Excellent Connections
Excellent Connections
Here at True Balance Karate in Downers Grove, Illinois, we have a social emotional learning program called True Character. I’m Master H, the owner and chief instructor here at the studio. I have two master’s degrees in education and we’ve developed this curriculum to meet the needs of our youngest students who are three or four, and our oldest student who is 85.
This month we’re talking about excellence, working hard to reach our goals and being the best that we can be. It’s about making yourself one little piece better every single day, and it starts with recognizing what those goals would be. What is it that we want to achieve? What is it that we’re striving for? What gains have we already seen, and how much further do we have to go?
Then it continues with asking questions, asking questions of the right people, asking good probing questions. Ones that will give us more information and make us a little bit smarter. It’s not just asking, “What are we doing? Where are we going? What’s going on?” But actually asking about a topic, finding out more information, working on making ourselves a little bit smarter and a little bit more knowledgeable.
Excellent Empathy
Today we’re talking about feelings. We’re talking about excellence with our feelings, which involves making connections with other people, and how do we go about doing that, because connections is part of being human. We need to make sure that we’re making eye contact. We need to make sure that we’re being supportive of each other. We need to make sure that we are being kind and caring and helpful to those around us. That’s all part of showing excellence in our feelings and in our emotions and in how we take care of each other.
Active Listening
Another way goes back to how we ask questions. It’s showing that we’re focused, which means that we’re listening. Everybody likes to be heard. Everybody likes to know that someone was listening. So how do we go about doing that? Well, one of the things that I personally like to do is to repeat back what I just heard. When there’s a student here at the studio and he’s sharing about something that went on that day, I’ll actually repeat some of what I’ve heard. “Really? It was a green dragon that you saw today? Tell me more about that.” It just reinforces the fact that somebody cares and somebody is listening and that I’m being heard right now.
I’ll do the same thing if we’re having a heated discussion or a debate between two topics, like with my kids at home or something like that, actual debate, not me telling them what to do as Mom. “What do you think about something? Really? You said this point in your thought processes. Tell me more about that.” To get them to think more, to get them to realize that someone’s actually listening for the sake of listening and not listening to be able to speak back.
Too often we listen, not because we’re trying to grow our knowledge, but we’re trying to come up with something to say back, and if we stop for a moment and show our excellence in terms of how we make connections, listening is now so that we can listen and learn and grow and then share back. Notice it’s more at the end.
Making Connections
When we’re talking about excellence in asking good questions like we did last week, it carries over into this week and how we make connections to show that we care. And it’s eye contact, it’s good listening skills, it’s showing that kindness, it’s offering a smile. For those that like it, maybe a hug. It’s showing different ways that we are connected, that we are together, that we are all striving to be better than we were yesterday or better than we were five minutes ago. And that’s how we can show our excellence when it comes to how we connect with fellow human beings.
Next week, then, we are going to talk about how we show excellence to ourselves with our bodies and those types of things. It’s really a whole person idea, if you will, our mind and our body, and our feelings. We will continue excellence next week.
Thanks, and I’ll see you on the mat!
True Balance Karate was founded in 2012 by Master Sue and Paul Helsdon.
We offer kids karate lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up. These lessons are designed to develop the critical building blocks kids need — specialized for their age group — for school excellence and later success in life.
Our adult martial arts training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay) in shape, or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.
Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 630-663-2000. You can also contact us here. True Balance Karate is at 406 Ogden Ave Downers Grove Illinois, 60515 (next to CVS) Check out our Facebook!
