I Am Project - An Artist

I own an old VHS copy of Grand Master Ed Parker teaching a seminar at a martial arts school in California. The video is 80’s vintage, shot with a video camera of the same era so of course the quality is poor. There is a portion where GM Parker is explaining the force vectors associated with executing the high rising block and how it corresponds to the theory of orbital motion. His forty minute explanation is thorough, so thorough in fact that if one of my black belts were talking for that long during a class, I would have been quietly reaching for the big hook to pull them aside to tell them “less yak and more smack”. Yet when I watch this video, and I have over and over again, I find myself completely enthralled with every word GM Parker has to say and as he speaks I feel my mind opening up to his ideas and my fascination growing. Such is the power of passion.

Like any art kung fu has technical, physical, emotional, and spiritual components. Above all kung fu is an art and I am an artist. My passion will fuel my work.

“Traditionalists often study what is taught, not what there is to create.”
- Ed Parker (1931 - 1990)

Nathan Spasiuk - Living Hero #3

For the previous ten years leading up to September of 2003, my hair was longer than both my daughters. Over the years I had become known as the kung fu guy with the long hair. I hadn’t pictured myself ever shaving my head until the son of one of my coworkers was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Watching my friend and his family go through the ordeal of cancer really caused me to shake my head and wonder how anyone can endure such a challenge. The more I learned about Nathan and how bravely he faced this disease, the more I came to admire him. It was an easy decision to part with my hair when Nathan lost his during his treatment and as a group we raised over $13,000 for cancer research by shaving our heads in support of Nathan.

Nathan Spasiuk was born on February 26, 1998. Up to kindergarten everything was normal and nothing seemed amiss until the June when he finished his school year. I do not think I can accurately describe the overwhelming scope of what Nathan and his family endured at this time so I am going to directly quote Nathan’s father Greg:

“Looking out of the window from the fourth floor of the Stollery Hospital at the setting eleven o'clock sun that July, I hoped that my five year old son would recover from surgery. Nathan was laying motionless except for his breathing. He just had brain surgery to remove a tumour.

A few weeks before we noticed that at the end of the kindergarten that June, that Nathan had some welts on his body. He also vomited several times, but we just dismissed it as heatstroke since our house was hot. We did notice that he walked slowly with his feet pointed outward. Some children are just easier going and we thought that Nathan was just a laid back child with nothing to rush around for. In July Nathan would go and play and then come back with a headache. He would lie down for a while and would feel good and then would get up and then would get a headache again. Looking back I do not know how we missed it, it was obvious, but then nobody ever expects that your child would have a brain tumour. We found out later that the tumour was at the base of the cerebellum and the tumour would block the cerebrospinal fluid from the ventricles in the brain and pressure would build up. He would lie down and then the pressure would be released because the fluid would be able to escape. We took him to see his paediatrician on July 16, 2003. From the time we noticed something to the time he was diagnosed with a brain tumour was 2 1/2 weeks.

The paediatrician sent Nathan to the UAH Paediatric Emergency where a CAT scan was done. The initial doctor never saw anything and he said he would get a radiologist to look at the x-rays and he sent us home. About 2 hours later they called us back to the hospital and told us that they think he has a tumour. They did another CAT scan and scheduled him for a MRI the next day and then for emergency surgery on the 3rd day after his diagnoses.

The doctors were happy that they were able to get a MRI. When I looked at the MRI image and saw this tumour on the MRI, I almost fainted (I did have to sit down). The tumour was the size of his eyeball (the doctors described it as the size of an apricot). The doctors said that we were lucky to have caught it as soon as we did because most of the times they see children that have a tumour and come to emergency unconscious and the tumour is a size of a apple (for some reason the doctors like to describe everything in relation to fruit or vegetables). For these children there is no time for a MRI, just a CAT Scan, and so the surgeons do not really know what they are up to until the surgery.

We did not have time to dwell on anything. The doctors said that Nathan might need an intracranial drain to drain the cerebrospinal fluid and that the drain may be permanent. The drain was really undesirable because of the chance of infection and the chances that it could be blocked and cause pressure that could cause brain damage. They said that he might not be able to see, walk, talk, use his hands or any other motor function for some time after the surgery or he may permanently lose the ability to use them. The physicians really did not know the outcome of such an operation, we just had to wait and see. All of these undesirable conditions seemed very insignificant at this moment because we just wanted him to live.

The surgery was a total of eight and a half hours and the two neurologists took shifts throughout the day. After the surgery a neurologist sort of hinted that the tumour was probably cancerous because it sort of looked more like an onion (again a fruit or vegetable), but he officially couldn't tell us until after the biopsy came back . When the results came back a week later it was confirmed that he had medulablastoma, a form of brain cancer. The rate of survival was 60%. This meant that he would have a 60% chance of being alive five years after treatment. A friend's nephew got diagnosed with the exact same illness a couple of years after Nathan was diagnosed. My friend's nephew was ten years old when he got diagnosed and ten months later he passed away. It was very tough times for everybody.

A couple of days after the surgery another MRI was done and the doctors found that the cancer had metastasised into the cerebrospinal fluid and into the spinal column. The surgery was successful, but unfortunately since the cancer was spreading the doctors had to place him into an aggressive protocol and it would start as soon as he recovered from the operation.

After surgery Nathan was unable to see or talk for a couple of days. He eventually regained his sight, but he was hypersensitive to light. He was not able to use his hands and had to relearn to use them. Since the surgery affected all of his motor functions he also could not walk and he had to learn how to walk again. It took him over a month until he was able to walk again.

One of the diagnostic tests that was done on Nathan was a Bone Scan which involved him to lay still on a hard table while a large plate ,the size of the table he was on, was positioned just over top of his nose. It took about 20 minutes where he was not allowed to move. This bone scan was used to see if there was any sign of cancer in the marrow of the bones. We were relieved that there was currently no sign of cancer in his bones and this was the first bit of news that we received that was not negative.

The cancer treatment protocol required 33 radiation treatments to the cranium where the tumour was and also to his spinal column to try to wipe out the cancer in the fluid. The protocol also required him to be on a twelve month chemotherapy treatment. As it turned out the chemotherapy lasted for about 15 months because during the chemotherapy if his body was too weak to start the next stage of chemotherapy the doctors would delay it until his body was ready.

The radiation treatment required that a mould be made to hold his head and body in the same position for all of the treatments. This required him to lie still while cloths with plaster were laid over his head and upper body to make a cast which would later be used to mould the acrylic plastic for his mould. He was very cooperative for these procedures.

Radiation treatments started in September during the first week of Grade One. The doctors mentioned to us to try to do everything as normally as possible so we scheduled his radiation treatments for early in the morning so he could be in school for his first class. He was so tired from the treatments, but he still wanted to go to school. When chemotherapy started along with the radiation treatments, he eventually lost all of his hair including his eyebrows and eyelashes.

Another MRI was done after the radiation treatments and it was found that the tumours that were in the cerebrospinal fluid cleared up. The doctors speculated that what they thought were tumours may have been blood from the operation that looked like tumours on the MRI.

Nathan lost his appetite and he just would not eat. Eventually we had to use a feeding pump and hooked it up to his nasogastro tube. He pushed an IV pole with the feeding pump and feeding bag around the house . We had it hooked up also during the night so while he was sleeping he would get fed. He would often get sick and not much of the fluid would stay down. Along with the fluid coming up, his NG tube would also come up and then we would have to remove it and get another tube inserted.

Nathan also had to have surgery to place an IVAD port under his skin. This port was connected to a tube and was attached to the vena cava (large vein going back to the heart). This port allowed the nurses to draw blood from him and to administer drugs without poking him in the arm to find a vein.

The chemotherapy was really hard on Nathan and he was really weak by the end of August (a bit over a year after he was diagnosed). During the treatments he required over 30 blood transfusions to help his weakened body. By the end of November he completed the chemotherapy and started his recovery.

Nathan was pretty amazing throughout his diagnoses and treatments. For his first MRI they gave him a general anaesthetic because it was an automatic protocol that all children his age would be put under for the half to three quarter hour MRI. We did not want him to get anaesthetized because it would just wipe him out, so the second MRI we told the doctors that Nathan would lay still. They were hesitant to do this because they did not want any movement. We reassured them that he wouldn't move. We talked to him about the importance of laying still and he somehow seemed to really understand the seriousness and importance of everything that we were doing to him. He never did move and the Radiation Technologists said that he changed the way they deal with some children since he was the first child under a certain age to be awake during the MRI. I remember after one of the many MRIs that he had he said to me "Dad, I had an itchy nose, but I didn't dare move." This is quite the determination for a five year old to not scratch his nose half way through a 45 minute MRI. During every procedure and treatment it was like he knew his life depended on it, which it was.

Nathan still has not been declared cancer free. Usually this is five years after all of his cancer treatments have been completed. This November will be five years since the end of the treatments.

What Nathan is now battling is the side effects of the radiation and the chemotherapy. The first notable thing about him is his hair loss, which is not that major of a condition. He does have thinned out hair on the top of his head, but where the radiation treatments entered his scull, the hair is missing.

He is on a growth hormone therapy because the radiation affected his pituitary gland which is where the growth hormone is made. Six evenings a week he gets a needle with the growth hormone. At the beginning of hormone treatments he was in grade five, but he was the size of a grade three child. He has since grown.

When he was receiving radiation treatment the doctors had to radiate the frontal lobe of the brain and unfortunately his eyes were in the path of the beam, so the eyes also received some radiation. We knew that eventually he would develop cataracts from the radiation, but they developed sooner then we expected and when he was nine years old he had cataract surgery in both eyes.

One of the side affects of one of the chemotherapy drugs was the possibility of nerve damage and this drug affected one foot in that he walks with a straight foot without any flexation. Another side effect of one of the chemotherapy drugs affected his kidneys, bladder, and his digestive tract. His digestive tract almost fully recovered except when he eats certain food is does not sit well with him. Another drug affected his hearing so now he wears hearing aides to school.

Mentally Nathan is doing great. The treatments did have an affect on his processing speed and memory. Nathan is slower than most classmates on timed assignments and often requires reminders to stay on task.

Nathan still gets a MRI, echocardiogram, pulmonary function test, audiogram and blood tests once a year.

Nathan has spent over one hundred nights at the Stollery Hospital along with almost two hundred other days for tests and checkups. He confesses that he did not really know why he had tests and procedures done on him at the time other then he had a cancerous brain tumour, and he did not know why the big fuss about the cancer…kids just grow up, don’t they?

Nathan has had such a positive impact on people he has met. He has been involved with the Stollery Hospital Foundation, the Kids With Cancer Society, and the Make A Wish Foundation. He has helped raise millions of dollars by being involved with radiothons, galas, head shaves, and other fund raising events. He has given short speeches, sang, and played piano at fund raising galas. Nathan co-hosted a Mayor’s Gala that was a black tie affair at the Hotel MacDonald.

The impact he had was evident this past November when he was at a radiothon and a lady came and hugged him. She said that she heard Nathan the year before on the radio and after hearing Nathan she made a donation to the Stollery Hospital. Little did she know at the time, but she was pregnant … with twins… and when the babies were born they were required to be in the NICU at the Stollery. She was so grateful for Nathan since he made such a positive impact on her and that she was not afraid of what was happening, just be positive.

Usually when you hear about children going through cancer treatments it sounds so routine: get a MRI, have surgery, have radiation and chemotherapy treatment, etc.. It is nice to know that it is routine now. What is amazing is how these children, who did not ask for this to happen to them and would have died if it was not for modern medicine, have more insight into life and living and are mature beyond their years.

Nathan will be entering Grade Seven this fall. As a family we have been affected and are so grateful for how well everything has turned out. We do not look and see what we do not have, but rather are so happy for everything that we do have. Nathan has inspired myself, my wife, his younger brother , and everybody that knows him.”

Nathan’s drive and optimism have inspired me a great deal over the past six years. I can only hope to aspire to become the leader Nathan is. I still catch myself sometimes instinctively reaching back to pull my hair out of my collar and each time that happens, a smile crosses my face as I am reminded of the strength of Nathan, his brother Tomas, and his parents Greg and Connie. I consider myself blessed to have the strength of their inspiration in my life and I am thankful for all the others Nathan and his family have helped cope with the challenges of cancer.

I Am Project - Disciplined

A requirement of all my black belts and black belt candidates is weekly journalling. I have learned over the years that writing out my thoughts helps me organize my mind and give me insight into my faults and motivations. It is a tool that I encourage all my students to use.

Sometimes it can be difficult to concentrate or even organize my thoughts to the degree required to actually record them in some sort of comprehensible manner. At times like that it is easy to put off my journalling efforts until gumption, opportunity, and inspiration happen to intersect. Without structure and discipline it is easy to fall behind and let time slip by without even noticing I am not fulfilling my commitment to myself until it is too late. To top it off, if I do not journal I am not completely reflecting upon my motivations and actions and thus I tend to react to things in my life without truly understanding the situation that I am reacting to. Makes for hasty decisions and bad choices.

My first trip to Alabama was a real eye opener for me concerning the value of structure. It had been a long time since I had experienced a prolonged situation where my time was structured to such a degree. I really excelled with this imposed structure and I felt more focus and thus experienced more efficiency than I had for years. This gave me insight to the value of discipline in my journalling.

Since I do not have complete control of my gumption or inspiration, it is important for me to exploit the one thing I can control - opportunity. Sunday is my down time, I know that at some point during the day I will have the time and opportunity to journal. If I am disciplined and adhere to the structure of journalling every Sunday, whether or not I have anything to express (like today for instance), I will fulfill my weekly journalling goal and further imprint the discipline of journalling upon my weekly structure.

I know it provides comfort to me when I read my UBBT teammates’ journals. What they write is not as important to me as the fact that they did take the time to write. There is something soothing about knowing they’re out there and traveling on the same path as me.

“He that cannot obey, cannot command.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

I Am Project - Exuberant

I had big plans for the Exuberant portion of the I Am Project. I had envisioned a video entry that opened on an open field. Off in the horizon a figure would appear running toward the camera (picture Michael Palin’s “It’s” man in the opening credits of Monty Python’s Flying Circus). The figure would turn out to me me and basically I was going to be jumping and screaming in front of the camera in an exuberant fashion. Thought it would be an easy, fun entry but then the leg issues hit. Hard to look exuberant when you move like Quasimodo.

The longer I absorb myself in my training and the challenges of the UBBT, the more excited I get about the journey. I have run into so many roadblocks and obstacles in the first six months of the test and yet my personal growth has been exponential. I know that I probably will not complete everything I set out to do when I started this but at the same time I would be questioning how high I set the bar for myself if come February 2010 I had achieved everything. Kind of like asking $5000 for the car you are selling while hoping you will get $3500 only to find the first guy to look at it gives you the $5000. You’re definitely going to wonder if you were asking enough. It seems like I have been moving on my requirements at light speed with my cape billowing in my wake and yet it is going to take something miraculous to happen for me to complete everything I set out to accomplish. Hence why I’ve already enrolled for next year too.

My twenty student members have been a real asset to me on this journey. Their involvement has kept my accountability factor high and their excitement has fueled my own. I had not noticed how much of my time is spent keeping them on track and motivated, and the mental toll it takes on me, until I received a surprise letter from England this week. The letter, arriving after he had already returned, was from one of my black belt students. You never really know how much a positive word can affect you and your outlook. The fact that he took the time in his travels to write me this note really fueled my soul. It’s funny how those close to you can sometimes do or say exactly what you need when you aren’t even aware that you need it. I am definitely exuberant.

“Nothing ever succeeds which exuberant spirits have not helped to produce.” - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

I Am Project - An Institution

Over the past twenty two years that I have been teaching, I have promoted sixty six people to black belt and out of that number forty two are still active students. It is always difficult to keep people engaged in their training after they endure the ordeal of their black belt grading. It seems that the final six month push where they eat and sleep kung fu twenty four hours a day almost always induces a self imposed sabbatical where the newly promoted black belts wish to reclaim some spare time. It’s unfortunate because it can be very difficult to get back into the swing of things after any length of disengagement from training. So I guess forty two out of sixty six after twenty two years isn’t such a bad number.

A lesson, or philosophical outlook, I give every black belt candidate on the day of their grading is the hierarchical priority of the student, the school, and the art. I try to instill a perspective within them that stresses the importance of the school over the student and the art. For without the school we would not have the student and without the student the art will become extinct.

It is always a risk when I send one of my black belts off to train in another art. You hope you have established yourself and your school as an institution of such importance that their perspective for the significance of their original school is never questioned. It can be so easy to take your old art and training mates for granted when the new art you are studying is providing new stimulus every class that you share with a whole new batch of training mates who have the same infective enthusiasm of beginners. This is why most schools I know do not permit their black belts to cross train despite the benefits this extra training would provide.

I have worked hard to establish my school and myself as an institution of excellence with a reputation of community activism and compassion. In my school we consider each other as family, and as Master Dave says: “family comes first”, so my students should never forget their loyalty to their original school, no matter where they are currently training. I trust them completely to continue to make decisions that reflect a passion for what their family stands for.

“When you leave here, don’t forget why you came” - Adlai E. Stevenson (1900 - 1965)

I Am Project - A Beacon

There is something that crosses my mind ever so often has really been resonating with me since Master McNeill’s visit last weekend. We are only given so many opportunities in our lifetime and it is important that we seize these opportunities and make the most of them.

When you consider the mathematical improbability of meeting a specific individual on a vast planet of six billion souls, this improbability borders on impossibility when you factor in our short lifespan. If you take that one step further and consider how few of our species are truly evolved human beings, the importance of each meeting and the opportunities it provides is accentuated.

The thought that consumes me at times is: Who is in the wings to replace these evolved individuals when they pass on? The leadership and inspiration of a Thich Nhat Hanh, a Dave McNeill, a Pamela Dorr, a Tom Callos, a David Suzuki is priceless. If we are not developing people of quality and character who can fill the shoes of the leaders of today, our society will surely suffer a massive loss.

I know I am blessed to have the opportunities that kung fu has given me. I exploited one such opportunity this past weekend and spent three days with Master McNeill. This experience has caused me to ponder every single student that has crossed my path over the years. How many have I failed to inspire to pursue their training? Perhaps they were potential leaders who may not fulfill their full potential because I failed to reach them. I recognize that my kung fu has made me a beacon that can draw many people, and thus many opportunities, to me and my influence. This is an awesome responsibility.

If I keep my experience of last weekend in front of me, I know I will not forget my role as a beacon and I will make the most of the opportunities that come my way through the people I meet.

“He who influences the thoughts of his times, influences all the times that follow. He has made his impress on eternity.” - Anonymous

I Am Project - A Student

If we are truly judged by the company we keep, I rock. I just spent the entire weekend with Master Dave McNeill and it was one of my best weekends ever.

It’s funny how quickly we can lose the knack of being a student. Of course I have never stopped learning but my learning adaptability skills are definitely rusty. When you have been training with the same people for so many years, you tend to develop a mental and spiritual connection with those people that makes communication, interpretation, and comprehension effortless. I realize now that I have been taking this ease of learning for granted.

Master McNeill is one of the most genuine, engaged people I have ever met. I am not the most socially adept of people out there but the ease I feel when I am around him is amazing. Yet despite being well within my social comfort zone with him and having most of the techniques he taught completely compatible with my kung fu system, I struggled to comprehend and grasp everything he was teaching. My mind tends to work in a nonlinear fashion and is inclined to dwell in the abstract. I usually can get away with this when I am learning from my long time instructor and training mates but I found myself falling into several Spaceman Spiff moments this weekend. On one hand I feel some frustration with not making the most of my opportunity to learn from Master Dave, but on the other hand I am totally stoked about the whole experience. What a great feeling to be a student at this level again. This journal posting could have just as easily been I Am Exuberant.

I can’t express enough gratitude to Coach Tom Callos for all the opportunities and motivation he has given me over the years. None greater than this weekend I have been privileged to share with Master Dave McNeill. I owe both this men a lifetime of gratitude.

“When you love people and have the desire to make a profound, positive impact upon the world, then will you have accomplished the meaning to live.” - Sasha Azevedo (b. 1978)