Building Confidence

“Confidence is the inner knowledge that when you are yourself and others are free to be themselves, everything works out for the best.” ~Brian D. Brio, Beyond Success; 15 secrets to Effective Leadership and Life Based on Legendary Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

One of the biggest struggles in coaching cheerleading is helping build confidence. It’s one thing to yell and kick along with five other people during practice, but doing it in front of several hundred people on a Friday night is quite another. Doing it in front of a couple hundred of your peers and classmates at a pep rally is even more nerve-wracking.

People have asked me how I can speak in public. Simple; I know that I’m going to make mistakes that people may laugh out eventually in life, so I may as well be prepared to laugh at myself. If I can do that, that I don’t have to be afraid of making a fool of myself. Now I’m not charming or funny enough to be very good at deliberately making people laugh, but I can manage to get in front of a big group of people and talk to them about just about whatever, without panicking.

Retired UCLA Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success is one tool that I’ve tried to use to help kids learn about teamwork and important character traits like work-ethic and confidence. Another one is Norman Vincent Peale’s classic The Power of Positive Thinking. A few years ago an author named Mary Lou Carney wrote an adaptation of Peale’s book for Teens. In The Power of Positive Thinking for Teens, she lays out ten simple steps for building your confidence:

1. See success- it’s an age-old coaching technique, you imagine, “visualize,” you picture yourself doing well. Starting with the end in mind, that’s all it is.

2. Nix negativity- sometimes this is the most difficult step. It means not letting yourself talk yourself out of being able to do whatever it is that you have to do. Force yourself to not be doubtful.

3. Don’t build obstacles- you’ve heard the old saying, “you’re your own worst enemy?” It can be true, so be on your guard against self-sabotage. Don’t look for excuses to fail, don’t make things harder than they have to be.

4. Be yourself- That’s all you can be, don’t try to pretend to be something else, lay it all out there and if they like you, great, if they don’t, oh well, their loss, don’t take it too personally. This is what my opening quote is about. Just know that when you are yourself and allow be themselves, everything will work out for the best.

5. Know your strengths- Many coaches have you list your assents and then focus on what your good at, not what you’re not good at. A lot of times that will compensate for your weaknesses. It’s also helpful just to list and review your strengths in order to remind yourself that you’re at least good for SOMETHING.

6. Know yourself- this is not the same as #5. This one could be written as, “know your limits.” If you know what your values are and, yes, what your weaknesses are, you can look for ways to maintain a balance, delegate out responsibilities, or ask for support.

7. Use the antidote (Philippians 4:13)- Memorize and recite this verse at least ten times a day. “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.

8. Aim high- If you shoot for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. If you shoot for the moon- even if you miss, you’ll reach the stars.

9. Put yourself in God’s hands- We don’t know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. Sometimes all you can do is to do your best and let God do the rest, also known as “let go and let God.”

10. Be unbeatable

trying to remain cheerful

I've seen other cheerleading websites, but I’ve only ran across one other cheerleading “blog” while surfing the web. And mine is the only Cheer Coach’s “blog.” A blog is a web-log, a journal or diary kept on the internet. Most of the more famous blogs are political. There are now so many of them that you hear TV news pundits talking about a “blogosphere.”

Of course, last I knew the only other male cheer coaches in Iowa was one guy at a community college and some guys who own an exclusive Cheerleading gym outside of Des Moines. I’ve been posting a lot of entries lately, if you’d like to take a look at it, click on over to http://cheercoach.blogspot.com.

Before you say, he has too much time on his hands, keep in mind that that a blog isn’t something that you have to put a lot of work into like most websites, A blog is a free service and they basically give you a template and a program to add to your web browser so that all you have to do is type and click.

It’s been an interesting season so far. Iowa allows each high school 8 cheerleaders during football season and 6 for basketball. In a perfect world, you’d have 2 Freshmen, 2 Sophomores, 2 Juniors, and 2 Seniors. In a perfect world, you’d hold tryouts in the Spring, get 12 or 20 candidates and choose the best 8. Then you’d go to a camp or clinic during the summer and maybe even get a few practices in before school even started.

I’m here to tell you, there is no perfect world. Last year I had 5 Seniors and one Freshman. We had tryout practices but only had 4 candidates. We had tryouts, but 2 of the 4 candidates chickened out.

We were supposed to have ordered new uniforms last Spring, but we didn’t even have a squad until school started about a month ago.

I had 5 cheerleaders, 2 of which are TOTAL rookies, and only 4 ½ uniforms, 2 bags, 4 sets of pom pons, and only one megaphone (guilt-guilt & shame former cheerleaders!). Did I mention that 3 of those 4 ½ uniforms fit really bad? And we haven’t had time to think about new uniforms because we’ve hardly practiced so we hardly know any chants. (Let alone cheers and stunts).

Nikki is the skinniest kid on squad... a 25 inch waist but we STILL can't get a uniform that fits her. We need to do something about it- parent in the stands were even complaining about how her navel shows. I don't think I've had a 25 inch waist since I was say 8 yrs old.

We're kind of a motley crew, but at least there's a squad. Underclassmen all the way.
3 Sophomores; one was on Varsity last year, one was on Junior High for a brief time, and another that was on junior high for two years- she even got 3rd place at the Iowa State Fair for Gymnastics!

Then there are the 2 Freshmen; complete rookies to the sport of cheerleading, one of whom is pretty cynical and pretty stubborn.

Several kids have approached me and told me that they’re planning on coming out for basketball season. AWESOME- although, if I want uniforms that fit, should I wait till after tryouts in November to measure & order? Of course, I had several kids tell me that they were coming out last Spring but they didn’t.

One of my rookies must have felt alienated, like she didn’t have any friends on the squad, because she went to work and recruited two (for THIS season). One’s quiet as a mouse and while the other cheered last year in Junior High, is painfully shy and doesn’t want to perform in front of the whole student body at pep rallies.

That’s Varsity. Junior High is about as complicated- 3 out of my 5 Junior High cheerleaders are now ineligible because of poor grades, and one of the 2 left has a broken ankle, so she’ll be on the Disabled list for about 6 weeks.

Guess how she did it- she was watching a cheer competition on ESPN and decided to practice some chants at home.

Then there are the three seventh graders; THERE'RE SO TINY! I guess I got too used the almost-all-Senior Varsity squad I had last year. This group really makes me feel old though, because when I first came to Boyer Valley 5 years ago, I taught them Art as Second-Graders!

Stripes

This is what Americans areFrom the movie Stripes, with Bill Murray: "John Winger: Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people; we're not watoosie, we're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital A, huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every out every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're underdogs, we're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold. But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt. Who saw 'Old Yeller?' Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? Nobody cried when Old Yeller got shot?"

Network

Network
This is a frightening bit of movie history- because it so accurately predicted the troubles of globalization:

This is from the 1970's Oscar winner 'Network' (the movie where we got the line "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more.")

The chairman of sleazy tabloid-TV network UBS, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), moves in to "convert" Howard Beale (Peter Finch) to sell the values of corporate culture on air. Here near the end of the film, Jensen predicts the future of a corporate world, both fascinating and horrifying.

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no regions; there are no Arabs. There is no third world; there is no west. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interactive multivariant multinational dominion of dollars, petrodollars, electrodollars Reich marks, rands, roubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! You howl about America. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, ITT, AT &T, and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for which all men will work to serve a common purpose and in which all men will own a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxiety tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel.
Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy.
Beale: I have seen the face of God!
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right.

monarch rest-stop, Sep 17, 2005
Mallory

Our most important day

This Saturday is an important anniversary that most of us are oblivious to, but as Americans, this day SHOULD be more important, more meaningful, and more valuable than President’s Day, Flag Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and even Patriot’s Day combined. On September 17, 1787 our Constitution was first adopted by the Constitutional Convention of United States.

The Preamble to the Constitution is often mistaken for a portion of the Declaration of Independence. It is just as important, maybe more so, because it is our “mission statement” if you will, it summarizes what we as a nation, and what our government are supposed to be doing:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

If I were to put it into today’s language, I might say “We agree to these laws and this Constitution, so that we can stand together, to create fairness, guarantee that we all get along, make sure everyone is safe, look out for each other’s best interests, and make sure that not only we, but future generations will enjoy freedom and the ability to participate in the democratic process for years to come.”

I think it’s summed up even better by our motto, “E. Pluribus Unum” which is Latin for, “from many-one.” We are not one race, we are not one faith, we are not one ethnicity or nationality, we don’t even speak one language, yet we are one. What unifies us is what we believe in, what goals we strive for, and what laws we agree to follow, that is what the Constitution was written to express, those rights, those freedoms, and those responsibilities, those duties. What makes us one is our Constitution, not our political party, not our leaders, not even our flag, but rather it is what our flag stands for, and that is our Constitutional rights.

The Constitution is divided into five main parts. Since it is a legal document, lawyers call these parts “Articles,” and each paragraph in an article is called a “section.” When it gets down to it, they did that so that it would be easier to refer back to specific parts that you need to talk about or study. Kind of like how the Bible is divided into books, chapters, and verses. Nobody really talks or writes that way, it just helps you look up things. On web pages there are anchors and tags, in textbooks you underline, highlight, and stick post-it notes everywhere.

The first Article explains in ten sections, how Congress and the Senate are supposed to work. The second article explains what the President and Cabinet are supposed to do. Article Three sets up the Supreme Court and the Judicial branch. Article Four talks about how the State governments are supposed to get along and Articles Five through Seven explain how fix, change, or add to the Constitution itself. The “founding fathers” had no idea how long America would be around or what our lives would be like, what our technology would be like, so they thought that we should have a way to be part of the process.

As a matter of fact, the word “citizen” basically means “member of the government.” Likewise, the word “idiot” originally referred to someone who refused to take any civic responsibility.

I’d love to write about the Bill of Rights and all of the twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution, especially the First Amendment, but that should be saved for a column celebrating the day that the Bill of Rights was first adopted, December 15, 1791.

We stand united not in our hate for or anger toward terrorists. We certainly don’t stand united in our loyalty to parties or politicians. We are united when we strive for the same goals in the Preamble and engage and participate in the process of our Constitution and when we protect and exercise the rights set forth in the Bill of Rights and Constitutional Amendments.

St.John LYF, Charter Oak

St.John LYF, Charter Oak

Here is St. John's LYF website-

http://stjlyf.blogspot.com

Visit for information on the National Gathering, the Des Moine Gathering, and a few pictures from last week's homecoming parade.

Please bookmark it to your favorites list so that you can check it at least once a month to see what's going on.

Please pass it on to other kids and parents who's email address you have.

And, please pray for our youth group and the youth of our congregation and community.

Pray for a revitalization of our LYF, with only 3 active members, a lot has got to give, fundraisers, service projects... there's a lot that we can't do anymore, at least not the same way.

And please pray for me, with 3 kids of our own, coaching 2 sports, taking on extra work like the school newsletter, school website, freelancing t-shirts and freelance work for the newspaper- I'm spread a little thin. And I'll be candid, I've had a lot of bumps and dips in my faith walk in the last year or two, so I need some prayer for my wrestling-match with God while we're at it.

Thank you thank you thank you.

In His hands,
Ted

Katrina aftermath: Faith, Politics, and Culture

Katrina and the uncomfortable truth
by Richard E. Stearns

Perhaps the most disturbing comment I have heard over the past few weeks, as I have been glued to the 24/7 Katrina media coverage, came from a man who lost his home in New Orleans and was living in a shelter. It came in response to the controversial use of the word "refugee" to describe the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He said: "'Refugee?' I'm not some poor African with flies on his face - we are not refugees, we're American citizens!"

There is a profound and uncomfortable truth captured in this man's angry statement. The truth that all men are not created equal; that the 2.8 billion poor who live on less than $2 a day are not valued with equal importance; that their suffering is less important; that their pain can be tolerated; that their lives are somehow less significant; and that they don't have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the same way the rest of us do.

Hurricane Katrina exposed this uncomfortable double standard to us. It is a double standard that suggests that we don't have a moral responsibility to respond to human suffering if it occurs in a different hemisphere and it is a double standard that showed us that the poor - even in America - are the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Read more:SojoNet: Faith, Politics, and Culture

Take Action: The Katrina Pledge: A commitment to build a new America

Take Action: The Katrina Pledge: A commitment to build a new America
"Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute (Proverbs 31:8). "

Conservative Calls for Bush's Impeachment

Conservative Calls for Bush's Impeachment

Paul Craig Roberts, a Hoover Institution fellow and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Ronald Reagan, calls for Bush's impeachment:

The destruction of New Orleans is the responsibility of the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history. Americans are rapidly learning that they were deceived by the superpower hubris. The powerful U.S. military cannot successfully occupy Baghdad or control the road to the airport -- and this against an insurgency based in only 20 percent of the Iraqi population. Bush's pointless war has left Washington so pressed for money that the federal government abandoned New Orleans to catastrophe.

The Bush administration is damned by its gross incompetence. Bush has squandered the lives and health of thousands of people. He has run through hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars. He has lost America's reputation and its allies. With barbaric torture and destruction of our civil liberty, he has stripped America of its inherent goodness and morality. And now Bush has lost America's largest port and 25 percent of its oil supply.

Why? Because Bush started a gratuitous war egged on by a claque of crazy neoconservatives who have sacrificed America's interests to their insane agenda.

View from the gravity wagon
Mallory

September in Iowa
Mallory

Katrina Relief

Still grieving 9/11, America suffers another blow

This Sunday will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the domestic United States. Three years ago we decided to commemorate the nearly 3,000 Americans, both innocent victims as well as police, fire and emergency rescue workers lost in the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center by renaming September 11, “Patriot Day.”

Unfortunately, when we should be beginning to heal, our grief as a Nation has been exacerbated, first by a difficult and divisive war, and no by the worst natural disaster in our Nation’s history. Her name, was Katrina.

New Orleans already had a staggering poverty rate of 28%. That’s more than twice the national rate. The poorest parts of the city were worst hit. Their homes were at the lowest elevation and were the least structurally sound. It was harder for poor people to evacuate. They don't own cars, can't afford to rent a car. Sometimes they can't even afford a tank of gas - especially lately. They can't afford a plane, train, or bus ticket. People in poverty can't afford to pay for motel or hotel rooms, and don’t always have credit cards.

We will be coping with the aftermath of Katrina for perhaps years to come. New Orleans had a population of around a half million. Imagine 500,000 people suddenly homeless and unemployed. Of course, the death toll will probably be in the thousands as well.

Commentators spoke in the wake of 9/11 about the end of America’s innocence. It is an awkward situation for us to be in to be the richest, most powerful country in the world, and to have scores of national governments offering us aid the same way we did for victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean last winter. The proud, independent Uncle Sam, receiving charity.

Perhaps, like a stubborn adolescent, we are suffering through growing pains. Perhaps we will do well to develop a humble sense of interdependence. Perhaps we need to recognize the five stages of our grief.

Stage ONE: Denial and Isolation. At first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual social contacts.

I remember being dumbfounded on September 11, 2001. Surely it didn’t happen, this can’t be real, I thought. No doubt residents of the Gulf Coast can barely believe what they’re living through. Even today, four years later, there are conspiracy theorists who claim that our own government staged the September 11th attacks.

Stage TWO: Anger. This is when you become furious at the person who inflicted the hurt , or at the God, or world, for letting it happen. You might even get angry with yourself for letting something happen, even if, nothing could have stopped it.

Last week New Orleanians were outraged that emergency relief had not arrived yet. Many people want to blame under-funding of the Army Corps of Engineers for levy failures and global warming for the severity of the huricaine. Others blame New Orleans for being such a sinful place.

Toby Kieth made a fortune on his angry country-rock anthem “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” after 9/11. Many justify the war in Iraq as “taking the war to the terrorists” even though Iraq had nothing to do with Bin Ladin, Al Queda, or 9/11. When you’re angry, you desperately want to take it out on someone.

Stage THREE: Bargaining. Eventually, the grieving person tries to make deals with God, asking, "If I do this, will you take away the pain?" What do I have to do to change things? This is also the questioning stage, as it “why did this have to happen?” WHY ME? When will it end? What did I/we do to deserve this? What did they do to deserve this? As if it was anyone’s fault.

Stage FOUR: Depression. This is when you feel numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath. Watching the news coverage of the Katrina aftermath is certainly depressing, mostly because it makes me feel like there’s nothing I can do to help. Fortunately, there are ways we can help. I’ve listed a few of them at the end of this column.

Stage FIVE: Acceptance. This is when the anger, sadness and mourning finally taper off. You just accept the reality of the loss. You don’t ever “get over it,” you’re never “better.” In fact, you’re probably never the same, but you are finally able to move on and the pain is finally not so intense or acute.

Will we ever get over 9/11? How long will it take to get over Katrina? Will there ever be a New Orleans again, and what will it be like? We can’t know, but we have to believe that eventually we will accept what has happened to us and how it has changed us.

In the early stages of the hurricane clean-up the best ways to help are by donating blood or money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a website with a list of agencies you can contact to find out how to help:

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease_print.fema?id=18473

You might also get in touch with these organizations:

American Red Cross
1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669)

Salvation Army
1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)

FEMA: Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch

Click HERE for a list of chairitable organizations and ways that you can help victims of hurricane Katrina.

FEMA: Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch

Click HERE for a list of chairitable organizations and ways that you can help victims of hurricane Katrina.

Here's my shingle. I thought that it was about time that I hung one up. Click Here for Ted's Tees
You can see some of my t-shirt designs on my new blog. email me at coachmallory@hotmail.com or call 712-678-3397 for a free estimate.
Mallory