Here We Go

One of the more important skills in professional fighting is the cover up.  It is not as flashy as fancy kicks or as slick as a ju-jitsu transition but many times, it is the skill that allows you to survive.  Literally.  When you get your bell rung, when you're out of gas, or just out of synch and need the round to be over to reset your bearings, the cover up is key.

But it is a reactive posture and to the average viewer, it is chicken.  Why cover up?  Punch your way out of trouble or get knocked out like a man.  Wimps cover up.  Too many fighters cover up way to much because they are scared of getting hit and when you're covering up, you can't be offensive.  You can't damage your opponent.  You can't win.

I feel like I spent most of 2011 covering up.  Not being offensive.  Not throwing any punches.  Complaining.  Whining.  Letting the world dictate my mood, my work, my passion, and my responsibilities.  Up against the fence, hands over my face, waiting for the round to be over.

But the bell rang, I survived the round, and I'm back on my feet.    

Here we go.  2012 will be an awesome year.  I'm determined.

There will be many changes to the blog this upcoming year - I will be detailing them in the coming days/weeks.  There are some pretty exciting things on the horizon and I am looking forward to sharing them!

A few quotes to start the New Year:

"Finally, if we want to be at peace, we will have to waste less, spend less, use less, want less, need less.  The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful."

Wendel Berry Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, p. 92

"Trying to draw the line where we are trying to draw it, between carelessness and brutality, is like insisting that falling is flying - until you hit the ground - and then trying to outlaw hitting the ground."

Wendel Berry Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, p.141. 

"Institutions all too frequently choose a timid course of incremental, reactive change because they view a more strategically driven transformation process as too risky.  They are worried about making a mistake, about heading in the wrong direction or failing...many mature organizations such as universities would prefer the risk of missed opportunity to the danger of heading into the unknown."

Richard DeMillo, Abelard to Apple, p. 264

"Like the Bisho of Perugia in 1558, every university administrator in the world would not be faced with a modern-day version of the Jesuit priest Nicholas, whoudl would point out that "if we use Sasso's book, they will say what our students have learned, they have learned from Sasso, not from us."  MIT ushered in the era of open courseware."

Richard DeMillo, Abelard to Apple, p. 179

Welcome to the Jungle, 

Dizz