Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

Children, as they grow up in their formative years form a great amount of their understandings of the world based on their experiences as they are processed emotionally and physically. In this essay, I question how the emotional and physical processing influences behavior and movement. Do our experiences influence how we hold our body? Likewise, do our experiences, especially those in our childhood and adolescence influence how we hold our facial muscles? I posit that the ‘processed’ experiences place a signature mark on our whole selves and we live out our lives with this coded information. I also posit that we are able to change, or re-code this information while toning our cognitive-physical health. The way we walk,  The way we hold our face muscles,  the way we talk the way we dance. Their is a physical, emotional code that is created and affirmed and the ability to change that signature mark can be done practically through purposeful,...

Think independently and practice being an independent doer by dancing your way forward. The act of dancing is self-affirming and releases the body from a limited range of daily motion. Practicing self-affirmation on a daily basis strengthens the resolve of a person to think more independently. For individuals on the autism spectrum, self-affirmation and independent thought are a lifeline of communication. I foster its development and believe in the power of dancing to positively disrupt the machinations of the brain. Dancing, like the conducting of music can be a formidable strategy in bringing what is on the inside to the outside. It is rapid and direct. Most of the children, adolescents and young adults I currently coach who are on the autism spectrum or with a severe disability greatly benefit from it and respond favorably to physical movement to the sound of music. Dancing changes them. Afro-Cuban salsa makes them smile and laugh. They step out of a shell and outside th...

Nine years ago I was given a key position as the primary 1:1 teacher of a nine year old on the autism spectrum. It was intense ABA therapy with an oversight team focused on success and a DOE that was auditing to track performance.  I worked with her from 7 am in her home, through the school day in Wahiawa, Hawaii, then back to her home for homework and daily living activities until 5 or 6 pm. When i first met Kristin, she was living on a rug with her six year old sister in the living room of the family home. Her mother lived in a bedroom with her boyfriend next to the room where her two daughters slept and ‘took as their room,’ their space. The other room on the top floor belonged to her ex-convict uncle who kept the door locked with a padlock at all times. The grandparents lived downstairs in their own room.  In the mornings it was quite routine for the Mom’s boyfriend to be playing ‘craps,’ with 2-3 friends in the living room as Mom looked on or lounged in b...

You put them to meditate two times a day one minute for every year of their age, up to 20 minutes. Ideally in the morning and in the mid afternoon. I am gonna talk briefly about how to do this successfully and the value and benefits of integrating this ‘being still, eyes closed, slow deep breathing’ activity as daily as drinking water, eating and sleeping. Firstly, I am following the basic format of the widely studied TM or transcendental meditation. Instead of the secret mantra given, intermittent use of the breath as a refocusing tool to clear the mind and regulate back to that ‘calm zero state’ where the brain apparently does incredible processing that boosts all executive function skills, including, (drum roll please) emotional control, behavior modulation and impulse control. As if that is not enough, the daily practitioner of meditation also gains an increased emotional intelligence, or ability to manage ones emotions  in a goal-directed manner across a variety o...

Flash Street parties don't happen all the time... but they could. Meditation is older than the invention of sliced bread... okay way older than that. Both are as old as time itself. I want to bring them together in a series of free events, and am seeking the shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration of others. This can be done. This can and should be bigger than me and you. It is for them. I am one of the leading private Special Educators in the world and I seek to disrupt how we go about teaching. This means outflanking impractical methods (not people), stripping down instruction and focusing on motivating students, equating learning with fun, and getting a strenuous cognitive workout all at the same time.  Disrupting a market or industry means starting at the very bottom and persistently working one's way or one's product to the top of the market. One can still be a gentleman or  lady and be disruptive in this sense.   No Muscle grows unless you ...

Does one go on a long mission without first making adequate provisions?  Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) is a great example of a person who exemplified a lifestyle that continuously strengthened and toned his executive function skills. He did so while walking away from a life of endless material provisions. Was this smart? Shouldn't he at least have taken out a health care plan from his Dad's kingdom? Did he think this through? How accurate was his foresight during the time he changed his values and principles? Was he able to anticipate and predict what would happen to a high degree? Did he make a reckless decision?  So I ask the question again, does one go on a long mission without first making adequate provisions? What insights can we glean from the lifestyle changes in his life that correlate with keeping one's executive function skills toned? Aside from doing a whole lotta meditating, what were some of his other activities? Can parts of this lifestyle be replicated in the d...

What do you do with a child who is passively defiant, perhaps obnoxious at times, and increasingly dismissive of parental authority? Normally, the idea is to do something to change them, modify their behavior, or just kinda deal with each week as it comes. In some instances, with the supervision, guidance and direction of a doctor, like a psychiatrist, a child's parents may see their young child now be able to sit still longer, be more focused, and appear to show a very observable increase in another executive function skill, the ability to sustain attention. A pharmaceutical medication can be a 'bridge'  to help the child maybe focus on enhancing their ability to better self-manage themselves in a more goal-directed manner. n essence, be 'more' focused. This helps the child to be able to sustain their attention for a longer duration on a sequence of tasks. Rather quickly, the child (or adult for that matter) eventually understands quite intuitively that the 'so...

The answer is no. Yet, a home that is made warm, comfortable and nurturing by both parents can provide more warmth than the best commerical home heater system out their. Using a formula system, it is practical, and easily possible for any family, independent of monthly income to make immediate home changes that immediately starts reaping love dividends from your kids. With consistency, a young heart and a growth-oriented mindset, parents can literally showcase and role-model incredibly important life skill tools that lead your children to have higher than strong executive function skills, high emotional intelligence, and an ability to deal with failure that is uncanny. Parents are advised. You may have to get on your hands and knees for some of this tough work. Horseplay, or what some call roughhousing may be a laughing matter to most, but it is actually a very serious matter that is understated and dismissed. Great horseplay entails the parent making it a continous  matter to poin...

Are you a parent of a child who fly's off the handle easily? Have you been making unprofitable attempts to modify your child's behavior? Try a back-door approach next time. Put on a mindset of "small beginnings." Introduce some new activities, like meditation (start at 10 seconds if that is what they can endure  (with a sleep mask to keep their eyes closed, and you holding their hand in a comforting way) Other Executive Function/ brain balancing activities and sports to put into your arsenal are  ping pong, role-playing, yoga, tennis, swimming, paddleboarding, hiking, or working with coaching cards (parentcoachcards.com). Likewise, introducing acceleration interval training (30 seconds speed burst, 1minute rest, repeat 8x's), and chess, teaches kids social skills, and refines their frontal lobe self-management activities. Through the context of these very engaging activities, parents and coaches directly facilitate executive function skill development, but...

Many by now have thought long and hard about what it will take to drastically diminish, or cold-stop these 'wild, shoot everyone in sight' sprees. It seems like a monumental task. We are over 300,000,000 strong in America. How can we bring coherent impact to solving this dilemma? I believe that much of what I have to say below has already been said. So in essence, I am joining the ranks of civic-minded citizens, educators, and mental health professionals, when I say that we must change: Family: Put a strong focus on strengthening the family unit in America. Teaching executive function skill developmen t early on. Make it a national priority! Personalize educational instruction to students, in order to maximize repetitive successful outcomes over time. Quiet the mind: Make it a law that all schools must teach and make time for quiet time meditation 2x's per day at school. Get Olympic-style serious about physical education programs in public schools. Pass a law a...