Dear Grandmaster Strongheart and Master Wells,

I am writing to you with the highest recommendation for Marcello Lioy’s advancement to the rank of black belt. For the years I have been a member at Mercer Island Martial Arts, Marcello has always been a consistent voice of encouragement and a great role model for me.

I appreciate Marcello’s respectful approach to providing feedback, and always enjoy practicing with him during class. I also know he carries the values of a black belt throughout his life, as is evident through his lovely family. Marcello has been working consistently toward this goal, and I’ve personally been inspired by his dedication, precise technique, and passion toward his practice. It is an honor to make this recommendation.

Respectfully,

Becky Haruyama

I believe Marcello is a good candidate for a black belt promotion because of his hard work, dedication, and respect for the art. One quality of his that I admire and especially stands out is his ability to make a commitment and stick to it. This journey has had its challenges but Marcello has persevered nonetheless.  I also feel the experience of helping out in classes has provided him with the opportunity to lead without managing. This is also evident at home with our own kids whether running through forms, practicing kicks, or working on board breaks. In addition, he often tells me that when he cannot sleep he goes through the forms in his head. Both of these examples illustrate to me that he doesn’t leave his practice at the door of the Dojang. Through MIMA, he has also found a sense of community and formed new friendships which has played an important role in his ongoing efforts to progress. I feel this is relevant because I believe that being a black belt goes beyond physical and mental disciplines but also embodies how one grows and is able to take what is gained during the journey and incorporate this into other aspects of life outside of the Dojang.

Simona Lioy

For my community service volunteered at the Vera Project.  Vera is an all-ages volunteer-fueled music and arts venue, and its mission is to fuel personal and community transformation through collaborative, youth-driven engagement in music and art.  Music has always been an important part of my life, and when I was in college and in my early twenties I was in various bands and also studied to be a recording engineer.  After pursuing a career in the music industry for a few years, it became clear it was not going to work out, which is how I ended up in software.  While pursuing my career in software I largely stopped playing and recording; however, in the last 18 months I started to get back into it.  The Vera Project seemed an ideal way for me to give back in a way that was particularly interesting and meaningful to me.  I also really like the fact that a big part of their ethos is creating a safe place, being particularly tolerant of sexual identity (introductions generally include your pronouns).  This tolerance resonates with me, and I believe is very much in line with the ethos of the Dojang.

I volunteered to work two shows as a “show runner”.  A show runner works with the sound engineer to help the bands get their gear on stage, and to set up and plug in all of the microphones, and generally everything that makes sounds makes it to the PA.  For example, they will also make sure all other sound sources are connected, such as synthesizers, which often get plugged directly into the mixing board via a DI (short for Direct Input) box, and don’t use on stage amplifiers, instead relying on the PA system to provide the amplification.  Apart from the initial set up for each band, during the show the show runner helps with the change-overs. The change-overs are where mics are moved and the previous band takes their gear off stage, and the next band sets up, and mics are replaced.  The trick here is to know which mics need to be re-used for which amps and vocals.

The first show I worked was originally supposed to be a gallery show.  These are smaller shows, and are done in the gallery space with a smaller (and simpler) PA system. These shows are limited to 3 bands as there isn’t enough room for more, this is especially true if these are full bands, with multiple instruments and drums (which take a lot of space!).  After arriving for my shift I noticed there was much turmoil, and it turned out that a fourth band had been added at the last instant, and the show had been moved to the main room.   This caused much consternation for the sound engineer as she was still in training for the main room (which has a much more complex PA system).  We made it through and were able to get everything set up for each of the bands, as well as manage each of the change-overs.  Not only were there three change-overs, but they were complex as each of the bands had a different number of singers and instruments.

The second show I worked was also in the main room (though expected) and consisted of three bands.  In contrast to the first show, none of the bands had live drums; however, the setups were still quite complex becasue each of the bands had very different instrument set-ups, as well as multiple synthesizers.  For example the first band had 2 members: a singer, and a bass/synth player.  In both cases all of the instruments used DI boxes to run directly into the main board.  The second band also had only two players, but they each also had live instruments (a bass guitar, and electric guitar), as well as the live vocals, and the various synthesizers, and so required a mix of microphones and DI boxes. Interestingly the singers for each of these bands had their vocals going through vocal processors, and so went through a DI rather than having the mic plug directly into the mixer.  The final band had four members consisting of 3 amplified instruments (2 guitars, and a bass guitar), two vocal mics, and synthesizers and a saxophone and so had a different combination of mics and DI boxes.  The change-overs were fairly complex because of both how the musicians were set up on stage and also the significant differences between each of the instrument setups. 

Over all it was a good experience, and I plan on volunteering for more shows, though longer term I would like to find a way to volunteer for the recording studio, as recorded sound is much more my passion than live sound.  Having said that it was an interesting and enjoyable experience and I learned something new as I had never previously worked live sound.  It is definitely different, and involved specific logistics related to order of doing sound checks, and where to place equipment to keep the stage from being overly cluttered.

I would like to be an approachable black belt, one that other students are comfortable coming to for help. I feel I have much to give as I have struggled through (and continue in many cases to struggle with) various techniques, or aspects of the forms and have noticed others struggling with the same things. I enjoy leveraging my learning and experience, and know that I can point them down the path that helped me make progress on challenging areas. It will also challenge me to find ways of explaining things such that it makes sense not only to me, but also to the student requesting help – something I have been striving to improve.

My primary goal upon receiving my black belt is to continue to train regularly; I greatly enjoy it, as it pushes me both physically and mentally.  One area that I feel I need to focus on is sparring – that is the most challenging aspect of the training for me.  I have a tendency to over-think things in general, and on the mats this manifests itself in my being much slower than I would like to be, and am physically capable of.  I am also excited to continue to train with my children who in the coming years will become black belts themselves.  I definitely want to continue to train with them and participate in each of their black belt tests.

My mother is someone I greatly admire; not only did she teach me to value tolerance, and judge people for who they are and not where they are from or what they look like, but she was also quite successful on her own terms.  My mother worked for various non-governmental organizations working in developing nations in the public health domain.  Being born in France (which continues to have quite traditional gender roles) she had to push past the limitations of not only her parents, my grandfather in particular, but society in general to achieve the success and more importantly the impact that she did.

My father trained as a doctor while he was in the army in Italy.  When he was in his early thirties he moved to Minnesota to earn a PhD in physiology, and then immigrated to Canada to take on a tenure track professorship.  One of the things I most admire about him is that in his mid-forties he decided to re-do his residency so that he could practice medicine in Canada.  This is particularly grueling for those right out of medical school (who are usually 15 years younger than my father was at the time).  Another thing I admire and appreciate now, though perhaps not at that time) was that he (and my mother for that matter) would not allow me give up on when things became challenging.  I believe this is one of the qualities that aided me in getting to this point in my training.

Mrs. Pritchard was my high school chemistry teacher.  I particularly admired her as she was a phenomenal teacher, and explained concepts in a way that they intuitively made sense to me.  The great lesson I learned from this, which I apply daily in my work, is it is important to communicate in a way that your audience will understand, whether that be a peer, a report or an executive.  This is also something I try and apply in the Dojang when working with fellow students.

John Boackle was a work mentor; I learned from him that being a manager isn’t just about being able to leverage your team to be able to deliver more, but rather it is about the people themselves.  It is important to understand the people, what they are good at, what they enjoy, how to help them grow and achieve their goals. Of all of the managers I had over the years at my previous employer, the performance evaluation that he did for me was not only the longest (several pagers, vs. a few paragraphs), but also the most insightful.

David Sylvian is a British born musician and artist.  I have been a big fan of his solo work since the late ‘80’s and particularly enjoy his more atmospheric work.  There are two things I particularly admire about him: the first is in the late 70’s as a result of how he and his band, Japan, were presenting themselves and the music they were playing, they were associated with the New Romantic movement (think Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, etc…). This was an association he and the band resisted, in fact, in the early 80’s (when the New Romantic movement in mainstream pop music was at its peak), he commented "There's a period going past at the moment that may make us look as though we're in fashion."  The second is that he walked away from fame and fortune by not pursuing the same kind of pop music when Japan dissolved in the early 80’s. In fact he went in a number of different musical directions that had little to do with popular music and instead pursued his art.

Lewis Hamilton is a four time world champion Formula One driver. While I am not a huge fan (there are aspects to his personality, even for race car drivers, that rub me the wrong way) I have great admiration for his talent and dedication.  In particular he grew up without the advantages of many of his peers (many of whom are quite wealthy, having grown up in places like Monaco).  He is also of mixed race background, and self identifies as black. There are very few people of color in the world of Formula One, and he is the first black driver to have achieved the level of success he has and as a driver he is an especially visible role-model