This year I have two children starting the sixth grade. My oldest, Armand, already started this past June. In the Los Angeles Unified School District many school participate in what they call "year round school." They split the children in to different "tracks'. A, B, and C track. Armand was placed in C track. This meant that he went from elementary school to middle school in 2 weeks. Yuk.

Armand is the sweetest kid in the world. He's never bothered anyone and is only interested in having fun. While this may be a great quality in elementary school, in middle school it makes you a prime target for harassment. Kind of ironic that the son of a jujitsu instructor would have problems with bullies.

For some reason he's become a target of a small group of kids in his art class. To make a long story short, I visited he classroom today and will be volunteering for the teacher periodically starting Tuesday. That should end any problems he's having in class.

What's most interesting for me about this story is that it is almost identical to what happened to me in middle school. When I was in the 6th grade I met a 7th grader named Joseph Morrison. We became friends at one point but then during art class one day he suddenly turned on me. The torment went on for years. It got the point where I left school early and walked ten blocks out of my way just to avoid him. I was in a constant state of fear. To further the irony more Joseph Morrison was the person who first told me about jujitsu. I remember him saying, "The whole point of jujitsu is to disarm any weapon..." He was partly right. Furthermore, because of my experience with him, I began a desire to learn martial arts. If I were to meet Joseph today I would thank him for the direction he led me in.

Hopefully I have broken the cycle with my son. It's times like this that I am reminded about the philosophy of my teachings. "Full Circle is a philosophy of always coming back to ones beginnings with new knowledge learned on the circular path of life."