Hello!

I am Master Mikel Steenrod.  Long before I moved to Flagstaff  and started teaching martial arts, I lived in upstate New York.  I want to tell you how I discovered my knack for teaching and coaching as a 7 year old, growing up in rural, farm community.

One evening a neighborhood friend, Steven, was getting ready to leave my house and walk back up the dirt road to his house for supper.

Steven was 5 and hadn’t yet learned to tie his shoes.  He squatted at the door.  The laces in his hand.  He struggled with them.  His face was twisted in frustration.

My mother was getting ready to tie his shoes for him, but I stopped her.

I knew that I could teach him how to tie his shoes.  He was blending some of the steps together.  Steven was trying to tie his shoes the way his sisters had taught him–the rabbit and hole method.  His brain wasn’t learning it that way.  It was still caught up in seeing shoe tying as one big lump.

I understood his struggle and knew I could help him.  I broke up the shoe tying method in a way that he could wrap his head around.  Bam! He had it!  From that day forward, he was able to tie his shoes.

A Maniac is Born

At 7, I discovered that I had a knack for taking things that people found very hard and making them doable.  I also discovered that when a person latches on to something in a way that his brain can understand, does he ever get good at it.

Steven became a shoe tying maniac!  He would even tie other people’s shoes!

Martial arts is vital for safety and fitness, and I have also never seen any physical exercise ever approach qi gong in its ability to heal and calm a person.

That’s not why I started a school, though.  I teach martial arts and qi gong, because I believe in it.  I have not seen anyone that was not bettered as a person when they got the right coaching and had the right experiences.  Everyone becomes their own special shoe tying maniac.

Water Mountain is built around the idea of making impossible things doable in easy to understand steps.  All the school’s coaches are trained to use this principle.

When you’ve been in a situation like little Steven, where you know that there is a good way, a simple way to do it, but you need the special eye to help get you there.  Then you know what Water Mountain can do for you.

Make A Wise Choice About Martial Arts

The learning curve is steep if you want to get into training. There a lot of things to know, and a lot of decisions to make.

 Let me help you with that.  Using my over 30 years of experience, I’ve prepared a special walk-through, email course that explains all the basics to you, so you can make a wise training decision.

Free Course For You

When I wrote this course, my internet manager, Henry (an old friend), said to me, “You know, this is great, but they might use it to go somewhere else.”

Yes, Henry, they might.

You may well discover that you are suited for training in a program that I don’t offer.

My purpose is to create martial art and qi gong maniacs. If that’s not here in Flagstaff or Water Mountain then that is just fine as long as you’re on your way to becoming a happy and excited maniac.

I do hope you’ll remember where you got the good advice, though, and recommend others to me.