Summer Program | Workshop Victory Beyond the Kicks and the Punches

Your Mount Laurel Education Activist and Martial Arts Educator,
Peter Liciaga's Summer Workshop for 2012!

Find out more or

Fill in the Pre-Registration Form

"there is no starting or stopping, only doing"

"The Peaceful Warrior"

Victory Beyond the Kicks and the Punches
Summer Workshop Includes:

Leadership & Character Enhancement Skills

Video Lessons: Great Leaders on Leadership

Craft & Projects

Mini-Olympics

Role-playing

Anti-Child Abduction & Child Safety

Physical Fitness

ABC's of Self-Defense

Bully Buster & Bully Proof Skills/Drills

Guest Speakers

and much more!

Victory Beyond the Kicks and the Punches is our 2012 Summer Leadership and Character Enhancement Workshop is just perfect to help your child become one of tomorrow's leaders!

Early Bird Special

All participants pay the same "Early Bird" rate of $199 per participant per session (Session One is from July 9 - 13 and Session Two is from August 13 - 17)

Find out more or

Fill Pre-Registration Form

Black Belt Leadership: What Mount Laurel Youth ARE DOING!

Hey look what our youth are doing in the community! Great black belt leadership and character development at work! Visit us at www.MountLaurelMartialArts.com to find out more.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/89ZSfmha0Oc

The gift of Teaching - A Child's Life Within My Power!

This blog is part of Peter Liciaga's community activism effort for the Ultimate Black Belt Test Program ( http://www.ultimateblackbelttest.com/ ), which is an undertaking of The 100. ( http://www.the100.us/ ), and a part of Peter Liciaga's Dream 100 Project.

Mount Laurel Youth Helps Raise $14,000 for Juvenile Diabetes!

Martial Arts at Dinoto Karate Center is more than just kicks and punches. It's about making a difference in your community...the world.
10 year old black belt, Alexandra, does her part to help raise money for Juvenile Diabetes Research (JDRF). Great Job Alexandra!

Project Based Leadership Training at Dinoto Karate in Mount Laurel NJ

Project Based Leadership Training (PBLT) is a launching point for YOUR project, for your vision, for you to be a bright shining light in your martial arts school, community and world!
Your project will be your unique 'thing' that will set you (and Dinoto Karate Center) apart from your average martial artist (and everyone else for that matter). It will help you teach the world that what you do as a martial artist at your martial arts school is VERY important and significant. It will set you and your martial arts school apart from the average martial arts school down the street... very important!



PBLT is that it's the perfect launching point for any project that you decide to do.

To learn more about PBLT... visit http://www.leadershipstudents.com/index.asp and familiarize yourself with this site, there's a ton of information that Tom Callos (my ubbt coach) has published on the subject as well as important information presented by my good friend and the sites developer, Gary Engels.

Community activism in the form of practical and helpful projects! It's a no brainer as it's impossible to show the true meaning of martial arts with just kicks, punches and blocks!
http://www.leadershipstudents.com/index.asp

Below is a tutorial on how to add/start a new project:


Here other direct links:
Start a New Project
Edit Existing Project
Complete Your Project

PDF Documents:
Project Planning Guide
Project Completion Form

Dinoto Karate Center's Project Based Leadership inspires a Community. Yes?

I've been inspired! (since Greensboro, Alabama)

The work that Pam Dorr, the volunteers, and the H.E.R.O. project are doing down in Greensboro, Alabama is remarkable and inspiring. Their sacrifice and commitment to service is changing that community forever.

I designed the graphic above as a reminder (to myself and anyone else that will listen) that service and inspiration lead to conversations / partnerships. When 2 (or more) people get together and share what inspire them... a new "relationship" is born/created that, after follow through and actions, can change someone's life forever.

That's what Project Based Leadership Training (PBLT) is about. It's an idea... It's a conversation... it's action... it's inspiration... it's people... it's community ...it's relationships.

Find out about our Project Based Leadership Training by visiting us HERE.

Leaderhship Lesson #1 From Master Dinoto

Know the difference between Positive Thinking versus Positive Knowing.

Positive Thinking is wishing or hoping; positive knowing is when you absolutely know that know matter what, you will succeed.

To learn more on how to develop this and other skills and techniques, ask about our Leadership and CIT programs.

Filmmaker Project from veteran martial arts teacher, actor living in Mount Laurel

Peter Liciaga, a veteran martial arts teacher, actor and filmmaker living in Mount Laurel NJ created a new filmmaking workshop designed to educate young filmmakers to produce & record short-short films involving community building messages -- Oral History, Anti-Bullying, Peace Education, Environmental Cleanups, Youth Violence / Peace, Self-Image for Boys/Girls, etc. -- using a simple Flip Camera.

This project, "The Short-short Filmmaking Project,” is his effort to use the web to document really good lessons (at least) for youth—to supplement face-to-face workshops he will be giving to youth in the community.

The mission? To help the youth learn some very important lessons about short-short filmmaking, but while they’re learning these lessons, we might as well include everyone who’s interested in filmmaking, yes?

"In today’s world, filmmaking isn’t only about multi-million dollar budgets and CGI, it’s about telling a story, advancing a cause, community activism, environmental concerns, and being easy, affordable, accessible & fun too!"

So look to this site at http://flavors.me/filmproject#_ as he starts to collect and deliver the lessons. Please feel free to add your input!

Please call 856.235.0414 to find out when the next workshop will be.

Peter Liciaga is a 4th Degree Black Belt Instructor at Dinoto Karate Center in Mount Laurel Nj and an active member of The Ultimate Black Belt Test, a professional martial arts organization dedicated to bringing the spirit of the martial arts “out of the dojo and into the world. Peter has over 20 years experience in theater, dance, performing arts, TV and film!

Tweeting Martial Arts...and more!

For the past several months I’ve been posting videos, photos, commentary and insights in the various areas of martial arts training - self-defense, fitness, diet, anti-bullying, anger management, verbal self-defense, training for over 50, girls self-esteem, boys positive self-image...oh, yeah, even some kicks, punches, grappling and weapons training. Some of you have been to my Facebook page for Peter Liciaga to see more photos, watch videos or ask a question (http://www.facebook.com/pliciaga). Others have followed my tweets at http://twitter.com/#!/peterliciaga where you’ll see even more comments and videos but mostly my thoughts on what I’m experiencing at any particular moment during my own training to 5th degree black belt.

I’ve also linked off both of these sites to http://www.peterliciaga.org/ , my BETA site being designed and built for parents, educators and martial artists to connect and communicate with community projects, resources and experts in several fields. Here’s a link to a couple of channels with videos I’ve been able to load up during my training:

• My Training Chronicles
• DKC Channel
• Kids Teaching Kids Channel
• Self-esteem For Girls
• Words of Wisdom Channel
• Chronicles of Doneghy (martial artist over 60)

What’s great about all of these different mediums is how they allow both the martial artists and the students (or soon to be student) to learn more about great martial arts, all at the click of a mouse. In one case, you can “fan” me on the Peter Liciaga Facebook page and my updates and self-defense article links will show up periodically on your wall. You can encourage family, friends and neighbors to do the same and they will see those same updates. If you want to read my articles and see links to other media from my training, workshops and events, then you can go to Twitter and follow me at PLiciaga. Twitter allows me to communicate one-on-many or one-on-one with people interested in the kinds of projects and training I’m working on at that moment.

Finally there is DinotoKarate.com and what I call our current “work in progress” as we finalize a number of enhancements that will make it the “go to” place for you to communicate and connect with anything that has to do with martial arts and self-defense. For instance, if you would like information about bullying, there's our Stop Bullying Now Project; or if it's anger management for children, you have Anger411. Or, how about 10 Simple Lessons for Self Defense for Youth? From my Flip Camera or my Smart Phone to my laptop, my online channels and websites, I was able to create video lessons, even a brief commentary, and immediately post them to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pliciaga), my Twitter page at (http://twitter.com/#!/peterliciaga) and my here on my blog.

If you had been following either or both of these platforms, you would have been able to share in these experiences and share them with your friends as well. As you know, friends are always looking for information and ideas about martial arts, safety, bullying, protection, including developing the discipline to lose weight and get fit.

My ultimate goal is to be able to provide insights to both you and your freinds that will inspire a healthy lifestyle. This month it’s the Mardi Gras Spring Fling Celebration at Dinoto Karate Center , as you’ve seen from my many updates. Next month I’m off to Greensboro, Alabama with my camera and laptop to help build a home for an elderly lady, make some repairs in the community and teach some seminars/workshops to the youth along with 50 to 100 fellow martial arts masters and their students. Stay tuned.

More importantly, tune into my where-abouts and "up to's" via whatever medium you feel most comfortable with and I’ll do my best to keep you in tune with what I see, hear, learn and experience. For one more way to see what I’m up to, visit http://www.peterliciaga.org/

Peter Liciaga is an Education Activist, Master Martial Arts Instructor, Self-Defense Expert and Key Note Speaker working with youth, parents, educators and community leaders.

DKC students "live" the leadership team oath!

This short-short video shows you Dinoto Karate's most outstanding students --living and breathing Leadership Program superstars. What I think about when I see this video is that 10 or 20 more kids like the ones Dinoto Karate is cultivating in their leadership program – is a very, VERY unique way to serve our families and community in a very, VERY powerful way!

And note: You CAN'T cultivate the kind of success we are talking about in a “kicks & punches only” karate school; nor can you find a book/report that shows you exactly how to find and cultivate kids like the ones in the video --who will go out and make "stuff" happen, remarkably—from great, GREAT grades to powerful & positive choices to fund-raising!

I CAN tell you that Dinoto Karate is doing their part (and all that goes on behind the scenes), to cultivate and develop real BLACK BELT LEADERS (in today's world), because actions speak louder than words.

What I like about the work that these kids are doing is that there's no "formula" behind it. It's REAL stuff. I like it because I think about what it means to these kids --what they'll remember, what they'll take from it, and what it means to the other kids around them ("home-grown" heroes...something I've/we've been talking about for awhile now.)

It's so clean and pure and perfect. Its kids doing something cool. Something they care about and something that's good for EVERYONE involved. I Love that.

Remember folks: We are here to KEEP IT REAL --working with kids (and their families) --for the right reasons. Show them how the confidence they're practicing on the mat can be applied to, well...ANYTHING they care about. Show them how to organize, how to lead, how to write, how to film …how to tell their story. We use our leadership skills and experience to connect them to the right tools, the right people, and to encourage the heck out of them.

We talk to our children about what their efforts MEAN. What it means to their life, to the lives of people around them, to what it means to their community, and what it means to the world.

We work really, REALLY hard to teach our students to bring GREAT small projects to fruition; to smile and enjoy the process …and show them that what they are doing is really, REALLY good work.

Help us to pave the way for the new / next generation of real black belt leaders who cultivate "out of the dojo and into the world" kind of work --and all of us will play a significant part in a better, smarter, powerful, purposeful and more evidence-based-black-belt-leadership kind of education for our world.

With these kinds of stories and kids around the academy, we are simply no longer a martial arts school teaching life-skills --we're a life-skills school that uses martial arts to teach. This IS what brings the most value to our family, community, and the world …yes?

Peter Liciaga
Education Activist and Master Martial Arts Teacher

PS...visit us at http://www.dinotokarate.com/ and see what our students are doing in our community!

Master Dinoto Teaches Your Child The Importance of Appreciation

Yesterday in our childrens' martial arts class, Master Instructor Michael Dinoto discussed the importance of learning to appreciate what we have- not to take anything for granted- not your parents, friends, or the opportunities and things we get to enjoy in life.

The word “appreciation” means really seeing something for what it is - an awareness of how special, how lucky, how unique, how blessed, how big, wonderful or awesome something is. Appreciation is a recognition not based on comparison, but based on the intrinsic value, character or immensity of a thing or state itself.

In a money-centered world, it may feel difficult to teach children the act of being grateful. While merely teaching thank you is a wonderful start, here are some tips that carry on the sentiment of thanks long after the words have been spoken.

Tips for Teaching Gratitude to Kids

• Having children go through their belongings periodically gathering unused items to give for charity donations is another way to teach the importance of helping others.
• A homemade, anonymous gift package is a wonderful way for your child to show gratitude. Baskets may include toys or stuffed animals that your child no longer plays with given to another child with a handmade/drawn note/card of thanks.
• The simple act of leaving spare change on a public bathroom counter with a gift note may help teach the importance of giving.
• Print-out coloring pages with themes of appreciation make excellent gifts of gratitude.
• Have your child pay for a friend's lunch in school one day.
• Children learn to help others when given the chance to read to, play games with, or teach math to a younger friend.
• Many communities offer the opportunity to help those less fortunate during the holidays by adopting a family that cannot afford their own gift exchange or holiday feast.
• Teach your child to find & clip coupons to use towards the purchase of food items intended for food bank donations.
• Earn money for charity by running a lemonade or cookie stand.
• Offer to help a neighbor do simple yard work or other chore.
• On family outings, spend an hour at the beach or park picking up trash.
• Many children will enjoy baking and delivering fresh, homemade goodies to a neighbor or friend.

*Create an Appreciation Book
As a special honor, an appreciation book for gift giving that includes a personal photograph or drawing on the cover page is an excellent way to show thanks, especially to grandparents and our elderly. Assign an admirable trait to each page and decorate these pages with photographs, stickers, and crayons

If you have any other ideas to add to this list, please add it below in comments. If your child is already demonstrating acts of appreciation, please let us know.

While teaching children actions such as holding the door for others, and saying please and thank you are a daily reminder of gratitude, thankfulness can be further ingrained through fun and playful gestures towards others. As children witness those around them showing appreciation, it will become clear that setting a good example is one of the most effective ways to teach gratitude.

Article contributor: Peter Liciaga is an education activist and a project-based leadership program mentor. To find out more about Peter and Project Based Leadership Training, call 856-235-0414.

Martial Arts Is About Perfecting Character

"The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants."

~ Master Gichin Funakoshi

A couple of parents (and students) have asked about the leadership training and what it's about. In a nutshell, our leadership program is about character development in a "new way".

The "old way" VS the "new way"

The "Old Way" of teaching leadership education, character development, and motivating and inspiring children, youth, and teens was through speakers or books about someone else's journey toward leadership.

The "New Way" is to make these students become the ACTION hero of their own journey. Give them challenges to take action in their communities and take real action on their goals and achievements. Teaching them to build confidence and leadership skills through creating their own success stories and recording it along the way.

What's more powerful, giving a student a book or an inspiring lecture about their ability to succeed... or ...helping them become a part of a team that logs hundreds of community projects effectively teaching something very real about confidence, discipline, initiative, courage, action, awareness, and above all leadership?

Our leadership team oath is 

I Promise to do My best to be a Black Belt Leader

Not just here at the academy

But at home, at work, and at school too.

I Promise to improve my mind and my body every day.

As an education activist and a martial arts master teacher, my goal is to teach something very real about leadership in our leadership program with the hope that all our students will look to their martial arts teacher for direction in becoming a leader.

Making the Right Choices
On our path through life, we are constantly making choices. Every choice that we make will have a positive result or a negative result. The decisions that our children make now will shape the rest of their life forever. When you make the choice for your child to learn REAL leadership by taking action in thier community, there can only be one type of results - REMARKABLY POSITIVE RESULTS!

Leadership is Learned

We have all heard that leaders are not born, they are created... created through experiences, opportunities, and overcoming adversity. Whether your child already exhibits leadership qualities, or you feel like your child has no leadership traits at all, they CAN become a leader.  Their journey towards leadership starts with a community project and their project portfolio.

Learning Skills For The Rest Of Their LifeCompleting community action leadership projects at any age is impressive, especially when your child is influencing others around them to help. The leadership skills they will learn will help them through Grade School, Middle School, High School, College, their Career/Profession and beyond.

For more information about our leadership program, call us at 856-235-0414 or email me at masterliciaga@dinotokarate.com

Parent's Night Out - We Will Rock YOU!

Almost 50 kids enjoy 3-hours of obstacle courses, re-breakable board challenges, music, karate, dancing, pizza and high-energy fun & excitement at Dinoto Karate Center's 3rd annual Parent's Night Out while parents enjoyed a night out on the town!

Led by education activist Peter Liciaga and the DKC event staff, the kids were treated to an evening of non-stop high-energy fun!

The theme of the event was "Operatation Domination - We Will Rock You!" Teaching the kids that they have the power to make a difference in their families and communities. Whatever they have a passion for or care about, they can be a voice that can be heard. Whether it is girls self-esteem, a positive male self-image, anti-bullying, environmental awareness, diet & health, fitness, animal rights, whatever they feel passionate about, they can be the voice that makes the difference!

We are looking for youth that want to make a difference in their communities. Find out about our Project Based Leadership Program and join the "Operatation Domination - We Will Rock You!" campaign.

Call Peter Liciaga at 856-235-0414 to find out more, or email him at pliciaga@gmail.com

Martial arts is more than kicks and punches!

...it's leadership at it's BEST!!! Martial artist, friend and fellow ultimate black belt test member Brian Williams is making a HUGE diffence in the lives of our youth across the nation! I am inspired, motivated and challenged by his work. This is truly what it is to be a black belt leader!

Watch this video and visit his website at http://www.thinkkindness.org/

41 Days Till Launch - 100,000 Shoes from Brian Williams on Vimeo.

Find out about leadership programs in Mount Laurel NJ by calling 856-235-0414 or visiting us at Mount Laurel Project Based Leadership