A Turkey Brigade Program to feed needy families at Thanksgiving is an important and traditional event at many martial arts schools. This month’s Black Belt Promotions Report provides a step-by-step explanation of the entire process, as successfully held the last 11 years at Chris Rappold’s Personal Best Karate Schools. This year, Mr. Rappold and his staff, students, parents and volunteers expect to feed 2,000 families.

Your goal may not be that ambitious, but, regardless of how many families you feed, a Turkey Brigade is an excellent activity to teach the experiential lessons of service and leadership and build a community spirit inside and outside your school.
The following support documents are included on the Media Master CD-ROM: a letter to community organizations, asking for names of families; a letter to students and their parents and families; a sign-up chart, so students can provide names of families they may know who would appreciate your school’s support at Thanksgiving; and a customizable press release.

NAPMA provides a “bountiful harvest” of drills for your fall classes in this month’s Black Belt Teaching Report. Your students will develop better coordination, greater strength and improved blocking skills—there’s even a method to help your students enjoy calisthenics!

Although you must keep it serious, students will have great fun with the Crab Karate Game. Improve your students’ reaction time with the Three-Student Reaction Drill.

n this month’s G.O.L.D. Team Leadership Report, Tom Callos explains why the “intent of your teaching“ is so important, and can easily be the difference between success and mediocrity. “Intent, the Company You Keep and Six Do-It-Now Assignments” also reveals that your intent is also dependent on the company you keep.

Mr. Callos provides a three-step program (the first three of your Do-It-Now assignments) to help you improve the company you keep or emulate and then transfer those positive influences to your school.

The other three Do-It-Now assignments also relate to leadership development. As you’ll discover, he doesn’t mean with a flurry of strikes and kicks, but with a proactive, bold attitude, so you can discover more of the whole person, and use that information to improve your classroom environment.

NAPMA member Solomon Brenner addresses one of the most important Words of the Week, and that is Confidence—and with four quotes that help to encapsulate the concept of Confidence for your students. Confidence is clearly a prerequisite for any task, job, plan or undertaking and Mr. Brenner explains that idea carefully in Lesson #1.

Vincent Van Gogh leads Lesson #2, with the thought that even when your inner voice says, “You can’t,” you must silence it by confidently doing what you know you can. One of the greatest attributes of confidence is that when you have it, you do not fear being wrong, and that is the focus of Lesson #3.

One of our great First Ladies, Eleanor Roosevelt, teaches, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Mr. Brenner expands on that thought in Lesson #4, helping students to understand that others will have their opinions of you, but you must have confidence in yourself and work toward your goals.