Thank you note from Master Joe

I am very excited with the gift everyone gave me, the thought behind it. Clearly, you know me well and the Nook Color eReader was absolutely the perfect choice for someone devoted to the written word. With my new gift I will be able to obtain both library books and new releases...magazines (actually, less expensive than the newsstand) that I devour each month...and the best newspapers from across the country. I now have my new magic carpet ride for 2012...reading just for the sake of it, imagination, curiosity and staying on top of events that shape our lives, our world. Again, kam sa ham ni da!

Master Joe

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Oct. 2011 Tournament & Practice Invitation

Four members of Jarrettsville Taekwondo earned gold medals last Saturday in sparring and forms at the 2011 Maryland Taekwondo Festival at Essex Community College. Two others captured silver and bronze.

The six-person team competed among more than 700 other athletes from around Maryland. The winners in their individual brackets -- age, rank, physical size -- are:

Poom se:
Noah DeHart, Cole Drumgoole, gold

Sparring:
Daniel Dziwulski and Brianna Colling, gold
Scott Miller, silver
Alex Young, bronze.

Because of summer break for the month of August, "my students had to train twice as hard in preparation for the tournament," said Master Joe Nawrozki, chief instructor. "I was extremely proud of them for both their effort, performances and how they carried themselves with pride on a very long day."

Master Joe, who coached the fighters on Saturday along with veteran competitor and medalist Mister Ken Chamberlain, also thanked Ms. Emily Ciavolino, another experienced and gifted fighter, who assisted training the team at extra practice sessions. Also, the work of Ms. Amy Bertazon, the program chairwoman, was pivotal in assisting the team to register and in countless other ways -- from the iHop carb-feast to opening her home for extra practice. Carl Smith was also helpful on tournament day and at training sessions.

Also, the parents and other students who showed up to support the competitors made a huge positive difference, Master Joe said.

Now, we turn our attention to next year and the state championships. Tournament team practice begins Oct. 8, 10:30 a.m., at the Forest Hill sports complex. Students who are seriously interested in joining the tournament team should talk with Master Joe; other students who wish to train but not compete should also check with Master Joe. Saturday practice is much more demanding and advanced than our week-night training.

Those practicing on Saturday should wear taekwondo pants, and wear/bring a t-shirt, a sweat shirt, sweat suit, training shoes, water. Some of our athletes wear "bicycle pants" under their dobok pants -- they wick! Also, equipment is expected to be kept clean and laundered, especially pads. Some of you might be interested in looking at the Evoshield protective pads available on the Internet. Carl Smith reports they are excellent.

Adele "Deli" Strummer

Adele "Deli" Strummer, a survivor of three Nazi concentration camps during World War II, will on Oct. 12 be guest speaker hosted by Jarrettsville Taekwondo.

The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the gym at North Bend Elementary School.

Ms. Strummer, 89, was imprisoned at three camps during the Holocaust when German chancellor Adolf Hitler attempted to annihilate entire groups of people -- primarily the Jews -- by unspeakable means in the death camps and elsewhere.

Approximately 6 million Jews and other victims died at the hands of Hitler, whom many historians consider to have been the personification of evil. Other groups of people killed included Poles, gypsies, members of certain religious faiths and people in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Holland, France and even Germany.

Ms. Strummer was held at Auschwitz, Flossenburg and Mauthausen.

"Her riveting, eyewitness account of that time in history will afford all of us -- especially our children who often are not educated about contemporary history -- a look at one of the most pivotal periods of the 20th Century," said Master Joe Nawrozki, chief instructor at Jarrettsville. "We should hear every word of this courageous woman, how she survived, her mental snapshots from those days; and how we can learn and grow by her example."

 

Ms. Strummer's visit was arranged by Mr. Dwight Griffith, third-degree black belt, and Ms. Amy Bertazon, the chairwoman of the Jarrettsville Taekwondo program and a black belt candidate. Questions: contact Ms. Bertazon at the program website, jarrettsvilletkd.org; Ms. Emily Ciavolino, webmaster of the program and second-degree black belt, or Master Nawrozki, 410-420-0379.

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Symposium

July 6, 2011

Last week, I attended an excellent day-long symposium that addressed important issues like bullying, empowering children and young adults to avoid violence in and out of the home and cyber crime targeting kids and teenagers. Nathaniel from our class also attended and we both agreed that the day spent was valuable and instructive. Held at Bel Air H.S. and sponsored by Harford County, the symposium featured speakers that included an FBI agent who specializes in cyber crime directed at young people and a terrific motivational speaker, Davita N. Carpenter, who discussed techniques empowering youth to opt out of behaviors that lead to negative outcomes. The attendees included teachers, social workers and concerned parents.

We do discuss bullying in class and methods how to disengage; I also think it is important that youngsters in the class have the skill and knowledge to step in and extract a victim from a bullying situation. Bullys, generally, are unhappy, weak and pick on weaker victims to enhance their otherwise strong lack of self-esteem. But I learned a great deal more to share with the class and parents/guardians.

There are cyber bullys, for instance, who try to draw in victims over the computer. In a more serious realm, criminals stalk the Internet looking for children and teenage victims. Simply put, privacy should be the utmost concern; no one should share any information on-line. These criminals, who can come off very convincing, reel in innocent youngsters, tricking them to share information like their telephone numbers, schools they attend, their address; sometimes, they get to the point of arranging a meeting place. The FBI agent said that many parents don't exercise enough control over computers with their children and parents should be more active in talking with their children about the safe use of computers. A tiny piece of information can open a trail for criminals -- discussions lead to yearbooks or activities, photos, and criminals can glean information about the victim, like the school they attend from a uniform. Just because you are a teen-ager and "know it all", the growing practice of sexting is also very dangerous, they can go viral. The numbers are alarming: more than 50 % of those who shared a "sext" shared it with multiple people...61% of those who sent a sext of themselves have been pressured to do so at least once...and sexters are four times as likely to have considered harming themselves in the past year than non-sexters. Break the cycle!!

There is also a feature in each computer called a geotag that allows the stalker to locate the victim. The geotag is both fascinating and chilling to me. Geotags are GPS coordinates that can be added to digital files -- most commonly photos --and used to pinpoint your precise location within a 10-ft. radius. Most GPS enabled smartphones embed these tags in photos automatically and you don't even know it. But once you share those photos, a complete stranger can find out where you are, and aren't, according to an article called "The New Privacy Predators" in Women's Health Magazine.

This relatively new twist in technology can be a good feature -- it was developed by the military to find soldiers lost on the battle-field and it allows 911 operators to locate callers and dispatch help, according to the magazine. Some police friends told me the geotag played a vital role in helping Baltimore homicide detectives pinpoint a murder suspect who stole a cell phone from their victim, a promising medical student at Johns Hopkins University. Another example of the potential menace of the geotag: last March, the home of an Indiana woman was robbed after she updated her Facebook status to say that she and her fiance were going out for the night, the magazine reported. Unfortunately, many people maintain a false sense of security with social media. With a few clicks of the mouse, a criminal can uncover anyone's behaviors, travel plans, and other personal information. To protect yourself, it's extremely important to never post your location or plans online.

Remember, there are no stereotypes in this crime or in the more serious category --  physical assaults on youngsters and young adults, usually females. And the criminals can also be females. Often, the perpetrator is someone familiar to the victim -- a family member, a coach, teacher, etc. As we discuss in class, such action should be reported by the child to their parent or other adult whom they trust.

The advice from computer security firms, law enforcement and university experts: If you're going to use Web-enabled technologies and smart devices, you need a solid comprehension of what could potentially be shared and abused. In short, be aware, be diligent -- another form of self defense.

Here are a few on-line resources that can be extremely helpful:

 

* www.kycss.org -- school safety, bullying drop-out/truancy prevention, mentoring and other strategies. Also, consider  ... www.peerabuse.info ...www.backoffbully.com .

 

* www.athinline.org -- aimed at stopping the spread of digital abuse in a teen's life and amongst peers.

 

* www.thatsnotcool.org -- public education campaign that uses digital examples of controlling, pressuring and threatening behavior and preventing teen dating abuse.

 

I have some other helpful websites and information that I will be happy to share. Also, I have an excellent book, "The Teen Years Explained", a collaboration of two experts on adolescent behavior, published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Taekwondo is about developing the mental, physical and spiritual parts of our lives. These topics I mention are very much a part of that -- self-defense, intellectual discussion of what some describe as "too creepy to mention." But there is evil in the real world and sticking one's head in the sand does not work. I hope the symposium, my offerings here, will help parents, children and our young adults to further deal successfully with these societal dangers.

 

Master Joe Nawrozki

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Emily is Going to Korea

June 2011

Click here to read the Aegis article.

 

Three cheers for Emily Ciavolino!

Emily, a second-dan black belt in Jarrettsville Taekwondo, has been selected from hundreds of competitors nationwide to participate in the South Korea Scholarship Program -a two-week trip to Seoul in August where she will be immersed in that nation's rich history, culture and language.

She will be joined by 99 other high school students who met the demanding criteria in the selection process for what is formally known as the Korea-U.S. Youth Network. The project is funded by private sources and the Korean government.

When informed that she was selected, Emily was ecstatic when she called me. "I am going to Korea!" she yelled repeatedly into the telephone.

Since 1991, the program has served as a bridge between the United States and Korea to foster a better understanding of the host country and to promote goodwill and friendship between young leaders from both countries.

Emily and her fellow winners will be headquartered at Yonsei University. There, the visitors will be given lectures by college professors in various segments of Korean society and history. The U.S. contingent will also visit museums, government centers and the Gyeongbokgung Palace, built in 1394 and home to several royal dynasties. It was burned to the ground during the Japanese occupation of Korea but the Korean leaders and people would not allow that important symbol of their culture to be destroyed -the palace is nearly restored to its original state.

 

The U.S. students will also visit the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea, a border bristling with barbed wire, armed guards in watch towers and other dangerous weapons of war. Each side engages in strange psychological warfare tactics ¬including blaring music at each other through massive speakers. When I was last there, South Korea was "entertaining" their enemy with cranked-up tunes by Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.

While there, Emily will also have the opportunity to dine at some of Seoul's finest restaurants -yes, she is already a veteran of the spicy-hot staple of Korea -Kimchee. On a side trip, Emily is extended the honor of being invited to the home of my friend-comrade-in-arms Jae S. Chung and his family. Mr. Chung is the leader of the Korean Veterans of Vietnam, the soldiers with whom I served in Indochina.

Also, she might have an opportunity to visit Kukkiwon, the home of the World Taekwondo Federation, the international governance group that oversees certification of black belts and other issues. Take your dobuk, Emily!

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of her trip will be the interaction with Korean teenagers with similar outstanding academic and social credentials.

"I am looking forward to everything. I will be more knowledgeable about Korea and the people when I return home," Emily said.

In my letter of recommendation to the scholarship program, I mentioned all of Emily's achievements -the skills at taekwondo, her leadership potential, co-captain of the tournament team and an honors student who has already earned a full scholarship to Harford Community College. Furthermore, it was important for the judges to know that Emily has a razor-sharp social conscience, having done volunteer work in economically depressed areas of Baltimore City. And, if that's not enough, she has a part-time job.

"This young lady," I wrote to the judges, "exhibits a strong and disciplined character, a genuine humility and an eagerness to make a positive difference in the world."

Apparently, the judges felt the same way!

-Master Joe Nawrozki