This past weekend I attended in a Judo BC training seminar in Campbell River. The NCCP Dojo Assistant course prepares individuals who are on a teaching track to take greater responsibility in assisting delivery of instruction. The seminar, led by officials from Judo BC, was overseen by Sensei John Huntley (7th Dan) of Aberdeen Judo in Kamloops. In attendance were numerous club Senseis and a Vice-President of Judo Canada. It was a sea of black belts. I was the lowest ranked guy in the room.

Intense? Oh, boy ...

I woke at 4 AM and drove for three hours through the wind-swept pre-dawn dark, fueled by a combination of coffee and David Bowie, to arrive at Campbell River Judo Club by 9 AM. We plunged right in, starting with several hours of classroom work. First there was a course overview followed by a morning of ethical instruction. The facilitators stepped us through a decision-making process that guided our consideration of various hypothetical scenarios. It forced us to examine the way we approach decisions that affect the welfare of our athletes. After a break we hit the mats, where Sensei Huntley proceeded to run us ragged.

Because judo is a traditional sport we sometimes tend to do things simply because "that's the way we've always done it." From the start Sensei Huntley made it clear that more was expected of us. The ethics stuff pulled us out of our comfort zone, and the forty-five minute warm-up he conducted continued that trend. Sensei modeled alternative ways for us to prepare our judoka for class. This wasn't your standard "fifty push-up, fifty sit-up, fifty leg-raises" model - we worked kinesthetic systems using games, equipment (such as balls and bean bags, lengths of rubber tubing), adaptive sport, etc. More than a few of us were breathing heavily by the end, but Sensei John hadn't even cracked a sweat. (He's seventy-two.)

For the next several hours we alternated between mat time and classroom instruction. It was challenging, even for those of us with an education background, because we had to simultaneously hold two opposing principles in mind: the need for innovation and the importance of tradition. Again and again we were told: "You are only limited by your own imagination." But just when we were getting used to the idea of Twenty-First Century "sci-fi" judo, Sensei Huntley would point to a wall and bark: "What's that called?" And we were expected to respond promptly with the traditional Japanese term (for the record: kamiza, shimoza, joseki and shimoseki). Then it was back to the books for CAC-mandated instruction on safety standards, teaching methodology, energy systems, lesson planning ...

The most fun came with our presentations. I got to see black belts and brown belts from all over the Island demonstrate how they teach things. I could go on for hours about how Sensei Fiandor from Nanaimo Judo uses basic movements and physical proximity to teach both newaza and taichi-waza techniques. Or how Sensei Darcy of Campbell River magically combines theory and practice to teach you nine different things before you're even aware he's doing it. Or how Sensei Jeremy's five-minute presentation on gripping and footwork challenged my entire concept of shiai. These are wildly talented people who transformed my understanding in leaps and bounds. I must have gained a month of growth in the first day's nine hour session.

The trend continued on Sunday with greater focus on instruction and mat time. We were supposed to do partner presentations but my partner had to bail for health reasons, which left me on my own. I did two presentations, one on bowing and etiquette and another on fundamentals of throwing. Both were generally well received, and I got some useful feedback on how to improve. The challenge for me will be going from a conceptual teaching model to a conceptual/kinesthetic model. I have a sense of where I'm going, and even some sense of how to get there. But now I'll need some practical experience coaching. Fortunately, Sensei Mike has already begun making that happen for me.

All in all it was an amazing weekend. The best part for me came when a chance phone call with my friend Leah (at whose place I was staying) ended with Sensei Huntley's coming over for dinner. Our conversation with him could be a whole separate entry. But he filled us in on his regular visits to Japan, where he still competes (!) and pursues his own professional development with high-ranking members of the Kodokan. Judo for him, as for all of us, is a life-long committment and path toward realizing our full potential. The Dojo Assistant Course provides a vehicle for us to share that with the next generation. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to participate. Domo-arigato.

NCCP Dojo Assistant Training Course class photograph
Campbell River Judo Club,  21 - 22 January 2012

You always want to finish strong.

Just came indoors after watching the sun set on the shortest day of the year. 2011 is almost a memory. This was the year I underwent the candidate selection process for various law enforcement positions, including the RCMP. I'll never forget running the grueling PARE physical aptitude course for the second time in a single day (more or less on a dare) and coming around the curve for the final lap, my breath ragged as the backwash of a barb-wire garrote and feet churning to mush in my running shoes, to encounter a female Constable by the final obstacle urging me: "C'mon man, finish strong, finish strong!"

I did. In the end, despite my satisfactory PARE time (4:17), the RCMP decided they had more suitable candidates. The parting of the ways was entirely amicable (forty-five is a little old to begin a career in law enforcement) so I stepped out of the selection process. But I took its lesson to heart.

This was the year my young-adult sci-fi novel ECHO was accepted for publication. The run-up to the final release was rocky, what with dropped e-mails, misunderstandings with agents and the Apocalypsies debacle (which prompted Nick Mamatas to quip something about the genius of trying to differentiate one's self by being part of a group). But then ECHO appeared. In e-book format, but hey - published is published. A paperback edition was planned. The novel received strong reviews. Copies were moving. Then my publisher went bankrupt.

Hell of a way to begin a career.

Listen. Publishing your first book is always a traumatic experience. But having your publisher cave three months after release - with yours being the last book they ever publish - doesn't exactly inspire self-confidence. But a lifetime of being on the short side (5'6") - combined with a varied and violent day-job in security and a taste for brutal hobbies like judo - has taught me how to take a punch. (Plus I've always been a stubborn son-of-a-bitch.) Even as the year began its own final lap, I was laying the ground-work for a come-back. Must be something in the air. A hurricane of late seasonal work struck a number of people including my friend and judo sister Leah, whose company Tremain Media is working fast and furiously right now to complete its Kwak'wala Liqwala Language Documentary & Preservation Project in time for Christmas ("or what's left of it," as Roger Moore quipped in The Wild Geese). It occurs to me that while leading a film crew is like being a battlefield general (Leah is more than equal to the task), being an ambitious sci-fi writer during this period of tectontic upheaval in publishing is more like being a guerilla insurgent. I have looked to the Viet Cong playbook on more than one occasion. But when Drollerie went tits-up and I was left star-crossed on the last bus to Chinatown, I took matters into my own hands, donned my black pajamas and tunneled deep, my AK in the crook of my arm.

This is not a dream, I told myself. You've been here before.

Selena Green, former Marketing VP of Drollerie, had gone off and started her own company, Typeset, Inc. On the strength of an eleventh-hour decision, I e-mailed her with an offer to form a limited partnership to re-release ECHO in a second edition. A flurry of e-mails were exchanged. The resulting concern, TSI/FTOC Productions, began work on 9 November. The next few weeks were a blur of late nights and early mornings, planning, proofing, sending (losing and re-sending) e-mail attachments. By December 2nd we had completed proofs for paperback and new Kindle editions. We partnered with Create Space to see the printing end through, nailed the final few details to the ground and ECHO Mark II went live on Amazon.com this morning. Winter Solstice.

There are other developments - short fiction pieces pending, a burgeoning relationship with a very supportive literary agent (who must yet remain nameless), possible new releases on the CBC website, the manuscript of a new novel that I plan to finish by the end of December ... Lots of stuff. But holding a hardcopy of a novel I spent five years championing is enough for now. We'll call it a year.

Finish strong, man.