Check out this video from my friend, Mr. Gary Engels. He is a Martial Artist from Wisconsin. Great Video!
Please help us meet our goal. Contribute HERE
Alabama Call For Help. from Gary Engels on Vimeo.
Please help us meet our goal. Contribute HERE
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Alabama -- almost there!
In less than a week Peter Liciaga and Robert Laramie, black belts from Dinoto Karate Center in Mount Laurel NJ leave for Greensboro, Alabama!
Please help us meet our goal. Contribute HERE
Please help us meet our goal. Contribute HERE
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Alabama's Building Project just became more EXCITING!!!!
I just recieved an exciting message (via video) from our Alabama director Pam Dorr (HERO Project).
We, the Ultimate Black Belt Testers, will not only help with Ms. Georgia's home, but we are going to help re-build a SCHOOL!!!
I am so excited about this trip...and it get's better and better as we get closer to our start date!!!
Here's a tap on the shoulder reminder to everyone who pledged to help (a big thank you to you all) -- I need you to send in your pledges asap!!! Time is going by FAST!!!! yes? You can safely make your contribution HERE via our secure online contribution. again, a big thank you to you all.
~ peter liciaga
Friday, March 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The UBBT (Alabama) Movie.
Below is a movie of the 100's Ultimate Black Belt Test -- created by UBBT alumni and 100 member, Academy Award winning filmmaker, Nancy Walzog.
The UBBT Movie, Part 1
The UBBT Movie, Part 1
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Ultimate Black Belt Test! Master Liciaga actually training!
For you martial arts purest, here is a short video of Master Liciaga training. Everyone is welcome to visit Dinoto Karate Center Saturday mornings at 9:45am and watch Master Liciaga train. However, it's important to point out that it is not so much what you do on the mat that will make the greatest difference --it's what you do in the world!
Master Peter Liciaga, an instructor at Dinoto Karate Center in Mount Laurel NJ, is fully involved with the Ultimate Black Belt Test and in full support of the Alabama HERO home building project.
To find out more, go HERE
The Ultimate Black Belt Test
This is a movie of the 100's Ultimate Black Belt Test -- created by UBBT alumni and 100 member, Academy Award winning filmmaker, Nancy Walzog. It is important to note that Master Peter Liciaga, an instructor at Dinoto Karate Center in Mount Laurel NJ is fully involved with the UBBT this year and in full support of the HERO Housing build.
To find out more, go HERE
What Alabama Means to You --and Me --and Us
Or we are as busy, as distracted, as stretched, as disinterested, as un-resourceful, and disconnected from "the big picture" of our potential as the AVERAGE martial artist (or person, for that matter) seems to be.
I hope to God that that isn't the case with us --not us, please! Let's stand for something different. And in this case, let's stand for the idea that for $1 from 10 of our friends or everyone we know, we could OVER-fund this project. For $1.
That's just how hard it is, 1 simple $$.
The Alabama project says we don't just talk about black belt leadership. The Alabama project says we are closer to what we claim to be. The Alabama project shows whether I'm learning anything as a black belt leader --or I'm NOT. The Alabama project is a statement --a simple $1 statement about whether we are connected in real and powerful way, or NOT...
As a student, I want to make sure you know how to do this kind of work; this "crowd-funding." Then, like artists, we would look for the coolest things to involve ourselves in. Things that created a win for us, for others, and for our communities. Things nobody else had the guts or wherewithal to tackle.
Now we have 34 days to raise 2k, minimum, or ten dollars from every student here would make it a well funded event. That's 29-cents a day --if you start today --and for many of you, that's only 3 cups of coffee less from Starbucks!
Join me and make the seemingly impossible happen.
Master Liciaga
Print a fundraising letter HERE
or Make your contribution now, HERE
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
From Me to My Friends…black belts build a house and more
From Me to My Friends…
On April 7, 2011 I will join between 50 and 100 martial arts master teachers and their students in the small southern town of Greensboro, Alabama. We will put on our work boots and gloves, and begin building a home for an elderly woman in need.
I am going to Greensboro because Martin Luther King traveled through there just weeks before his death. I am going there because teacher-architect Samuel “Sambo” Mockbee co-founded the famous Rural Studio in nearby Newbern. I am going there because of the classic book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; because James Agee wrote about the people of Hale County and because Walker Evans carried his camera down Greensboro’s Main Street.
My friends and I are going there because community activist Pam Dorr lives there and heads The Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization (HERO). We are a group of karate, kung fu, aikido, taekwondo, tang soo do and jiu-jitsu teachers from New Jersey, Hawaii, California, Maine, and so many other more “tourist” or “convention” friendly places, come to Alabama to learn about a kind of martial arts mastery that project founder Tom Callos says is more relevant to teaching self-defense in today’s world that any kick, block or punch.
“Mastery, genuine mastery, is not found in the physical practice of the martial arts,”
states Callos, a 6th degree black belt,
“It is found in the way the practitioner uses, in the world, what he or she practices on the mat. To be a Master is to transcend the boundaries and borders of your subject and weave your work into the fabric of your community. This is what Mockbee did, what we experience when we read Agee, when we see the faces and places Evans captured in his photography, and what we hear when we listen to Reverend King today, 43 years after his death. These black belts are here to practice a kind of martial arts that transcends the dojo.”
For the last 7 years, Callos and his team, participants in The Ultimate Black Belt Test, have raised the funds for building materials, then provided the labor to build a number of projects in Greensboro. Two years ago they helped restore a Rosenwald School. The year before that they built a small house for a man who’s dwelling was becoming uninhabitable. While in Town the martial arts teachers have also toured local schools giving demonstrations, tutored local students in math and English, offered classes in diabetes education, anger management, and given self-defense classes to local women.
“People always ask me what does architecture, photography, building houses, and Martin Luther King have to do with the martial arts,” says Callos. “I tell them, everything. As a Master Teacher my life is my dojo --and everything is I do is a reflection on what I have learned and who I am as a person. This is the ultimate self-defense.”
The $2000 will be part of a $25,000 fundraising campaign that we will raise to build a home and help complete a number of small repairs needed by local Greensboro residents. Donations may be given on-line on my behalf at MLMA / LICIAGA / HERO HOUSING.
As part of my challenge for my 5th degree master black belt, I will be putting my ability of inspiring, leading and motivating others to the test by my friends, you, to help me raise $2000 by April 1st through crowd-funding. If I could get at least 200 of you to contribute just $10 each I will reach my goal!
Thank you for your support. Please contact me for more information on the project and/or to offer assistance at 856-278-5282 --or e-mail me at pLiciaga at g mail.com.
http://www.peterliciaga.org/
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