Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts: Advance Your Career Like A Warrior! 9798600499607

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Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts By Dr. Bryan Stoops Acknowledgments This book is dedicated to my wife and children. My children are aware of what I’m about to write: when I was younger, having kids was not really something that was important to me. I was just focused on other things. I became a father at the age of twenty-eight. My wife and my two kids are the center of my universe and everything I work for is to make the world a better place for them. This book is dedicated to my parents and my maternal grandparents. I lost my Grandfather during my sophomore year of college. I was grateful for the time I had with him. My Grandmother celebrated my forty-first birthday with me, and then passed a few weeks later at the age of ninety-three. I’m grateful for my upbringing. Lastly, this book is dedicated to my martial arts instructors, my seniors, my colleagues, my juniors, and my own students. I once read that people in your life often fade in and out with little fanfare. The constants have been there for the long haul. The years are also filled with people that came and went, both in classes and academies at which I was training, and in my own practice as a martial arts teacher. At this point, I hope everyone got what they wanted, even if they came and went. Life is too short to misspend your money, time, or energy. For those who will actually take the time to read this book, thank you very much. You have given me a great gift. You have given me your most precious, non-renewable resource: your time. My promise to you is to make this investment of your time pay off in multiple ways and in multiple areas of your life. This book was written with much love, and (however naive it makes me) with the desire to make people happier and make the world a better place. Those are larger, loftier goals. We’re going to get there by helping you

advance your career like a warrior, and by helping you get that promotion and that raise that you deserve, all while keeping your integrity. We have a lot of work to do, so...let’s go. Bryan Dr. Bryan Stoops Roosevelt Island, New York City December, 2019

In Addition In January of 2020, I was in Montreal on a training trip, working during the evenings on this first self-published edition of this book. I had more travel in February and March, and then the world shut down. I’m writing this in mid January of 2021 in our new apartment in Forest Hills, Queens. I truly believe that the world will reopen and approach normalcy again in about five months. When that happens, this book will be incredibly topical for a lot of people starting over, or looking to move ahead. It’s time to make a hard copy of this book available.

Introduction: Why Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts? It’s a very logical question: “What on earth do the Filipino Martial Arts have to do with advancing one’s career?” First, let’s clarify something. Just like there are a multitude of islands that make up the Philippines themselves, there are a staggering amount of different Filipino Martial Arts systems. There are even regional terms one might hear such as “Escrima”, “Kali”, or “Arnis”. The problem is that because there are so many different systems, sometimes practitioners use up time that could be spent training on arguing about terminology. One of my primary instructors, an amazing man named Dan Inosanto, (and I’ll use terms like “Guru” and “Sifu”, both are different ways to address one’s teacher, and yes, I know most Filipinos prefer “Guro” over “Guru”, but most westerners know the version the ends with a u) was given some sage advice early in his martial arts teaching career. The advice he received was to refer to all of those arts by the blanket term “The Filipino Martial Arts”, or the FMAs. He was given that advice by his father, Sabastian Inosanto (a respected, almost Ceasar Chavez-like figure for the Filipino American people in Stockton, California, a city with a large Filipino American population). In the same way that “Kung Fu” is a widely accepted term for the martial arts coming out of China, “Filipino Martial Arts” is a blanket term for the martial arts coming out of the Philippines. The FMAs are very often characterized by training with sticks and bladed weapons (even though the FMAs go way beyond those weapons configurations). So, why Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts? When one trains in the FMAs, in a very short time, no matter the age, height, or strength of the individual, the practitioner will be whizzing sticks through the air at over one hundred miles per hour. In short order, the practitioner will be developing skills to fight with blades. On an expedited time frame, the practitioner develops physical skills and coordination most never thought possible in their lifetimes. Why Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts? Because the FMAs change your DNA in terms of the way one carries himself/herself in the world. The FMAs lead to a dynamic command presence, or the ability to

capture the attention of one hundred percent of everyone in every professional space the practitioner enters. The FMAs will be the vehicle for all those out there reading this to advance their careers while retaining their secret weapon: their integrity. I’m going to make this idea very explicit for all those of you reading this: if you are stuck in your career (and I’ve been there), your promotion and your raise are a gateway. Yes, they are a gateway for you to have the income and the life you want and deserve. The promotion and your raise are also the gateway you must step through because your company needs you to assume your new position (and the salary that goes with it). You might not be ready to hear that, and that’s okay. I’m going to share that idea with you anyway: your company (and your entire industry) needs you to get your promotion and your raise, but your company needs you to walk through that gateway with your integrity intact. You have a unique, creative, professional voice that you must not compromise (and it’s so tempting to do so, especially when it seems like the “loudmouthed jerks” are the only ones having their ideas heard, and their ideas are never that good). That is one of my greater purposes in writing this book: I want to get you through that gateway and to the other side without giving into the temptation to start acting just like the people who seem to be getting ahead even though they don’t have as much to bring to the table as you. Getting your promotion and your raise by doing that is to sell out, and your unique, professional voice is too important to compromise. The FIlipino Martial Arts are going to be your vehicle for this transformation. I’m going to help you develop a dynamic command presence. I’m going to help you advance your career like a warrior. I’m going to help you get that promotion and that raise while keeping your dignity intact. Let’s define exactly who should be here: 1. If you are feeling stuck and stagnant in your career, you are the primary type of reader for whom I’m writing this book. 2. If you are a Filipino Martial Arts practitioner/aficionado and you would like to read about how the FMAs can be utilized in another life context, this is an excellent book for you to read. 3. If you like martial arts, but you don’t have time for regular classes (either in an Academy or online), this book is your opportunity to harness the power of martial arts to make your

career (and thus your life) better, which is the whole point of martial arts. That was actually a huge part of why I decided to create Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts in the first place: I know that martial arts are a vehicle for people to make their lives better, but I also know that there are people out there who, as much as they truly want to train, they simply cannot at this time. One of my FMA instructors has a very good expression. He says to train in the martial arts (of any kind), one needs three things: 1. Time 2. Money 3. Health (to be healthy enough to train) That same instructor (his name is Master Virgil Cavada) also says that very often in life, we only have one or two of those resources, but one or two only is not enough. We need all three to be able to train in the martial arts. I have written this book for those who do not have all three at this time so that martial arts might be used beyond the traditional ways (an academy, a gym, a training group, private lessons, online lessons) for people to make their lives better. It’s very easy to fall back to antiquated ideas, and label anyone who says he/she doesn’t have all three of the resources above as “not really wanting to train”. I’m simply choosing to give people the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, if it’s something you want, you will be able to train one day. In the meantime, this book is for you so you can make your life better. Also, the statistical reality is that of the people that do enroll in regular martial arts classes, most will not make it past their first year. That is a very real statistic. If that is a quantitative reality, this book is my attempt to help people make their lives better through martial arts, which is my life’s work anyway. Again, you might be here, reading this because you’re stuck in your career, and you don’t know where to turn, and the more time that goes by, the more professionally bitter you become. You might not have given any kind of martial art a moment’s thought, but you really want to get ahead professionally and not have to sacrifice your integrity to do so. That’s okay too. You’re also in the right place.

If you are not a martial artist, and you have no interest in martial arts, but you know that you deserve to take the next step in your career, but you’re unsure of how to do so, you’re still in the right place. This book is also a tool for non-martial artists who are tired of all the same advice (HR people telling you to “just be yourself”, without giving you explicit steps to follow). My only group that might need a disclaimer here are martial artists who think I’m taking the “martial” out of the arts. I’m going to explain this one more time: the statistical reality is that of the people who enroll in regular martial arts classes, most won’t make it past their first year. With that reality in mind, and the understanding that today, martial arts are a buyer’s market and not a seller’s market, I have written this book. There is so much martial arts information out there today, that my readers owe it to themselves to be honest about what they really want. I wanted to write a book for those people out there to make their lives better through martial arts who might not want to become lifelong martial arts practitioners. Tony Blauer, a recognized name in self-defense, has a brilliant analogy: for lifelong martial artists to scoff at someone taking a short martial arts course, or one-day seminar, or weekend long martial arts workshop is like a board-certified heart surgeon scoffing at a layperson taking a one-day CPR certification. Only a minority of a minority will stay the course to become a renowned heart surgeon. We all realize that. However, it would be ridiculous for the heart surgeon to think nobody can learn anything of value at a one-day CPR class. Martial artists who are “lifers” tend to react to people in a similar way as that hypothetical heart surgeon did when people display the intent to do anything less than practice martial arts forever. That’s what I’m trying to get at here. That’s the why of this book, the why of my writing it, and the why of my putting this book out into the world. If the reality is that the majority of the population will not go all the way to black belt or instructor in one style, much less multiple styles, how can I create something that will still allow people to harness the transformational power of the martial arts to make their lives better? In this case, I want people to harness the power of the Filipino Martial Arts to develop a dynamic command presence in order to advance their career like a warrior. Because the last thing I like to do is waste anyone’s time, for my experienced martial artists out there who still think I’m taking the “martial”

out of the arts, if you don’t accept that martial arts have any value beyond the walls of an academy/gym/training group/private lesson/virtual class, this might be a good time for you to bail. I don’t want to waste your time. If you’re going to go because you think I’m selling out the FMAs, I’ll just share that at the time of this writing I have fifty stick fights at Dog Brothers Gatherings and that I’ve been a full Dog Brother since 2008. I’m 5’7” and I have done most of my fights in leather work gloves (one small step up from gardening gloves) and not hockey gloves. I’m also going to write that I love the Filipino Martial Arts, and the last thing I would ever want to do is sell out the FMAs. Again, I’m harnessing the power of the Filipino Martial Arts to help more people beyond the traditional methods (group classes, private lessons, training groups, etc). I’m trying to give the gift of a tried and true pathway for personal development (the Filipino Martial Arts) to people in another delivery system (this book) as a one off to bring about positive change and help people. For those who did not really “get” the last paragraph, I have a history with a group that pressure tests the Filipino Martial Arts with a minimum of protective equipment to examine the Art in the most realistic way possible. As a reader of this book, you get to benefit from my fifty fights in that environment without having to put your body through that. I’ve done it for you! At this point, I hope I’m clear about the Why of this book. I hope I’m clear about what we will be accomplishing together in the pages to come. I hope I’m clear about who this book is intended for (as I don’t want to waste anyone’s time). If all of that is clear, grab your figurative “training gear” (all you really need is an open mind and the ability to be honest with yourself), and let’s head out on our Career Command Journey! As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I

encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

My Story: The Martial Arts Piece In the authentic spirit of not wasting anyone’s time, let’s be real honest with one another: you’re not here because of my background. You don’t care about my background: you care about what my background can do for you. That’s fine and that’s fair. I want to establish a little bit of background in two areas and explain the convergence of those two areas, but what I’m really getting at here is to properly explain the five shifts. The five shifts that I discovered when I developed Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts will immediately get you on the road towards your promotion and your raise. The first area in which I want to start is the martial arts. Martial arts was hit and miss for me as a child, adolescent, and young adult. I saw the 1984 version of The Karate Kid when I was in elementary school. I took a few months of Karate and then stopped training. Around the age of eleven, I really enjoyed early Jean Claude Van Damme movies, and I wanted to learn to kick, so I studied Tae Kwon Do for three years. High school theater arts started taking up most of my after-school time in high school, so I stopped training at fourteen. After I had my driver’s license, I took around six months of Aikido as a junior in high school, but that was a very intense school year and I didn’t last. As a freshman at UCLA, the theater department there made it mandatory for freshmen to take eight months of Tai Chi. That awakened my interest in the arts (not that I ever really lost my interest). From nineteen through twenty-two, I studied Shaolin Kempo. My instructor broke away from a large chain after I finished my second year of studying with him. I was given an instructor’s belt, and for my third year (and my senior year of college), I helped teach the bulk of the group and private lessons at that school with another college-aged instructor. The school did not make it past that first year and closed down. From about the age of nine through all of the various training I just went over with you, I always read about Bruce Lee, Dan Inosanto, and the other instructors and systems of martial arts associated with that lineage. I read Black Belt Magazine, Inside Kung Fu, and my parents bought me books and VHS tapes about those systems. The two things that always interested me the most were Wing Chun/Jun Fan hand trapping and stick fighting. At the age of twenty-five, I had completed my first years of full-

time teaching. I taught high school English at a school in eastern Los Angeles County and I had bought a little townhouse in southern California. I was looking online for a martial arts school, and I discovered The Kali Academy in Whittier, California, not all that far away from where I taught English. The Head Instructor and Founder of The Kali Academy, Sifu Bud Thompson, is a Full Instructor (equivalent to 6th degree black belt) under Guru Dan Inosanto, and Sifu Bud is the founder and head instructor of The Kali Academy. I started training with Sifu Bud and his talented teaching staff in the early 2000’s. My feeling was that I had finally found the martial arts I was looking for my entire life. I started my training off attending classes at The Kali Academy three days a week, which quickly turned into four, five, and then six days a week for those first few years. Here is a photo of Sifu Bud:

I was going to go into more detail, but this is all leading to the five shifts. So, about sixteen years later, I’m an instructor (equivalent to black belt) in four different styles of Filipino Martial Arts, and I’m studying three other styles here in New York City because I love the Filipino Martial Arts, continuing to seek out quality people and learn from them is something that was modeled for me, and I never want to stop learning, no matter what I achieve. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the

subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

My Story - Bryan the Educator I grew up involved in the performing arts. As I wrote above, I attended UCLA and earned my B.A. in theater. While I grew up in southern California, I lived in Las Vegas for a year after I graduated. I got to Vegas just about a month and a few days before the tragedy of 9/11 affected our entire country. While I still managed to work, 9/11 decimated the tourism industry, and with it entertainment. I ultimately decided to move back to southern California, and to be honest, I was living back with my parents for a time, and I was a little unclear about what to do next. One night, I was having a conversation with a friend. She taught elementary school, and reminded me that I had always taught. The year I helped run the martial arts school (during my senior year of college), I taught children and adults martial arts in both group and private lessons. During college, I worked for a children’s theater company in my hometown, and I taught stage combat, and acting. At UCLA, I had taken Educational Theater and written some curriculum for the high school level, and I had really enjoyed that experience. I decided to serve as a substitute teacher for the majority of an academic year. I subbed for teachers of all levels, and ultimately decided that high school was the best fit for me. I started my coursework to earn my teaching credential, and a few months later, I got very lucky; I found a position teaching high school English for which I received a full-time salary (as opposed to doing traditional student teaching for free). I had what was called an Intern Credential (I’m not even sure if those still exist today, but that was the very early 2000’s). I was teaching full-time and attending classes in the evening to earn my credential. As I finished up that year, and earned my credential, that was when I bought my townhouse and started my martial arts journey with Sifu Bud as I described to you earlier. The Intern Credential had allowed me to earn a salary instead of having to go through traditional student teaching (which is unpaid). As I moved into my second year of teaching, I started coursework to earn my master’s degree in educational multimedia. I took classes part time for two years, and at the end of my third year of teaching, I worked on, and ultimately finished my master’s project. I created a half written thesis and half DVD with over ninety minutes of content. The topic of my master’s project was Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s Martial Art) to make the K-12

classroom teacher functional. If I’m being honest, that project was great fun and (mostly) very easy, because I was creating content around the martial arts, which, obviously, is a topic about which I’m passionate. After teaching high school English at the same school for three years, I had the opportunity to teach junior high school computer technology (afterall, I had just earned my master’s in educational multimedia) at a junior high in the same school district. I also used my educational technology to teach Yearbook/Journalism at the same school. After five years, I was ready for a change, so I went back to teaching high school English in another school district for a year. That was during a hard time in terms of the state budget, so while the principal of that high school was unable to ask me back due to seniority issues, I got lucky and ultimately ended up at another high school where I taught for six years. Those six years are undoubtedly the best teaching I ever did in my career. During the late 2000’s, I started my doctoral journey. Coursework took three years, and I originally wrote a proposal to write my dissertation to run a study to see if managers and principals who studied martial arts as a hobby were manifesting characteristics of transformational leadership on the job. I’m only sharing that to illustrate that I was always looking for ways to cross-pollinate my martial arts practice with my K12 educator practice. The proposal for the martial arts-related dissertation, while guided by my adviser, a graduate of the same program and a superintendent at a local school district, was ultimately not accepted. While I would have preferred my original topic, I ended up writing my dissertation on teacher leadership, and in 2011, I earned my Doctor of Education Degree with a focus on organizational leadership. During this time, I had a common expression, that I would either be an administrator with an amazing martial arts training group, or a teacher with a doctorate and a commercial school. I started teaching martial arts classes in my garage a few days a week right after I successfully defended my dissertation. My garage academy was a legitimate, semi-professional business. I had a home-based business license, insurance, and equipment. I started teaching in my garage to build up enough students to open a commercial school. Through a lot of twists and turns, I opened and closed two part-time martial arts schools in commercial spaces during the following years. I also applied for jobs as a K-12 administrator. I applied for many, many jobs and

interviewed again and again. I finally was offered an administrative position in 2015. I served as a high school administrator in eastern Los Angeles County for three years. The first year was amazing, almost to the point that I was very spoiled. The second year was a mix of great and not so great. The third year made it very clear that I could not continue on my journey as a K-12 administrator. Being an administrator was not fitting the needs of my family (the hours are crazy long as a high school administrator), and while I kept up my practice, my martial arts were suffering. I started applying for teaching jobs and made up my mind to go back into the classroom. In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to speak at UCLA on the topic of my master’s project: using the philosophy of Bruce Lee to make the K-12 classroom teacher functional. Here’s a photo from that talk:

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During applications and interviews, through a number of twists and turns, I had the opportunity to move to New York City, and teach high school English at a charter school in Brooklyn. My wife and two kids moved with me on August 1st, 2018. I went into my teaching with high hopes to find a new home in a supportive learning community, and to find a job that would better allow me to be there for my family. Ultimately, the charter school was not a fit for me. I went into it with the best of intentions and I really gave it my all. It was my first charter school experience, and while it broke my heart, I had moved from one job that did not fit my life into another job that was ultimately not for me either. I made the decision, however scary, to “pull the trigger” and become a full-time martial arts instructor. This book you are now reading is one of the results of that decision. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no

obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

My Story - Convergence: Master of Two Worlds The late, great Joseph Campbell is one of my heroes. Campbell was educated at Columbia and worked as a professor of mythological studies for decades at Sarah Lawrence College. Cambell’s theory of the Hero’s Journey, or the Monomyth, explains how mankind has been retelling the same story for centuries across different cultures. In short, a seemingly ordinary hero is plucked from the everyday world. The hero receives guidance from an aged mentor figure, acquires friends (and maybe even a love interest), which raises the stakes because if the quest is unsuccessful, evil will cover the earth. Through a series of trials, the hero is reborn and becomes the version of himself/herself necessary to successfully complete the quest. The hero, now having served his/her purpose, and completed the quest, struggles with how to live in the ordinary world he/she inhabited before the quest began. As you read that description (and I’m just going to let you know ahead of time that this is a trick question), what story was I describing? Some of you read a description of Star Wars, while others were reading a description of The Hunger Games. Lord of The Rings, The Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, Beowulf, and so on (and there are many more). That’s just a short list of some of the stories that might have come to mind, or you might have even gone to The New Testament, or even the original Indian story of Buddha. Campbell’s genius was recognizing that human beings are unified in their retelling of the same kind of story and the constant use of the same tropes and archetypes. The Hero’s Journey model has seventeen steps and three phases. The sixteenth (and second to last) step is called Master of Two Worlds. Master of Two Worlds is the step in which the hero reconciles his/her knowledge of the world of the quest (which is often magical or mystical and knowledge of this world often requires the hero to give up being naive) and his/her knowledge of the everyday world. In the Master of Two Worlds step, the hero finally reconciles the new version of himself/herself he/she discovered during the trials of the quest and the orignal, everyday version of himself/herself that was “destroyed” during the Apotheosis step of the story. The version of the hero the audience meets at the beginning of the quest could never complete the quest the way he/she is

when the story begins. The hero must undergo the Apotheosis through the Road of Trials. The hers discovers the new version of himself/herself who can actually complete the quest. In some Hero’s Journey stories, that requires an actual physiological death and rebirth. The version of the hero that emerges is radically different from who he/she was at the beginning of the story. After the quest is over, there are occasional Hero’s Journey stories in which the hero is so changed, he/she cannot reintegrate into the ordinary world from which he/she came (think Frodo from The Lord of the Rings). In most Hero’s Journey stories, it is not until the Master of Two World’s stage or step when the hero finally reconciles the changed version of himself/herself with the ordinary world from which he/she came. Campbell’s theory also applies to real life, and you could apply the three phases and seventeen stages or steps to any long-term goal or endeavour that you have ever encountered in your life. While I’m now working as a full-time martial artist, I regret nothing about my fifteen plus years of working as a professional educator. I don’t regret earning my masters. I don’t regret earning my doctorate. I don’t regret the years or the money that were used in pursuit of those things. However, Campbell’s theory is not for making lemonade out of the lemons that life hands you. Today, a lot of my work as a martial artist is with developing the instructional capacity of martial arts teachers. I simply have the benefit of all of those years of experience and eight and a half years of graduate work in education (one for my teaching credential, two for my masters, three and a half for my doctorate, and two for my administrative credential). My Apotheosis made me the version of myself capable of writing this book. This particular time period of my life is a fantastic experience of the Master of Two Worlds. Both my martial arts journey and my educator journey have led me here. Writing this book is exactly what I want to be doing right now, and I would not be the version necessary of myself to do so, to be able to create this thing, and put it out into the world, if my Hero’s Journey had not gone exactly like it has. Make no mistake: being stuck professionally sucks! It took me four years after I earned my doctorate to finally be offered an administrative position. I’m not delusional: I did not expect a superintendency to fall from the sky after I earned my doctorate. I did expect my dedication and my

authenticity in trying to be the best, most prepared educator I could be to be rewarded with an admin position. I know now how naive I was. Those four years were about my mindset. A doctorate is cool. Most of the population doesn’t have one. Blah, blah, blah. I needed to get my mind right before I could become an administrator. If I had discovered the five shifts we’re about to move into, I could have found an administrative position right away, and saved the money and the years it took to get that doctorate (again, I regret nothing, but that’s the truth; I didn’t need it to get my new position and move ahead professionally). So, while I’m right where I’m supposed to be, I want you to benefit from my experience and save your years and your money (the best advice about grad school I can give you is unless you get the position and raise you want/deserve, but you still want the degree, which is a sure sign to go for it). If I had discovered the five shifts I found when I created Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts, I would have had my administrative position right away. So, before we go to the shits, you need to be really honest with yourself: are you ready for the success and life that comes with your new position? Can you set your bagge down, or has your struggle become part of your identity (and don’t feel bad if it has because two years into my career struggles I was holding onto my baggage so tightly it’s not even funny)? Have you thought along those lines, or have you been so focused on your new position that you haven’t really gone down that line of thinking in a long time? We’re going to go into the five shifts, but after we look at them, we’ll have a section on getting your mind right. What kind of life do you really want? Everything becomes secondary to backwards planning to make that life real. Everything. We’ll revisit that idea soon. For now, let’s get into the five shifts. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by

themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Shift #1 - Nobody Knows What They’re Talking About The “big mouths” at work who seem to be getting everything they want don’t have things any more figured out than you do. They are the very living definition of “faking it until they make it”. They’re faking like they’re bold risk takers; they’re not. They don’t know what they’re doing, but they know it sure looks like, culturally right now, if you’re big, loud, and you fight to make your voice the only one that gets heard (no matter if your ideas are garbage or not), that equals success. Here’s the truth, and it’s hard to accept: everyone is learning on the job and figuring things out on the fly because there is no way to adequately prepare people for all positions. You can’t know what you’ll need to know until you get there. Your boss and your boss’s boss are both figuring things out as they go. Nobody has things “figured out”, no matter how high you go. Life has too many variables and so does your industry (and if you work with people, in any capacity, expecting uniformity and consistency in terms of behavior is a great way to get burned out and dispirited real fast). Once you accept that nobody really “knows” anything, that everybody at every level is figuring things out as they go along, it’s really very freeing. Just get over being disappointed by that fact. Even those professional idols you have, the ones who make it all look so easy, the ones who seemed to have it all locked down, all of them had to figure it out as they went along because nobody knows what they’re talking about and nobody has anything figured out before they get there! As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests,

please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Shift #2 - Imposter Syndrome Is The New Normal When you first read the phrase, it’s a little confusing. “What on earth is ‘Imposter Syndrome’?” The good news is that Imposter Syndrome is something you know very well, but at first glance, you might not be aware of exactly what it is. Impostor Syndrome is super easy to define and everyone out there reading this will understand. Have you ever applied for a job for which you had all of the minimum requirements, but if you’re being honest, the position was a few steps above your current place in your industry. Then you had a thought like, “Who am I to apply for insert the job title?” For anyone who ever went after a lead role in a play and thought, “Who am I to audition for insert the name of the lead character? I don’t have the experience for this. I should ‘stay in my lane’.” I can go on, but those kinds of thoughts are Imposter Syndrome. It’s that voice that pops op in our heads when we get recognition, when we get promoted, when we go after the next step, etc. Psychology Today Magazine found that seventy percent of people in the workforce experience Imposter Syndrome. I was shocked by that statistic. Seventy percent (and admitting self-doubt in our culture is really hard so that’s just the people who were honest; it’s probably higher than that)? Are you kidding me? Impostor Syndrome is that common. Everyone above you in your company has had to confront his/her Imposter Syndrome. Shift Number Two is about accepting that everyone has those feelings, but also knowing that those feelings are a legitimate psychological phenomenon. The most important part of Shift Number Two is knowing all of that so that those very common feelings no longer have any power over you. We’ve given Impostor Syndrome and seen that it’s a shared, human experience, so it’s no longer a force in your life. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you!

If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Shift #3 - Your Secret Weapon Is Your Integrity Remember that it took me four years, hundreds of applications, and tons of interviews before I finally landed my administrative position. All of that was after earning a doctorate in leadership! When I write the following, it comes from experience: when you’re stuck in professional limbo and you cannot move forward, you face a great many temptations, all day, every day at your job. The best analogy I can give you is someone who is so desperate to be in a relationship, that person doesn’t care with whom they’re in a relationship; they’ll take anyone. When we’re stuck professionally, we get desperate too. It’s tempting to start acting just like the “loudmouth jerks”who seem to be getting everything they want professionally. It’s tempting to start doubting your unique professional creativity. You must not give into any of these temptations because what’s been holding you back is your secret weapon: your integrity. The rhetoric that would be used against you is that “you’re too weak, and this is the real world, and you need to grow up, and do whatever’s necessary to get what you want.” That’s all garbage, and it’s not true. Your integrity is everything and it sets you apart. We need to do whatever is necessary to preserve your integrity. Your integrity actually makes you so unique that you might need the position above the one you’ve been coveting. Don’t give in. Keep your integrity intact. Giving into temptation will give you a flash in the pan result, and not build a foundation for the kind of career trajectory you really deserve. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests,

please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Shift #4 - Your Promotion & Your Raise Are Just A Gateway You may be so dissatisfied professionally (depending on how long you’ve been stuck) that this shift might seem too big (and you might get angry with me, but stay with me here), but it goes back to an idea from Shift Number Three. This shift might also be hard to even wrap your head around because all you can see is the promotion and the raise you’ve been focused on. This shift might also seem like a lot of responsibility that you don’t really want right now, but this Shift is a big picture idea. Getting you your promotion and your raise are super important. I don’t want to lose anybody with this shift. Getting you your promotion and raise will immediately eliminate all of the professional frustration you’re feeling. It will immediately reinvigorate you professionally. Simply put, the promotion and raise will keep you in the game and eliminate all of the negativity you’re feeling towards your job right now (which is completely understandable). However (and I know the word “however” is just a fancy version of the word “but”), the promotion and raise are only a gateway. Once you are on the other side of that gateway, because you came through with your integrity intact, your company will need you to use your unique integrity to transform your entire company. Let me state that again: your integrity will permeate and transform your entire company/organization. It will transform the way you serve clients (if you’re in a service based industry) or the way you produce products (if you’re in a production-based industry). In short, by coming through the gateway of your promotion and raise (so you have the money to have the life you want) with your integrity intact, your entire company will be transformed by that integrity. That company-wide transformation might be bigger than your thinking right now. You might just be thinking about your raise and your promotion, and indeed, we want those things for you, right now. However (there’s that word again), Shift Number Four is all about accepting that getting the promotion and raise are like throwing a pebble in a lake, and the positive benefits of you getting those things in the short term will ripple for a long time afterwards, as well as having effects bigger than you and beyond you. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no

obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Shift #5 - Command Presence Is A Skill (& You Need To Learn It) There is a reason that both the military and law enforcement agencies invest again and again in command presence training. Military and law enforcement professionals use these skills all the time to diffuse tense situations. Again and again, a physically small person uses what he/she has learned to control a mob. We’ve already identified your secret weapon as your unshakable integrity. Now, you need training to develop your command presence so that you “own” every professional space that you enter. When you have trained to develop a dynamic command presence, your “it factor” will be front and center, your ideas can finally be heard, and you will step through the gateway of integrity that your company needs you to. Your investment of time and money will immediately be repaid by your promotion and raise, and your investment in developing your command presence will pay off in every facet of your career until you retire. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Next Steps I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and share the five shifts you’ve just been handed with my younger self. I didn’t need a doctorate in my career to move into administration. I just needed to accept the five shifts as I just presented them to you. I could have moved into administration and then pursued the doctorate as professional gravy (and make no mistake, I started my doctoral journey for all of the right reasons). However (man, it’s that word again), I meant what I wrote earlier: I regret nothing. It’s all been part of my Hero’s Journey, and it’s all led me to who I am today. Again, I would not be the version of myself capable of writing this book if I didn’t go through it. So, it’s okay because it was all supposed to go the way it has. I’m doing what every guide, educator, teacher, parent, older sibling, senior student, ect does: I’m presenting my experiences so the people coming up behind me can put them to work for them on their own journey. That’s the healthiest thing anyone can do with his/her past: offer his/her story to others so they may use it to make their own lives better. So, here’s what you need to do, now: 1. Accept that no one knows what they’re talking about. 2. Accept that Imposter Syndrome is a legitimate psychological phenomenon, and by doing so, recognize that Imposter Syndrome no longer has any power over you (in fact, if you provide for anyone financially in your life, they need you to accept that ASAP). 3. Realize that your secret weapon professionally is your integrity, and protect your integrity from all temptations to get a flash in the pan result. 4. You need to give yourself permission to go after the position and the raise you deserve because that will be a gateway for you to bring your unique, professional integrity to your entire company, and perhaps to your entire industry. 5. You need to invest in command presence training to command the attention of everyone in every professional space you enter so that you can make all of this a reality in your work.

You have to do all of the steps above in a way that is inline with your ethics and personal values so as to keep your integrity intact. You are now faced with one of the most important choices in your life. You can take all of these ideas and forget about them (which is a huge waste of time and I don’t want that for you). You can remember everything I just shared with you, but not take action, which is going to make you more professionally frustrated, because you’ve been “given the keys” but you won’t “start the car”. You can keep doing the same things you’ve been doing, which is going to lead you to feeling like you’re watching the “parade going by”, leave you feeling professionally “unheard”, leave you doubting your unique professional creativity, and eventually lead you down the pathway of a professional life not truly lived. You can wait for everything to just magically get better (I’m not being fatalistic here, but it rarely does). However (it’s that word, again), for those of you who want to feel heard in every aspect of your career, for those who never want to doubt your profesional ideas again, for those of you who want your colleagues marveling at your “it factor” because of your command presence, and for those who want that promotion and raise in the next eight weeks (but as a gateway of integrity that you will use to transform your entire company and leave a lasting professional legacy), now that you’re clear on what you need to do, we’re ready to jump into the Command Presence Through Filipino Martial Arts course. The book was written to be read by people (like you) willing to take the time to use the information here to advance their career like a warrior, to get a promotion and a raise without compromising their integrity. If you can follow the steps and make this information work for you on your own, then I get what I want. If you want some help implementing the information, you can always schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by following the steps below. If what I have to offer is a fit, we’ll start working together, and I get what I want. If what I have to offer is not a fit, but you still can use this information to get the life that you want, I still get what I want. I want to help people like you. The only case in which I don’t get what I want is if people don’t take the time to read this book, or if they don’t take action to get the lives they want. My feeling is that any educator/instructor who creates something designed to help people “wins” when people actually use the information to improve their lives. In any case, take action, in any form: read this book,

follow the steps, and grab a hold of the life you want! As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

The Real Work - Getting Your Mind Right I’m going to qualify this section of the book in a few different ways: 1. This could be one of if not the most important sections of this entire book. 2. I only recently (like in the last few days) had a breakthrough that truly allowed me to understand the ideas I’m going to be sharing here. I’m not sure if “understand” is the best verb for the last sentence. What I’m being very open and honest about here is that I have been living this idea for the better part of the last year, but a few different things happened in the last few days that caused me to really start living this idea. 3. What I’m going to write about in this section is not new. It’s going to be easy for you to write off the main ideas in this section. Try not to do that. 4. The rhetoric that could be used to attack this section is that I’m using an “only if your faith is strong enough” type argument here. I fully stipulate to the idea that the main idea of this section is something each individual has to understand in his/her own time frame. As I shared above, I did not fully come into a state of living the main idea of this until a few days ago, despite trying to implement this idea for the better part of the last year. I will not point any “your faith isn’t strong enough” type deflection at you; that is my promise to you. Okay, now that I’ve set this section up with those ideas (and I truly hope I didn’t scare anyone away), I think we can go to work. Let’s make sure we’re clear on where we’re at. I’ve explained the purpose of this book and how I’m attempting to take martial arts beyond the four walls of an Academy/Gym/Dojo to help as many people as possible. I told you a bit about my martial arts background. I told you about my background as a professional K-12 educator. I’ve explained how those two parts of my journey have converged to lead me to the present moment. Then, I spent some time explaining what the Hero’s Journey theory

looks like as it was discovered by the late, great Joseph Campbell, and how I’m living my own Master of Two Worlds era in my life by writing this book. I then detailed the Five Shifts that you must start implementing today in order to get your promotion and raise. We’re now ready to start into the actual Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts course material. Is that all clear? We’ve actually covered quite a bit already. Before we get into the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts material, we must have in place the ideas from this section you’re currently reading. Okay, here is the most important thing to keep in mind as we move into this phase of the work: You need to get your mind right, not only before we start this work, but in order for you to get your promotion and raise while keeping your integrity. I purposefully wrote that in second person (using words like “you” and “your”, despite books on writing that mostly tell you never to appeal directly to your reader, and my having taught that same idea for years to high school students getting ready for AP Exams and standardized essay tests). I wrote it that way because getting your mind right has to happen before anything will actually make a difference in your life. Reread that last sentence. Do you see how it’s easy to take that idea personally? “What do you mean, I need to ‘get my mind right’? My mind is right. I’m right as rain. It’s the jerks at work/in my industry who don’t recognize what I bring to the table!” That is a very natural reaction to the idea that you need to “get your mind right” before anything can happen. Do you also see how that idea could be attacked? Do you see how a reader could get angry and come back with the idea that I’m like a preacher in a traveling tent church suggesting that your faith isn’t strong enough? Let me break through all of that by reminding you of some things: 1. You either have a digital copy or a hard copy of this book. I know that because you’re reading it. 2. I wrote point one above to define that you have the book.It doesn’t matter if you were an early adopter and you have a digital copy from when this book was only an eBook, or if you paid for a paperback copy. Either way, you’ve got the book. If you choose

to never interact with me again, we’re done. There is no more interaction and you still have my book. 3. I wrote point two above to explain that I’m not “selling” anything. 4. I wrote point three above to define why, if I were selling something, you have to be very careful with people that use “only if your faith is strong enough” type language. if their promise is something that you know could never happen, it’s blatant charlatanism. If they tell you that for only fifteen thousand dollars, at the end of a weekend, you’ll be levitating, but only if your Chi is strong enough, let me save you the 15K and the 48 hours: at the end of the weekend, you’ll be told that your Chi wasn’t strong enough (but that they have a bargain five thousand dollar weekend that can probably help you, but again, only if you can truly stop being so skeptical). 5. This is the last idea in this list, but this is so important to clarify, that I’m using this format for one more idea. The point of getting your mind right applies to any significant accomplishment in any area of your life, way beyond me or Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts, and most certainly to your professional life. Okay, we’re back to regular paragraphs. Am I clear? You have to be in a place where you’re willing, if not to accept that, at least to chew on that idea for a while: Before you can accomplish any major goal, in any area of your life, you need to get your mind right. I’m not the first educator/instructor/coach to write that. I didn’t even come up with that idea. As I shared, very openly and honestly above, I only settled into an area of understanding I had not previously held until a few days ago, or maybe a better way of stating that is that I settled into a much deeper state of living that idea just a few days ago. That notion can be hard on people who have already accomplished

certain goals, but are having trouble breaking through plateaus of success in their lives. “What do you mean by, ‘Get your mind right’? If my mind weren’t right, I wouldn’t have been able to ___________!” Again, I get it. We work so hard getting to certain levels, and then we’re faced with the cruel reality that we have to undergo another transformation of belief in ourselves to get to the next level. I wrote above that Campbell’s Hero’s Journey model can be applied to any major endeavour in our lives. That’s because each major plateau we break through requires its own Road of Trials and its own Apotheosis. “Are you kidding me?” No. I wish I was. I wish it was a one shot deal. I wish we could just work hard for so many years and then just arrive again and again and again in terms of our goals. I’m happy to be transparent and “throw myself under the bus” as an example. I have a masters and doctorate, as well as certifications from some of the biggest names in the martial arts. That was not a statement of ego, but of facts. It would be too easy for me to come back with, “What do you mean, I need to ‘get my mind right’? That’s ridiculous! My mind is so right! You don’t even know!” If you’ve accomplished anything in your life (and my readers have; they’re amazing), it’s a cruel reality that with each new goal, we have to “get our heads on straight” again. The Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program is about transforming your DNA in terms of the way you carry yourself in professional spaces. We’re going to do that with Filipino Martial Arts as a vehicle for that transformation, but we cannot do that if we don’t transform the way you perceive yourself. As human beings, we cannot control what happens to us in life, but we can control our perceptions. My doctoral program was a three-year program in terms of coursework. That was followed by the time it took to write the dissertation. The first year of coursework was all about getting into the right headspace (getting my mind right). Since the focus was on leadership for organizations, the idea was to get your own head “screwed on” right before you went out and tried leading others (get your mind right before you start serving as a guide for the minds of others). I kept all of the assignments from that first year of coursework in my doctoral program in a large binder, which I keep to this day. I got rid of many of the other artifacts from the program (and I hope that doesn’t read wrong; I held onto most of it all for many years before whittling it down to essentials

to keep). That binder is a valuable look into who I was all those years ago and the work that I had to do at the time to put myself into a place to be successful in that program (and to have a shot at leading others successfully). So, I hope we’re ready to move forward. I hope you are now in a better place than you were a few pages ago with this idea: no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve accomplished, in order to break through plateaus of success in your life, you need to get yourself in the appropriate head space. Some of my readers share with me, “I’ve got my mind right, Bryan.” It’s almost like those people are winking at me. If you can really understand this idea, you’re ready to make all of this real. If you constantly remind yourself to “get your mind right” before starting any new major project, that is a recipe for success. You need to get yourself to a place in which you are ready to accept the success that’s about to come your way. To struggle with that is to take a step back and let our Imposter Syndrome (which is so natural and so understandable in this culture that tells us to “stay humble”, “stay in our lane”, etc) start to take back its power over us. Remember that all the way back in Shift # 2, we gave our Imposter Syndrome a name, accepted that everyone has those feelings, and took away any power our imposter syndrome has over us. Now, accept that you are about to change the way you perceive yourself. In changing the way you perceive yourself, you are going to change the way that you carry yourself. In changing the way you carry yourself, you are going to start to command the attention of everyone in every professional space you enter. In commanding the attention of everyone in every professional space that you enter, you are going to have your unique, professional creativity recognized. In finally having your unique, professional creativity recognized, you are about to become the natural choice in your company/organization for the position and salary of your dreams (if not with your current company/organization, than with one for whom you are truly a fit). By getting the position and salary of your dreams, you are about to have the life you want. By accepting the life you want as a gateway, you are about to transform your company/organization (and perhaps your entire industry) and leave a legacy of integrity. Are you really ready for all of that? Can you accept success in your life, not just dream about it? Can you accept the responsibilities of your new

position? Are you ready for the people you work with to start viewing you as “that guy” or “that girl” (their professional hero)? Can you accept that you’re about to become that person that the people you work with go home and tell their spouses about? “(Insert Your First Name), led a meeting today, and it was one of the best meetings I ever attended in my entire life.” Make sure you’re ready for the life of your dreams. Get your head and your thoughts and your energy right, and let’s dig in deeper. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Why The Filipino Martial Arts? Without getting too technical (because it doesn’t matter and this is about you and your journey towards your promotion and raise), I teach several different martial arts. Guru (South East Asian for “teacher”, like “Sensei'' in Japanese, or “Sifu” in Chinese) Dan Inosanto was Bruce Lee’s best friend and training partner. Guru Dan has told us over the years that Bruce Lee, at heart, was a natural researcher. Obviously, the two of them were researching pre-Internet, but Guru Dan also has told us many times about Bruce Lee’s amazing martial arts library. Lee was trying to amass as much information about the sum total of information about the world’s martial arts that was available at the time. Since Lee passed away five years before I was born, I always consider Guru Dan as the primary martial arts influence in my life. Guru Dan has always taught us to seek out as many quality instructors in the different martial arts that interest us, be respectful, and learn from those people. This creates a perpetual cycle of learning and enthusiasm. I highly recommend this approach to you in your profession. Keep taking classes. Keep watching TED Talks. Keep buying books from people that inspire you. Today, Guru Dan is in his early eighties, and remains a machine of positivity. That’s very much how I want to be when I’m that age. Heck, that’s how I want to be in my sixties! It’s much better than taking a “I’ve seen it all before and I’m excited by nothing” attitude. Taking a “I’ve seen it all and I’m excited by nothing” attitude leads to being a curmudgeon, and being perpetually negative. While I don’t know what it is to live into my seventies and eighties yet, at this time, from the perspective of my early forties, I can write that I don’t want to be like that. I want to stay positive, and I want to continue trying to be a productive member of society for as long as I can. So, because it’s been modeled for me, I teach and train as many martial arts as I can. That being written, I constantly get people asking me the following: “If you only had time to teach your own children one martial art from your practice, what would it be and why?” First, I don’t really like that question. Second, I always lead out with the honest answer, that all of the martial arts I teach offer something valuable. If I’m really pressed for an answer, like really pressed, I will usually (slightly begrudgingly) respond that if I must supply an answer to that very unlikely

scenario, and I only had time to pass along one martial art from my practice, I would teach them the Filipino Martial Arts. Without wasting time with too many details, I primarily teach four different systems of Filipino Martial Arts in my face-to-face martial arts offerings. I have written an eight-level curriculum that combines these four arts. I just refer to that curriculum as my Filipino Martial Arts Core Curriculum. The four systems I teach are: 1. Applied Eskrima Balintawak - The progression created by Master Virgil Cavada. A close-range single stick system with a lot of hand trapping and stick grabbing. Great for increased reflex speed. Here’s a recent photo of myself with a group of participants at a workshop Master Virgil taught at my NYC Academy (Master Virgil is second from the right)

2. Dog Brothers Martial Arts - Founded by three people in the late 1980’s what started as the attempt to test the art in the most realistic way has evolved into a set system, the guiding force of which is Punong Guru Marc Denny. Here is a photo from the second to last public seminar ever given by Guru Eric Knauss, one of the founders of Dog Brothers. Guru Eric is directly to my right and he has his arm around me and PG Marc:

3. Pekiti Tirsia - A system taught to the Filipino Marines, this system is known for both its stick and blade techniques. Here’s a recent photo of myself with the current head of the system, Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje:

4. Inosanto/LaCoste - The composite system of Guru Dan Inosanto and his primary Filipino Martial Arts influence, Master John LaCoste. Guru Dan has told me in many conversations, what he really appreciated about Master LaCoste was that LaCoste organized his system into twelve areas of study (single stick, double stick, stick and dagger, single dagger, double dagger, flexible weapons, empty hands, ect) and all of the areas complimented one another. Inosanto/LaCoste is my mother system in terms of the Filipino Martial Arts, and it always will be for the rest of my life, no matter what levels I obtain in other systems of Filipino Martial Arts. Here is a recent photo with Guru Dan and Coach Dylan (a certified Phase I FMA Instructor in my curriculum, and a good friend):

I ended this section explaining how the twelve areas of Inosanto /LaCoste integrate. I chose Filipino Martial Arts as the vehicle for Career Command because, for me, all of the different systems and styles of the

Filipino Martial Arts integrate cleanly with one another. As we are going to see in the actual Career Command through Filipino Martial Arts progression, you can do a lot with a little bit of material applied again and again in different contexts. As I wrote in the first section of this book, a little bit of focused Filipino Martial Arts training will get you whizzing sticks through the air at one hundred miles per hour. A little bit of FMA training will get you fighting offensively with blades, as well as defensively. The unique experiences of training in the FMAs transform people’s DNA as far as how they carry themselves in public and in professional spaces like nothing else. Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts Framework Before I end this section and transition into Week One, let’s take a look at the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts Framework. The visual representation of the framework is below:

The usage of the triangle is symbolic. Triangles are prevalent in the Filipino Martial Arts. Also, notice that this is an equilateral triangle; all three sides are equal. The component on each of the three sides is equally important to the Career Command process as a whole. Let’s examine the three components: 1. Accountability These are the journals, written reflections, and tasks you track. 2. Mental Shifts In Perspective So much of this is really about “getting your mind right”. That phrase can lead to feelings like I’m a preacher at a bad tent

church telling people they will only get their miracle if their “faith is strong enough”. The truth is that until you get your mind right, you will not advance your career. Can you actually accept that you might soon get the job and salary of your dreams? Can you set your “baggage” down and step into that reality? 3. A Physical Discipline That Nourishes Your Mind, Body, & Spirit In this case, I’ve chosen the Filipino Martial Arts for reasons I’ve explained. Now, it’s time to actually start learning some Filipino Martial Arts! Each week in the program has a martial arts component, a mental shift in perspective component (see, I told you getting your mind right was the most important piece), and an accountability component. Now that it’s clear how the course is laid out, let’s start training! As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Week One - The Martial Arts In this section, I’m going to go into more details about the martial arts section for the first week of the program than I will for future weeks. I’m not implying that the martial arts component is not important to my program. Explaining all of the martial arts taught in Week One will require a lengthy combination of pictures and text. I’m going to do that for this first week’s material only because if I do that for the entire program, this book will be too long. Here is the list of all of the martial arts we cover in Week 1:

For the Weeks Two through Weeks Eight, I’m going to rely more on text so I can give you a big picture overview of how all eight weeks worth of martial arts taught in the Career Command Through Martial Arts Program interface with the Shifts in Perspective and Accountability to help participants develop a dynamic command presence. For Week One, we develop the participant’s foundation in two weapons configurations: single stick and double stick of equal lengths. Before I even begin showing you the material taught, a very logical question arises, “When will I ever be walking down the street with a stick, much less two sticks of equal length?” Again, that is truly a logical question to ask. What the Filipino Martial Arts student needs to understand is that we are developing skills at this point with blunt impact weapons (weapons with no edge, or unsharpened weapons). Real world applications could be with an umbrella, a rolled up newspaper/magazine, a pipe, a table leg, a yardstick, ect. Look at rooms throughout your day (martial arts training spaces are bad examples), and start to take notice of how many objects there are that you could pick up in your dominant hand and fight with. That’s the Filipino Martial Arts way.

Some people carry an object for self-defense purposes. Depending on your age or where you live, a cane or walking stick is very easily explained. I have a little, aluminum, LED flashlight that I bought for around ten dollars. I carry it with me when I go out (even though in the fifteen months I’ve lived in New York City, I’ve only felt unsafe maybe twice, and neither of those situations turned into anything real). It would be far easier to explain to law enforcement how badly I feel about hitting the person/ people who attacked me with my LED flashlight versus explaining how badly I feel that my attacker(s) is/are dead because I pulled out the blade I was carrying and stabbed them. All of that is my personal preference; some people swear by carrying a blade on them. As long as you are conducting yourself legally in the area in which you live, everything’s a personal choice. I prefer the little LED flashlight for all of the reasons I just explained (also, I can turn it on in people’s faces and it causes no long term damage). The first single stick lesson is the first five angles of the Escrima One Numbering System. Escrima One has twelve angles. In the Career Command program, I only require the first five; if the participant wants to learn angles six through twelve, that is a bonus. The participant holds the stick in his/her dominant hand (for most of the population, that will be in the right hand), with the same side foot forward (righties with the right foot forward, lefties with the left foot in front) My photos are of me holding on my dominant side (my right). We’re going to use two terms, open/forehand and closed/backhand. If I’m holding my stick in my right hand in a right lead, when I hold the stick on the right side of my body, attacks coming from that side are open/forehand strikes. Still in my right lead, holding in my right hand, if I hold the stick on my left side, attacks coming from that side are closed/backhand strikes. Escrima One - Angle One Angle One starts on my right/open/forehand side of my body. I strike with the last few inches of the stick for maximum power. I strike from my opponent's left clavicle diagonally down to my opponent's right hip. The clavicle (commonly called the “Collar Bone”) is an ideal self-defense target. It breaks with a reasonable amount of pressure that even people with minimal training can quickly learn to generate. Unless your attacker is on drugs like PCP, a broken clavicle causes debilitating pain until it is set by a medical professional.

The number one cause of accidental death in any street situation is one of the participants loses consciousness and hits his/her head on the ground. Not being conscious, he/she cannot break his/her fall, hits his/her head “just right”, and dies. There is zero risk of that in purposefully breaking someone’s clavicle. You simply generate the needed force, break the clavicle, and either run away, or stand at a minimum safe distance while they writhe around in pain on the ground. They won’t die. They’re not going to hit their head. Every movement causes debilitating pain until they can get their arm set by a medical professional. The bone will heal. If they seem to be fighting through the pain to come back after you, you can hit them again in their damaged clavicle, or try to break the other one. It’s actually incredibly humane in the long term. So, the Escrima One numbering system Angle One is a forehand diagonal strike from the opponent's left clavicle down to his/her right hip. See the photo below:

Angle One (or a slight variation by a few degrees) is also the most common strike you will face when confronted by someone trying to hit you with a blunt impact weapon. The photo above is the start of the motion, before I strike through, focusing on the clavicle. I will swing through the entire angle, meaning I will start open and by the time I have delivered the strike, I will have the stick on my left/closed side. So, with Angle One, I start open and end closed. Escrima One - Angle Two I can explain Escrima One, Angle Two much more quickly now that you have all the info about Angle One. Angle Two is the closed/backhand version of the same strike. I start with the stick on the left side of my body and deliver a backhand diagonal strike from my opponent’s right clavicle

through to the left hip. Because Angle Two is the opposite of Angle One, I start closed and end open, striking all the way through the angle of attack:

The photo above would be just a fraction of a second before the tip of the stick hits the opponent’s right clavicle. I would continue through the angle of attack and end up back on my right/open side. Escrima One - Angle Three Escrima One Angle three is a forehand/open side attack that strikes horizontally across the midline. I might be striking around the waist (especially later when we examine these same angles but with a bladed weapon). You might be using Angle Three to strike horizontally at the stick hand of your opponent, or even lower the shot a little and hit horizontally towards the groin. Here’s a photo of me executing Angle Three:

Just like Angle One, Angle Three starts on the open/forehand side of your body and ends on the closed /backhand side. Escrima One - Angle Four Just like Angle Two was the closed/backhand version of Angle One, Escrima One Angle Four is the backhand version of Angle Three. The target options are the same, and it’s still a midline horizontal attack, now it’s just coming from the backhand/closed to open/forehand side. Angle Four starts

closed and finishes open:

Angle Four is the backhand version of Angle Three. Escrima One - Angle Five The first five angles of the Escrima One numbering system are easily learned. The practitioner starts on his/her open side, makes two diagonal strikes, two horizontal strikes, and then executes Angle Five. Angle Five starts on your open/forehand side. Angles One through Four were slashes; Angle Five is the only thrust. Imagine thrusting the belly of your opponent with the tip of your stick. When you execute Angle Five, to give that belly thrust just a little more power, bend your wrist (like you were flexing your forearm). See the picture below:

Again, the wrist must be bent (I like saying, “Do your Popeye impression” when I coach Angle Five). There are systems in which this thrust is done with the wrist straight, and the palm pointing to the side. That’s fine, but just not what we’re doing here. Here, we’re accentuating the thrust by bending our wrist, flexing our forearm, making this a palm up thrust. So, while this diagram will illustrate all twelve angles of Escrima One (and remember that we’re only really concerned with Angles One Through Five), it is still a great help. This diagram details the angles of attack

from the perspective of a right handed practitioner as they relate to the

opponent's body:

The diagram above, along with the pics and description above should be sufficient to learn the first five angles of Escrima One. Applied Eskrima Balintawak - Angles One through Five (of twelve) The next single stick requirement is for participants to learn the first five (out of twelve) angles of the Applied Eskrima Balintawak (a close-range stick fighting system). The reason I teach this requirement second is that there are only a few changes necessary to learn this once the participant has learned the first five angles of Escrima One (and the spelling of the same word with a “c” in one system versus a “k” in the other is not a typo. Learning the Applied Eskrima Balintawak angles also gives participants some options for attacking. Applied Eskrima Balintawak - Angle One The first angle in Applied Eskrima Balintawak is a high horizontal to the opponent's left temple. Think about an elevated version of Escrima One Angle Three, but instead of hitting to the midline on the horizontal, you hit the temple:

This angle does not negate what I wrote about earlier about the clavicle being one of, if not the most humane self-defense target. However, if you were in a situation of extreme danger, you might want to strike the head. Learning this angle just adds this option to your arsenal. Applied Eskrima Balintawak - Angle Two Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angle Two is just the backhand version of the same strike, so it’s a high backhand horizontal to the opponent’s right temple:

The same considerations are at play when striking with an Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angle One as they are when striking with an Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angle Two in terms of choosing an appropriate context for headshots. Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angles Three and Four Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angles Three and Four are identical

to Escrima One’s Angles Three and Four (a midline forehand horizontal for Three and a midline backhand horizontal for Four). So, you already know them. Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angle Five Applied Eskrima Balintawak Angle 5 is still going to be a forehand thrust to your opponent's belly (just like Escrima One Angle Five) but put your left hand palm down on your stick, closer to your opponent. You can close your hand this way, and perform the Angle Five strike with a bayonettype, two-handed motion.

The Backhand Series Now that we’ve learned two sets of five angles of attack to develop our own offense, let’s learn one idiom of movement to be able to use to defend against those same angles (or really, any angles) if we are attacked by someone who tries to use any of those angles of attack against us. To perform the Backhand Series, hold your stick chambered on your backhand side, with the tip of your stick touching your left tricep, and your left hand resting on your right forearm. You are still standing in a right lead:

This backhand chamber position will be your “homebase position” for the entirety of the backhand series. From this position, you quickly strike, but you do not go all the way through to the open side of your body:

Immediately after striking, you return to your backhand chamber, homebase position. Again, do not go all the way through to the other side of your body. Hit and retract, returning to the starting position:

The Backhand Series is simply destroying any angle your opponent attacks you on with a backhand strike that hits and retracts back to the starting, “homebase” position. Here, my training partner, Guru Carlos, is trying to hit me with Angle One. Before Guru Carlos can do so, I backhand Guru Carlos’ stick hand:

Like with any angle of attack in the Backhand Series, I immediately move back to my backhand chamber/”homebase” position, and wait for the next angle:

As Guru Carlos attempts to hit me with Angle Two, again, I backhand his stick hand as he attempts to strike me:

Immediately after I smash his hand (before he can hit me), I return to my backhand chamber/”homebase” position, as I do immediately following all of my backhand counter strikes. Remember, I do not hit all the way through to my open side. I hit and retract, moving back to the backhand chamber/”homebase” position, awaiting the next angle of attack from my opponent/training partner:

Quite simply, that’s the Backhand Series. My training partner

attempts to hit me with Escrima One Angles One through Five, but I counter with a quick backhand strike to my opponent's stick hand before he/she can make contact with his/her strike. In the Filipino Martial Arts, we call the idea of hitting our opponent's stick hand as he/she attempts to hit us “Defanging the Snake”. If your training partner knows all twelve angles of Escrima One, or all twelve angles of Applied Eskrima Balintawak, or he/she wants to randomly “feed” different angles, you can practice recognizing the line and backhanding it. The minimum standard is being able to backhand Escrima One Angles One through Five. Backhand Series Follow-ups - Number One: The X The hope is that, in “Defanging the Snake”, or hitting your opponent's hand (one of the densest collections of small, breakable bones in the human body), the pain he/she experiences will make your opponent back off, or lose the will to continue attacking you. The best kind of fight is the one you avoid. The second best kind of fight is one that you end in a single beat, with an appropriate proportional response based on the situation. We would hope that if you cannot avoid getting into a fight with blunt impact weapons, that your first backhand to the opponent's hand would end things. However, in Week One, I teach two follow-ups for when you need to keep striking after the backhand counter strike. The first follow-up is the X. After landing my backhand counter strike, I bring the stick back to my backhand chamber/”homebase” position:

The X has two beats. Beat One is an Escrima One Angle Two, backhand, downward diagonal strike to the clavicle (or if need be, the head).

I go all the way through to my open side as I execute this strike:

Beat Two is an Escrima One Angle One, forehand, downward diagonal strike to the clavicle (or if need be, the head). I go all the way through to my closed side as I execute this strike:

As I finish Beat Two, I have completed my X, and I finish back in my backhand chamber/”homebase” position, ready to backhand the next angles of attack from my opponent:

I repeat that sequence against any and all strikes my opponent attempts:

1. Backhand the opponent's stick hand 2. Retract the stick to the backhand chamber/”homebase” position, monetarily touching my left tricep with the tip of my stick. 3. Escrima One Angle Two (all the way through from the closed to open side of my body) 4. Escrima One Angle One (all the way through from the open to closed side of my body) The most common error people make when learning the X as a follow-up is to counter the opponent's attack with a backhand, but then incorrectly open, or move the stick to the forehand side, and then give an Escrima One Angle One and then a Escrima One Angle Two, which leaves the stick on the open/forehand side. Always remember after you backhand the opponent's angle of attack (and you hit him/her on the stick hand) to return to your backhand chamber/”homebase” position, with the tip of your stick touching your left tricep, and your left hand resting on your right forearm, awaiting your opponent's next angle of attack:

Backhand Series Follow-ups - Number Two: The Redondo The Redondo is a circular strike that you execute downward on the Twelve O’Clock line, and then you allow the tip of your stick to curve at the last moment so that you can return to your backhand chamber/”homebase” position. My expression is that a Redondo is a “big circle of destruction”. Imagine that you have just backhanded the stick hand of your opponent as a counter and returned to your backhand chamber/”homebase” position. The very next moment, you unleash a Redondo as a follow up. I have captured a

Redondo strike as it moves through its angle of attack. This first photo is just a split second after I unleashed my Redondo:

This second photo allows you to see how the Redondo strike is moving though its circular angle of attack:

The third photo here allows you to see how the Redondo is progressing. In this photo, the strike is nearly reached the point in space in which the stick might still be hitting your opponent (maybe their knee, or if they had their stick hand low):

The fourth photo will allow you to see how I start to circle the tip of the stick to my left because the stick would have already passed the point of striking a target. Notice that the tip of the stick is not pointed down and to my left:

The fifth photo is finds the stick just a millisecond later, almost fully having made a circle, and almost back to where it started:

The sixth photo is either right before the stick returns to the position from where it started, or the moment after it completed its Redondo, or circular strike:

It’s hard to convey in pictures, but the Redondo takes less than half a second to perform at full speed. It circles through the arc depicted in the photos above, and takes out whatever is in its path. The idea here is to backhand counter any angle that the opponent tries to use against you, and immediately launch a Redondo as a follow-up after destroying the opponent's hand with your backhand counter strike (like you’ve been doing in the entire backhand series). To review, we develop three variables out of our work in Week One with the Backhand Series: 1. Backhand counter Escrima 1 Angles One through 5. This is a focus on the counter hand destruction alone. 2. Repeat Number One, but add the X as a follow-up 3. Repeat Number One, but add the Redondo as a follow-up Guru Dan Inosanto will often tells his students that when he trains military or law enforcement folks, when he knows he has limited time with them, and the odds are he will never train them again, the Backhand Series is one of the first things he will teach, and he will devote a significant amount of time to it because it’s one idiom of movement that can be used against most any angle of attack. That brings the single stick material from the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts Week One material to a close. Double Stick First Requirement: Coordination Drill One - Ikas The Week One requirements now move into the next weapon configuration, which is two sticks of equal length. The first requirement is a Coordination Drill, or a striking pattern that switches back and forth from the right hand to the left hand, over and over, usually until time is called. The

first Coordination Drill is called Ikas. Ikas is very simple, which makes Ikas a great place to start developing one’s double stick skills. Both sticks must be up, meaning you can have both tips pointing to the ceiling, or you can rest the tip of the stick you’re not currently striking with on your shoulder. The only place the tip of either stick absolutely cannot be is down, below your waist. Here is an example of resting the sticks on your shoulders during this pattern (and that is completely acceptable):

Here is an example of keeping both tips up, which is the other completely acceptable option:

Lastly, here is me purposefully holding the sticks wrong to help you learn what to avoid. Notice my right hand stick is on my shoulder, but my left hand stick is below my waist. No matter how fast you are, even if you’ve broken sprinting records in track and field, you will never raise the left hand stick up fast enough to block an incoming strike if you fall back on this lazy

structure:

So, now that you know how important it is to keep your sticks up (just think of it as parallel to a fighter who drops his/her free hand when punching; that fighter is in for a bad time until they correct that defect in their basic structure), we’re ready to learn Ikas. Ikas is very simple, and it has four beats: 1. Attack with Escrima One Angle One with your right hand:

2. Attack with Escrima One Angle Two with your right hand:

3. Attack with Escrima One Angle One with your left hand:

4. Attack with Escrima One Angle Two with your left hand:

I want to point out that you’re already experiencing what I see as such a unique benefit of Filipino Martial Arts: you’re experiencing how training in one weapon configuration (single stick) informs another weapon configuration (double stick). I’m not going into the same level of detail I had to regarding the angles of attack as I did when I was first teaching them to you, because you already know them. You learned them in the single stick area. I just point this out so you can already take note that you’re experiencing some of the unique benefits of FMA training that I was pointing

out many sections ago. Another easy way to remember Ikas is that you make an X with the right hand and then you make an X with the left, and the strikes always go forehand/backhand on both sides (Angle 1/Angle 2). Double Stick Second Requirement: Coordination Drill Two - Empty Six Empty Six is the second Coordination Drill that you are going to learn for Week 1 of the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts course. It is going to build on a lot of things that you have already learned by exploring Ikas as your first double stick coordination drill. First, the sticks must still either be double point up, or on your shoulders, just like for Ikas. Getting lazy and holding a stick with the point down towards the floor, below your waist is still not permitted. Just like with Ikas, for Empty Six, you will attack with the pattern using your right hand, and then immediately repeat that pattern with your left hand. A small difference between the two patterns is that Empty Six has three beats of attack per hand, instead of two beats of attack per hand like Ikas. Let’s look at the steps of Empty Six: 1. Your right hand attacks with a high, diagonal, inward strike (like Escrima One Angle One):

2. Your right hand, using your right elbow like a fulcrum, swings low and delivers a low backhand:

3. Your right hand, again using your right elbow as a fulcrum, swings back up and delivers a high backhand:

4. (Step four starts the repeat of that same pattern, just performed with the left hand) Your left hand attacks with a high, diagonal, inward strike (like Escrima One Angle One:

5. Your left hand, using your left elbow like a fulcrum, swings low

and delivers a low backhand:

6. Your left hand, again using left elbow as a fulcrum, swings back up and delivers a high backhand:

For learning purposes, we have three main modes for exploring our coordination drills: 1. Solo in the air (exactly like you’ve seen in the photos above) 2. Solo but actually hitting something using the patterns (heavy bags, tires, etc) 3. Mirrored training with a partner (you and your partner perform the same patterns with the same hands at the same time; see the photo below to see me mirror training Coordination Drills with Guru Carlos):

Double Stick Third (& Final) Requirement: X-Factor Our final double stick requirement from Week One comes from the Pekiti Tirsia system. X-Factor is a simple system of aggressive defense (as opposed to passive defense). Before I provide any pictures, you can most quickly understand and learn X-Factor by picturing the blades of a pair of scissors. As anyone who has used scissors knows, you need both blades to cut. If your scissors fall apart, and you lose a blade, your scissors no longer work. Now, I want you to imagine that both of your sticks are the blades of a pair of scissors. You can start with both sticks open:

Then, using both hands, start to swing your sticks closed, thinking about them as the blades of scissors (they won’t make contact, but when you do the drill with a partner, both sticks make contact).

You end closed, with your arms crossed:

Then, you reserve the process, and swing the sticks open. While scissors don’t really work like this, just think that you already “scissored closed” so now you need to “reverse scissor open”:

In short, to perform X-Factor, both sticks scissor open and scissor close. With a partner, you will be “fed” random angles. Your partner can feed any angle with any hand at will. Your job is to scissor that angle between your sticks to stop it. If you’re open, scissor closed. If you are closed, scissor open. It’s that simple. Here are some pictures of Guru Carlos “feeding” me random angles and my using the X-Factor concept to negate those angles:

No matter what angle you are “fed”, no matter which hand is swinging at you, your job is to negate that angle by scissoring closed or open (depending on where you started). X-Factor is that simple. That concludes the martial arts requirements for Week One. Each week of the program has three components: 1. Martial Arts 2. Accountability 3. Mental Shift In Perspective Each of the three areas fit together to help you develop your dynamic command presence throughout the eight weeks of the program. Each of the three areas are equally important to your transformation. Week One - Accountability The Week One Accountability is all about defining a guiding vision for the outcome of the program. Eight weeks from beginning the program, when you are a dynamic individual with a dynamic command presence, what will that look like? You know you will command the attention of everyone in every professional space that you enter, but go beyond that. The Week One Accountability is all about closing your eyes and walking around in the reality that awaits you in eight weeks, and then recording that in writing. By making that guiding vision explicit, you literally get to watch yourself catch up to that reality as you complete the program.

Week One - Mental Shift In Perspective The Week One Mental Shift In Perspective is accepting that the version of yourself that you defined in your vision is you. You are that person. You already have everything in you that you need to live that reality. Week One is about getting your mind right (I told you that was important) and accepting that by doing the work and coming through the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts process, you will soon be living that reality. Some people cannot accept that idea, that the version of reality they dream of is just weeks away from being the reality they are living. In Week One, we prepare the participant to accept how close that reality is and to be ready for that transition. Note: to fully explain the martial arts requirements for Week 1 with text and supporting pictures required just under fifty pages! For the remainder of the book, I will provide a summary of each week’s Martial Arts, Accountability, and Mental Shift In Perspective requirements so you can understand how the entire program works on an expedited time frame. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week 2 Martial Arts In Week Two, I introduce the Long and Short Weapons Configuration. The idea is to hold the longer weapon in the dominant hand and the shorter weapon in the complementary hand. The Long and Short could be a stick and short stick, a stick and a knife, a sword and a knife, an umbrella and a tactical pen, etc. With the Long and Short, participants learn the Four Count, which is all performed with the long weapon (almost the equivalent of the jab, from Western Boxing in terms of how the Four Count probes the opponent's response), from the backhand chambered position.The Four Count, as the name suggests, consists of four beats: 1. Backhand to the right temple, 2. Vertical toe smash, 3. Rising slash to the jaw, 4. Backhand to the right temple (a repeat of Beat One). Participants eventually learn to think of the Four Count as one technique instead of four movements. The next requirement is the Five Count (the conceptual equivalent of the cross, from Western Boxing in terms of how the Five Count puts the opponent away at the correct time), which is also executed from the backhand chambered position. The Five Count uses both weapons and consists of 1. Long Weapon Backhand Redondo, 2. Short Weapon Escrima One Angle One, 3. Long Weapon Escrima One Angle Two, 4. Short Weapon Angle Two (as the Long Weapon opens), 5. Long Weapon Angle One (which returns the practitioner to the starting position). The next requirements are to revisit the Backhand Series from Week One, but to add either a Four Count on as a follow up, or add a Five Count. The practitioner has a lot of options from these simple curricular additions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Backhand to Four Count Backhand to Five Count Backhand to X to Four Count Backhand to X to Five Count Backhand to Redondo to Four Count Backhand to Redondo Five Count

The next weapons configuration is Single Dagger (knife). The knife is held point up in the dominant hand. The first block of curriculum is to

explain in the Filipino Martial Arts, if at all possible, we avoid fighting empty-handed against a knife. When confronted with a blade, picking up any object and weaponizing it is always preferable to fighting empty-handed versus a blade. In the Filipino Martial Arts, we only fight empty-handed versus blade to keep ourselves alive long enough to grab an object to weaponize. That mindset is hammered home before the remaining techniques are taught. The next requirement is to have a partner “feed” Escrima One Angles One through Five with a dull, safe training blade. The training partner needs to attempt to actually touch the targets when “feeding”. The next technique is to impede all five angles of attack with your own blade. This is a bladed version of defanging the snake. After learning how to impede the five angles, the Pass/Slash/Thrust drill is learned against a partner “feeding” the same five angles of attack with a training blade. The Pass/Slash/Thrust is a lot like the X-Factor drill. The practitioner makes a scissoring motion with both the knife and his/her free hand. The scissoring motion passes the opponent's knife while simultaneously slashing the opponent's arm (again, Defanging the Snake). The moment after the opponent's knife has been passed, his/her arm has been slashed, and a line is open, the practitioner thrusts the blade into the opponent (usually aiming for the midsection). Accountability In Week Two, the participant makes an inventory of all of the life areas beyond the professional in which he/she will use her newly developed command presence (the ability to command the attention of one hundred percent of everyone in every professional space he/she enters) once he/she completes the program. Mental Shift In Perspective In Week Two, the concept of Appreciative Inquiry is introduced. Appreciative Inquiry is a hugely beneficial practice that will allow the participant to harness the power of positive language to change his/her perceptions. Often, we use deficiency-focused language in our professional lives, “We have a huge problem here with staff morale. How are we going to solve that problem?” That sort of language, even if it is well intentioned, will usually be met with blank faces. The language is focused on the problem, and how huge the problem is. It doesn’t spurn professional creativity. The appreciative inquiry approach to the same inquiry might look

something like this, “If Company X were doing as well as possible in terms of staff morale, and everyone felt valued for the work being done and the unique role each staff member plays, what would that look like?” It's brainstorming based on the shared vision of what stakeholders want that makes Appreciative Inquiry such a powerful tool for organizational transformation. Simply put, people tell you what they see when they visualize the outcome they want versus being confronted with the severity of a problem. In Week Two, there are several problems presented with deficiency-focused language, and then participants must rewrite them into Appreciative Inquiry type questions. Appreciative Inquiry is a step in the right direction in terms of the practitioner purposefully using language to transform his/her perceptions. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week 3 Martial Arts In Week Three, participants are introduced to the area of double knife, so a knife held point up in each hand (and usually knives of equal or very similar length). The first requirement is the Female Triangle Footwork To Seguitas (attack patterns). The Female Triangle finds the practitioner standing with his/her feet together (imagining he/she is standing at the point of a triangle). The practitioner steps his/her right foot out diagonally (imagining he/she is stepping out along the side of the triangle). The right foot then retracts to the starting point, and the practitioner steps his/her left foot out along the side of the imaginary triangle. Then the left foot retracts to the starting point. The practitioner continues to alternate which foot steps out and then retracts, performing the foot replacement at the tip of the triangle. For the sequitas (attack patterns) we use basic Western Boxing tools, just holding knives. The jab is the lead straight punch. The cross is the rear straight punch. We can hook (lateral looping punch), or body hook (a lateral looping punch to the body), uppercut (an upward rising punch), and overhand (a diagonal, looping, downward punch). To mix the sequitas with the footwork, the practitioner steps out with the right foot using the Female Triangle footwork. In a right lead, holding a dagger in each hand (point up), he/she executes jab/cross/hook in a right lead. Using the Female Triangle footwork, he/she switches to a left lead and executes the same combination with the blades. He/she switches back to a right lead using the Female Triangle footwork and executes the next combo, jab/cross/body hook. The practitioner uses the Female Triangle footwork to switch leads. It’s that simple. The Female Triangle footwork is the methodology for lead switching, and the practitioner runs all of the combos in both leads. He/she usually runs through at least: 1. 2. 3. 4.

jab/cross/hook jab/cross/body hook jab/cross/uppercut overhand/uppercut/overhand

5. cross/body hook(lead hand)/hook (lead hand again)/cross The next two requirements both come from Pekiti Tirsia. Both partners hold their double training daggers in the point down (icepick) grip. Both people take turns being the “feeder” and then receiving and performing the Double Outside Relationship drill. You are either feeding or receiving (performing the drill) until time is called, at which point, you and your partner would switch roles. For this drill, both partners are holding both training blades point down, or in icepick grip. The feeder uses one hand at a time, hammering towards the other training partner, and trying to touch their partner’s sternum. The receiver uses his/her training blades to scoop the attacker’s blades from the outside and draw them down, avoiding the attack. Because the receiver performs this defensive motion with both hands, I call this a Double Outside Relationship because he/she has both blades outside of the attacker’s/feeder’s blades. The last Double Dagger requirement is called the Mutual Single Side Relationship. In this drill both people play offense and defense with every other beat. The knives are still both held point down. If Partner A attacks with his/her right hand blade, using the same style of feeding from the last drill (one blade at a time, trying to simulate a stab to Partner B’s sternum), Partner B will outside scoop (just like in the last drill) before he/she is “stabbed” with the left hand blade and immediately return a right hand feed, trying to touch his/her blade to Partner A’s sternum. Partner A intercepts the attack with an outside scoop with his/her left blade, and returns a right hand feed, and the whole process picks up from where it began. It’s called a Mutual Single Side Relationship because both partners have the same relationship in the scenario above with each individual hand; both are defensive with the left hand blade and offensive with the right hand blade. The only other requirement would be for both people to perform the same exercise using the other hand for the other function. So, based on what I described above, both people would feed the left hand blade, and outside scoop with the right hand blade. The other weapons configuration explored in Week 3 is Panantukan or “Filipino Dirty Boxing” (a tongue-in-cheek name for this block of material that comes out of the reactions the Filipinos had when the American Naval Officers, who were regularly getting knocked out by this material in the early twentieth century, commented that the Filipinos were “dirty” fighters). The

Panatukan taught here is to be used against a fighter boxing out of an Orthodox stance (left lead, with the power side in the rear). The first Panantukan technique (which is really one simple technique with four minor variables) is the Split Entry. The Split Entry is to be used to counter the jab (the lead straight punch), which in this case (and for this explanation) would be the opponent's left straight punch. To perform the Split Entry, as the opponent jabs, move your head to the right to quickly zone your head to the outside of the punch. You don’t want to be one hundred percent dependent on your hands for this technique, because if you’re not fast enough, and lazy with your head movement, you will get hit in the face. As the punch comes in and you zone your head to the right, your hands do two things at the same time: 1. Your right hand moves to the outside of your opponent's punching arm to “put a lid” on the punch, 2. Your left hand attacks on the inside of the punch. One hand is outside and one hand is inside, which is why we call this a “Split” Entry. So, on the same beat: 1. you move your head off line, 2. you “put a lid” on the opponent’s punching arm with your right hand on the outside, and 3. your left hand attacks on the inside of the punch. Again, because your hands are on opposite sides of the opponent’s punching arm (your right hand is on the outside and your left hand is on the inside) you are “splitting” your offense and defense. That’s why this is called the Split Entry. The only variations are what you do with your left hand: 1. Sungab (finger jab) the eyes - keep your left fingers relaxed and flick them into your opponent’s eyes. 2. Sungab the throat - just like Number One above, but you aim for the soft tissue of the throat. 3. Vertical punch - make a fist and punch your opponent with it at the exact moment he/she expected to hit you. I do a vertical punch (with my palm facing my right), because of my Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do Background. You could easily do a palm down, Western Boxing style punch. 4. Check - if your opponent has good form, and his/her right hand is up by his/her face, instead of striking, on your Split Entry, get deeper, and check your opponent's right hand so he/she cannot throw a rear hand punch.

The next requirement is an additional response if your opponent throws a cross (a rear straight punch) after his/her jab. Perform a Split Entry against the jab, as explained above, with any of the first three striking variables (if you choose the Check, your partner cannot throw a cross, so for this technique, we’re going to assume you did one of the first three variables of the Split Entry). Keep your left hand on the centerline as it attacks with a sungab or punch as the counter for the Split Entry. Your opponent will have to go around, or go outside of your left hand to hit you with the cross because you control the centerline. When he/she throws the cross, just make a small waving motion to your left with your left hand to cover the cross, and at the same time, either punch or sungab with the right hand. The hardest part of this technique is resisting the urge to make the left hand cover motion too big; you will not need too much movement out of the left hand (again, because you dominate the centerline). The last requirement is to explore the Panantukan techniques holding a pen. Depending on how little time you had to deploy the pen based on the threat, if you deployed in the right hand, the pen held in icepick grip gives you a nice little assist in terms of doing damage on the “putting a lid” on the punch motion. If you deploy the pen point up in your right hand, when you Cover and Hit the cross you can see how the pen can be used to sungab. If you deploy in the left hand, on the split entry beat, you can strike with the pen instead of your fingers or with your fist, regardless if the pen is held point up or point down. Accountability In Week 3, the participant gets very specific. He/she drills down his/her focus and determines the most pressing area in need of change in both his/her professional life and in his/her personal life. Mental Shift In Perspective The Mental Shift In Perspective is to make the participant realize he/she is nearly to the halfway point of the program and that the vision defined in Week One is less than a month and a half away. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the

subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week Four Martial Arts Completing Week Four marks the halfway point of the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts. Participants complete a review of the first three weeks of martial arts material taught. Participants are also exposed to my Filipino Martial Arts for the Zombie Apocalypse material. Now, obviously zombies are not real, but my Filipino Martial Arts for the Zombie Apocalypse material was developed around Halloween time many years ago as a fun, martial arts exercise in make believe. The material is focused on the most brutally effective way to put down a zombie with a machete-type short sword. If you would like to learn more about that block of material, visit www.ZombieFMA.com The zombie material is showcased with the following guiding question for each participant: what am I creating/adding/offering to my study of the martial arts that only I have the ability to create/add/offer? Even though the participant has completed about a month of the program, everyone learns differently and everyone has different insights. The participant is reminded here, at the halfway point of the program of the truth that he/she has something unique to offer, because everyone is different and everyone brings something different to the table. Accountability These are the instructions provided for the Week Four Accountability requirements: ”Record a video of one or two techniques you have learned so far, putting a unique spin on the technique. This can be anything ranging from a mnemonic developed by you, an insight you gleaned through reflection/solo practice, a slight variation on the techniques, recognition that the techniques apply in different weapons configurations, etc. Two to five minutes is just fine.” Participants are encouraged to use their cell phones and not to stress out about the “production values” of the video. As long as what the participant says is audible and the participant is in frame, teaching/ explaining the chosen ideas/concepts, the video is perfectly acceptable. In most versions of the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts Program, participants receive direct feedback from me at this midway point, further cementing the

trust being developed in our coaching relationship. All participants in all versions of the program keep a copy of the video as an asset the participant can always revisit during low confidence intervals. While most people I know (myself included) are not crazy about watching himself/herself on camera, the videos “stand the test of time” in the sense that once the video is completed, the participant is there, on video, halfway through his/her Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts Journey, and sharing some unique insight/idea that he/she has had midway through the program. While it is very common to find minor things that one wishes he/she could make stronger, for most people, the video is a perpetual reminder that the participant set himself/herself apart by taking action to resolve the issues that were holding him/her back in his/her career. Mental Shift In Perspective At the halfway point, the participant is reminded that as children, we usually just play and create. We have not had our creative instincts “beat out” of us as children. The mental shift in perspective for Week Four is to remind the participant that the video is tangible evidence that the participant has a unique, professional creativity and his/her industry will suffer if he/she does not share that creativity with his/her industry. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are

your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week Five Martial Arts In Week Five, most versions of the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program begin with the participant receiving constructive feedback on his/her video from me. I usually like a ratio of three to one, in terms of providing three ideas that worked for me from the video and specifics as to why they worked for every one area of need. I always make sure that if there are any errors with the martial arts concepts presented in the video that in Week Five, I make the participant aware of both the error(s), and what correction(s) would alleviate that/those error(s). In Week Five, all participants in all versions of the program must share the video with six people: two family members, two friends, and two co-workers. Each person with whom the participant shares his/her video must provide two examples of something that worked for them from the video and one element that could be improved. The participant records all of the feedback on the Video Feedback Tracking Sheet. All of the additional martial arts requirements for Week Five are presented through the lens of add-ons, or, “What do you already know that you don’t know you know?” The goal is to demonstrate to the participant that he/she has already learned a great deal of Filipino Martial Arts material, but he/she knows more than he/she is aware of, and that is revealed just by adding a few training modifiers (a term from another Filipino Martial Arts system). In Week Five, we revisit the first five angles of Escrima One, the first five angles of the numbering system from Applied Eskrima Balintawak, and the Backhand Series, but we’re going to reevaluate all of that material from the standpoint of how those angles of attack and techniques are the same and how they are different when the practitioner is holding a one-handed, machete-like sword instead of a blunt impact weapon (such as a stick, or umbrella). For example, Angles One and Two in Escrima One, performed with a blunt impact weapon, are ideal to be delivered to the clavicle (or collarbone) as explained earlier. With a sword, the clavicle makes no sense as a target; depending on the sharpness of the blade, the sword might get caught on the bone, as opposed to altering the angle slightly to change the target to the

neck. The other addition in Week Five is to use the first five angles of attack of Escrima One to fight with a staff. The practitioner learns how to strike on those five angles of attack both using one side of the staff, holding the staff with the left hand palm down and the right hand palm up. A one sided approach uses only the end protruding from the right hand. In Week Five, the practitioner also learns to fight with both sides; holding the staff double palm down, striking on the odd angles with the end of the staff protruding from the bottom of the right hand, and striking on the even angles protruding from the bottom of the left hand. Accountability In Week Five, the participant is responsible for completing the Technique Tracking Sheet, which summarizes all of the techniques taught so far in the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program. The participant is accountable for practicing every technique previously taught so far in the program no less than three times. Mental Shift In Perspective The mental shift in perspective for Week Five is to remind the participant of how far he/she has already come, and that he/she knows a great deal of Filipino Martial Arts, and that he/she knows even more when presented with the same material he/she already knows, but when the material is presented in another context. Week Five is all about showing the participant that even a slight alteration in the weapons configuration brings new dimensions to his/her practice. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests,

please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week Six Martial Arts Week Six marks an important transition in the program. Week Six does not teach a single martial arts technique, but does offer a wealth of important self-defense content, which I will summarize here: 1. Awareness - the “real work” of self-defense is increasing the awareness of the practitioner beyond what is typical of most of the population. 2. Victim Selection - the participant is taught some body language tips that decrease the likelihood of being selected as a victim by those who would commit crime. 3. Avoiding The Three S’s - an expression from Punong Guru Marc Denny of Dog Brothers Martial Arts. Essentially, the purposeful avoidance of the kids of people, places, and activities that have a “particular” reputation for being dangerous. 4. Verbal Judo - taken from a video from the well-known Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s martial art) Instructor, Sifu Tim Tackett. This material consists of some specific language that “shuts down” a potential antagonist’s ability to escalate a “nothing” situation into a “something” situation. 5. Primary Target - for the incredibly rare situations when force is not just appropriate, it is necessary, this section explains the primary targets of the body for fighting empty-handed, fighting with blunt impact weapons, and fighting with blades. Primary targets, however “cold blooded”, are the most effective targets in each of those contexts. 6. The Fake Wallet Gambit - for those who live in or have regular contact with areas with high statistics of muggings. This idea is to take an old wallet and fill them with advertisements, old hotel key cards, and put a few dollars in it. Then, carry the fake wallet on a separate side of your body. In the event of a mugging, the fake wallet is handed

immediately to the mugger in the hopes that in the adrenal state, the mugger will accept the wallet after a cursory glance at it and leave, thinking the incident is a “successful” mugging. 7. Group (Family) Tactics - the idea of a family evacuation plan in the highly unlikely event of a fire in the home is something very common. In this section, it’s suggested that families should develop a plan if, however unlikely, of the family being mugged or accosted. Accountability In Week Six, participants complete an Awareness Diary for seven days straight. Participants track their own body language, take note of where other people in public spaces keep their hands, and generally focus on being more present and increasing their general state of awareness. Mental Shift In Perspective While participants have been learning highly effective fighting concepts and techniques from the Filipino Martial Arts, the mental shift in perspective in Week Six is taking on an understanding that the real “work” in preparing to confront violence is mental. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are

your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week Seven Martial Arts In Week Seven, participants in all versions of the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program are given their final chance to ask me any questions they have about any of the martial arts taught previously in the program. Week Seven is all about planning for the Week Eight Graduation Self-Defense Workshop. Participants plan a twenty to thirty minute self-defense workshop to be delivered in the participant’s residence. Four participants make for an ideal guestlist for those who are planning on using a living room. For those with a garage, or basement, a maximum of ten family members and friends make for an ideal number of participants. In Week Seven, participants must create a “setlist” for the Week Eight Graduation Self-Defense Workshop. Here is a sample setlist: ○Escrima 1 - 12 angles, blunt impact weapons - umbrella, flashlight, cane ○Escrima 1 - bladed weapon comparison ○Fake Wallet Gambit ○How to keep an awareness journal for a week (samples) ○Family tactics Accountability Participants download and complete the Graduation Self-Defence Workshop Rehearsal Sheet. The Week Seven Accountability requirement is all self-directed. The participant approaches his/her preparation for the Graduation Self-Defence Workshop from the standpoint that he/she, no matter in which version of the program he/she is enrolled, is presenting valuable information to people important to him/her. It is the responsibility of the participant to adequately prepare for the Graduation Self-Defence Workshop. Mental Shift In Perspective Week Seven is all about each individual participant taking ownership over the final weeks of his/her Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts experience. The material has been presented. Once Week Seven is over, the remainder of the program finds the participant in the driver’s seat.

As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts - Week Eight Martial Arts The Week Eight Martial Arts requirement is for the participant to present his/her Graduation Self-Defense Workshop to his/her invited family and friends. Most participants, depending on which version of the program is being completed, receive feedback from me on the Graduation Self-Defence Workshop. All of the participants record their Graduation Self-Defense Workshop as an artifact of his/her completion and graduation from the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program. Accountability The deliverable for all participants is the video of his/her Graduation Self-Defense Workshop. Mental Shift In Perspective Most participants in most versions of the program receive a certificate of graduation from the program. The version of who the participant dreamed of being that was defined in Week One has caught up to the present moment. The participant has done it! As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are

a student/ practitioner)?

Putting It All Together You have now read a summary of the entire Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program. My hope is that you have seen the three components of each week work alongside one another to transform the participant as explained in the program framework in an earlier section of this book. The martial arts, accountability, and mental shifts in perspective pieces are all equally important to the eight-week process. I teach Filipino Martial Arts in group classes and private lessons all the time in my New York City Academy as a means of developing their mind, bodies, and spirits. For over fifteen years, I kept young people accountable as a K-12 educator. As an educator and professional martial artist, I help people mentally shift perspectives all of the time. The three areas of the framework are all equally important to the transformation. It’s in the unification of those three endeavors that the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts program has its power and is unique. Each one of those areas on its own is very important and very powerful, but it’s in the unification of those three in the eight week progression of the program that brings about the powerful transformation for program participants. Master of Two Worlds Think back to early in this book when I was describing the second to last step in the Hero’s Journey theory developed by the late, great Joseph Campbell. The hero finally reconciles the ordinary world from which he/she came and the magical/mystical/larger world of the quest itself. Our hero finally finds peace in his/her original setting, and he/she is comfortable with the new or changed version of himself/herself that he/she discovered through his/her Road of Trials during the quest. Think about Master of Two Worlds as analogous to when people say, “You can’t go home again”, but if you, in fact, found a way to do just that after moving through a major era of growth and discovery in your own life. I’m bringing things back to the end of the Hero’s Journey to begin to bring this book to a close. Those who successfully move through the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts process have undergone a great quest. Program graduates have undergone their own Road of Trials, experienced an Apotheosis (a figurative death of their former selves and rebirth into the

version of themselves capable of completing the quest) of their own, and successfully completed “the quest”. Like all major transformations, there is the present moment, constantly defined by their transformation, and the subsequent success that follows. Successful program graduates advance their careers like a warrior and get that promotion and that raise while keeping their integrity intact. There is the present moment, and everything that came before the Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts experience. After completing any major goal in life, it’s tempting to look back at everything that came before with a lack of appreciation. After all, back then, you didn’t know what you know now, and you didn’t have what you wanted. A true Master of Two Worlds is not only comfortable with his/her past, but the true Master knows that everything that came in the past was not only necessary, but that he/she would not be living the ideal present moment without that preparation that came from the past. The true Master is grateful for the past, excited about (but not fixated on) the future, and (most importantly) authentically present because he/she knows how hard he/she has worked to shape the present moment into catching up with the vision of success he/she defined in Week One. And so, it comes back (again) to “getting your mind right”. Can you accept that whatever you’re going through, however long you’ve been stuck in your current professional situation, however long you’ve been coveting a particular position and salary, can you accept, actually accept, that in eight weeks, your entire professional life can change? Here again, I’m willing to entertain those who would challenge that idea, and those who would argue that I’m presenting a bad tent church-like sermon in terms of my logic (“Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts will only work for you, you’ll only get your promotion and raise, if your faith is strong enough.”) Here’s the thing (and the naysayers will hate this too): Nothing will work for you until you make up your mind that you are ready to change. In 2015, I attended the Aspiring School Leaders program at Harvard University. I had my doctorate for four years at that time. I had applied for hundreds of positions and gone on many interviews to try and get my first K12 administrative position. Nothing was working. The Aspiring School Leaders (ASL) program was over twenty-five hours of professional development presented by the faculty at Harvard. I was

living in southern California at that time, and I took a few days off work and flew to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend the training. Not very surprisingly, it was the best professional development I ever experienced during my fifteen plus years as a K-12 educator (it was Harvard, after all). Also not very surprisingly, a great deal of the content had to do with mindset (again, “getting my mind right”). I attended that training in March of 2015. Again, not very surprisingly, a lot of my “takeaways” and assets that I took back home from Cambridge were reminders I created for myself to affirm that I had put in the work, and I was ready to take my “seat at the table”. In June of 2015, I was offered an administrative position. I didn’t get what I wanted until I made up my mind (until I “got my mind right”) that I was actually ready to have what I believed I wanted in my life. I will write this again: It doesn’t even have to be Career Command Through Filipino Martial Arts, there is no program that can help you get what you want if you don’t “get your mind right” and actually arrive at a place where you’re ready to have that thing in your life. If you have read this entire book, and the only thing you’ll take away is that you still have some work to do accepting that you’re actually ready to have the thing you want, well, then I accomplished my goal in writing this book. Anything else you’re taking with you from reading this book beyond that is a bonus. I have one more section to share with you after this, but I also want to relate the following: I work very hard in my life not to be a hypocrite. I try to live everything that I tell my students to do. In that spirit, I want to share something else with you to bring this second to last section to a close: Earlier today, I had a meal with my father-in-law, who is in town here in New York City from southern California to celebrate Christmas with us (it’s the middle of December as I’m about to finish up these last sections). My father-in-law and I went out to have lunch and do some shopping for gifts as we’re getting ready for an early Christmas celebration soon (he will be back in southern California on Christmas Day, so we’re going to celebrate early with him and my wife and children). During our lunch, I shared with my father-in-law (who is a retired K12 Assistant Superintendent), my first year as an administrator in K-12 spoiled me greatly. It was an excellent school year. Everything went as perfectly as a year at an urban high school in eastern Los Angeles County can. My second year was sort of a fifty/fifty in terms of being great and being

really challenging. I’m happy to admit that my first year spoiled me to the point that some of the challenges in my second year were very unexpected. My third, and final, year of serving as a K-12 high school administrator made me realize that the job was simply not a fit for my family. I started to look for a teaching job in February of 2018. Making the decision to go back into the classroom led me to move to New York City. While I’m no longer working in K-12 (here’s the part where I’m trying to not be a hypocrite), I regret nothing in my journey. While my wife, kids, and myself miss our family and friends (most of whom are still in SoCal), living in NYC is amazing, and my kids are thriving. I’m working as a professional martial arts instructor now. What I was sharing with my father-in-law at lunch today was that my past, every single step of it, was necessary to get me to this moment, and all of the steps of it were the necessary ingredients in making me the version of myself I am at this very moment. My doctorate was not a waste. My three years serving as an administrator were not a waste. I worked hard and served a lot of people. All of it got me here, sitting in front of my computer, about to try and finish the last few bits of this book, and then put these ideas out into the world. The true Master does not look back with contempt on the parts of his/her life that served as the recipe for the success he/she enjoys in the present moment. The true Master also does not force himself/herself to look back at the past with reverence. The true Master of Two Worlds authentically feels gratitude for his/her past because it brought about the present moment. That is not “making lemonade out of lemons”. That is the recipe to exist in a state of perpetual gratitude. Part of getting your mind right is to honestly evaluate if you have actually latched onto some of the negative feelings you’ve had while you’ve been feeling stuck in your career, and honestly evaluate if you’ve incorporated those feelings into your identity. I had some of that going on during the four years that I was trying to become an administrator (sort of a “Woe Is Me” vibe that I was perpetuating by telling anyone who would listen, “I earned a doctorate, and I can’t even get that many interviews”). Here’s the sad thing: when you’re struggling, no one really cares. The people in your life who really care about you will let you vent, but eventually those people get frustrated because they care about you but they don’t have

the ability to make the situation better for you, so eventually they just get fed up when you keep talking about the problem. With the exception of your work friends, and some super close friends and family, keep your professional struggles to yourself. You could just wind up latching onto that struggle as part of your greater sense of self. Remember, the true Master of Two Worlds dwells in a place of gratitude: gratitude for the past, gratitude for the future, and gratitude to finally be fully present. As you move through this book, to schedule a complimentary, no obligation career assessment with me by phone just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. On average, a Career Assessment takes approximately forty-five minutes. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s all about you! If you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)?

Freedom To Live The final stage of the seventeen stages of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey theory is called Freedom To Live. The hero, finally free from the worries that existed before the quest was successfully completed, is now free to fully enjoy the present moment. Many of the heroes in fiction and mythology settle into a slightly more present version of life in the everyday world from which the hero came before the quest started. Every now and then, you’ll have a hero, like Frodo from Lord of the Rings, who cannot “unsee” what was seen during the quest, and chooses to leave the world in some sense (for Frodo it is the eternal rest of the Gray Havens that offer a batter path then remaining in the world). Heroes like Frodo are rare. Most heroes go back to the ordinary world with a renewed sense of gratitude for (in many cases) what the hero did not appreciate before the events of the quest. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy awoke from Oz (was it all just a dream?) not just having paid lip service to the idea, but truly believing and knowing in her bones there’s no place like home. In Jaws, Chief Brody makes the swim back to Amity Island with Hooper truly unafraid and even appreciative of the ocean he hated for most of the movie. In The Hunger Games, Katniss opts for Peta as her partner, and ends her Hero’s Journey sitting outside, explaining to her young child her coping strategy. In the Harry Potter saga, Harry and his friends literally make the wizarding world safe for an entire generation of children so that Harry can have the (seemingly banal but ultimately vital) experience of taking his son to the train station to board the Hogwarts Express for the first time so the audience experiences Harry’s final act of the saga as figuratively stepping into the aged mentor/Dumbledore/Merlin /Obi Wan role as he and his friends watch their children’s train move away from the station, starting the Hero’s Journey cycle over again. I’m wishing you your own experience of Master of Two Worlds and Freedom To Live within your own professional journey, and ultimately, within your entire life. If you have come this far, and read this entire book, you have given me your most precious, non-renewable natural resource: your time. If you have taken away a single idea that can help you advance your career like a warrior, and get the promotion and raise that you deserve while keeping your dignity intact, well, nobody who sets out to write something like this can hope for more.

Let me explicitly write here that I’m grateful for your investment of time in me, and I want the best for you, not only in your professional life, but in every area of your life. You know by now that I spent four years stuck in my career as an educator. Just by taking the time to read this book, you have taken action to improve your professional situation, and you have my respect for that. If you are ready to take even a single idea from this book and take action to advance your career like a warrior, that’s excellent. Get your mind right, accept that you’re ready to have the professional success you’ve been dreaming of, keep your integrity intact (no matter what), and get out there and grab ahold of the present moment that you deserve. If you could use some help, I’m here for you. I’ve made time for you for your free, no obligation career assessment with me by phone. Just visit www.CareerAssessments.org as long as you’re in the United States. If you’re outside the US, send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “Career Assessment”, and we’ll use virtual meeting software to meet digitally. The career assessments are only for those who are committed to solving their career problems without sacrificing their integrity, for those who have “gotten their mind right” and are actually ready for the success of which they dream, for those who can retain a student mindset (that there’s always more to learn no matter what you’ve achieved, and for those who are coachable and open to constructive feedback. If all of that is you, the career assessments are totally free and there is zero obligation. You have nothing to lose. Again, if you are more interested in the Filipino Martial Arts by themselves, and not so focused on the career development aspect, I encourage you to continue reading this book, as it will take your thinking about your FMA practice in new directions. If you are in the “FMA only” category as far as your interests, please send an Email to [email protected] with the subject “FMA Only”. In the body of the Email, let me know more about you. What’s going well in your practice of the FMAs. What frustrates you? What are your goals for the year? What would it take for you to double your business (if you are an instructor) or double your satisfaction (if you are a student/ practitioner)? Well, my friends, if you know me, you know I always have more to write and/or say about martial arts and professional development. Those are

topics about which I’m incredibly passionate and can go on and on (and you might feel like I’ve already done so). This is where our time together comes to an end, at least as far as this book goes. Get your mind right. Get out there. Take whatever ideas might be of help to you. Grab a hold of the present moment of your dreams. Don’t sell out your integrity in the short term; that’s a rotting foundation on which to build the next phase of your career. You already have everything you need within yourself. Just let that version of yourself catch up with the present moment. Put yourself out there. Take risks. Be bold. Don’t forget that you have a unique, professional creativity unlike anyone else in the world. Don’t forget that your company needs you to walk through the gateway of your new position and new salary to transform the company with your integrity. Don’t forget that your integrity is your secret weapon. Don’t forget that your integrity makes you so special that you may need the position above the one you’ve been coveting. Don’t listen to your imposter syndrome; your entire industry may need you to transform it with your unique integrity. Lastly, I hate the expression, “Good luck.” It’s dismissive, and you don’t need luck. Just go out there and do it. Everybody you look up to had to get out of their own way and let the present catch up with their vision of who they wanted to be. Now, it’s your turn.

All The Best, Bryan Roosevelt Island, NYC December, 2019

Pandemic Afterward I am adding these final words to this edition of this book in mid January, 2021. As I added to the Acknowledgements section, I was working on getting this all ready to go out in the world in hard copy form in early 2021, and then the Pandemic happened. I closed my Midtown Manhattan Academy, stopped all of my offerings on Roosevelt Island, and moved my entire martial arts business online. As I write this, I know in my heart that we are about five months away from the world being able to approach normalcy again. There will be a lot of people looking to start over professionally, or move forward from where they paused in 2020. It is both topical and timely to offer this book in hard copy form. Thank you for reading this. I am always humbled when someone would invest their time in me and my offerings. As of right now, if you would like more information about my Filipino Martial Arts offerings not focused on career advancement, just visit http://bryanstoopsmartialarts.com/ Thank You From The Bottom Of My Heart, Bryan Forest Hills, Queens January, 2021 Copyright 2019, Dr. Bryan Stoops