in Las Vegas. The same place Dennis and I got married 17 years ago, with our friends secretly betting it wouldn't last five years. Now, we have a 16-year-old daughter who just got her driver's license. My family is wonderful, and I am grateful.

The importance of continuing to learn

Years ago, I had a department chair who put down on his faculty development plan form,

At my age, I figure not going backwards is an accomplishment. I figure I'm as developed as I'm going to get.

Back then, I thought he was funny.

Now that I am the same age, I disagree. This year, I learned more about javascript, css, specialized search engines, multivariate statistics, Ojibwe legends and books written by literary prize winners (mostly learned that I don't like those books).


I can't wait for what I will learn in 2015.