Always Take a Chance to Pee

   Opportunities. It is all about opportunities. If you have a chance, take it, cause once ya miss them, too bad so sad, they are gone. 

   Here are a couple of opportunities I was lucky/smart enough to be a part of just in this last week.

   Level one Young Dragon's class. Working on stick, specifically the opening bow. I had three Todais with me at the time. I was explaining the importance of a proper open-x stance. And then it happened, the opportunity that is. One of the Todais looked at me funny and said "that's an open-x?". Boom. Needless to say from that point forward, I was paying particular attention to my stances. Now it's not that my open-x was horrible, it just wasn't as deep or straight as it should have been. Opportunity presented to me, opportunity accepted by me, opportunity used to work on my stances. None of that would of happened if I hadn't taken the opportunity to help teach in the Kid's classes. 

   Saturday's Dragon practice. Not mandatory, but still, how could I not. We ran some, we sweat some, we got better at our poses, we learned each others moves, we bonded as a team. Golden opportunity, pure magic. 

   Then there was last night. I won't go into to many details, but this was THE opportunity of the year! The Black Belt Ceremony. The pride I felt in our school last night was life changing for me. To be privileged enough to be allowed to partake in this event is humbling to say the least. To be in the presence of this amazing group of people can't help but leave me in awe. The commitment, the raw emotion, the tears, the laughs, the passing of this knowledge from Master Brinker to his students, this is NOT to be missed without monumental regret. As I looked around the room and studied every detail I could, I found myself constantly on the verge of weeping, that's how much this night meant to me. And to top it off, I was there with my wife and son, my family, beside me, adding immeasurable depth to the importance of this night to me. Opportunity, this one is forever going to be next to impossible to beat.