Let's all become part of the solution...

My name is Uschi Keszler. I am an Olympian and Olympic coach for figure skating and two time cancer survivor.

I was fortunate to have Dr. Czerniecki of the University of Pennsylvania as my oncology surgeon.

When I first met him after my diagnoses 3 ½ years ago , I said “ I will do anything you ask me to as long as it will not kill my immune-system” At the time we were facing the bird-flu and I was not going to face it with an immune-system that was shut down.

1 ½ years ago Pam Keon from Penn contacted me with info on his research. He wanted to meet with me, because I was so adamant about the immune system. I did not qualify for the trial he was conducting at the time. But now new trials are on the way…

As it turned out , they were running out of funds.

It is not easy to start a new foundation especially for breast cancer. Being involved in elite athletics all my life, reaching goals is what drives me.

We are getting ready for the 2010 Olympics. We need a united effort to win this race against cancer. When JFK vowed we will be on the moon in 10 years, it started an all out effort to reach this goal and we beat it by 1 ½ years…

Since this is a problem that affects all of us we all need to get together to become part of the solution.

One of the trials costs $ 1.5 a year for 5 years. If 15 Million people just 5% of the US population give us just 1 penny a month we could finance this one trial.

I equated pennies into distance.

1 penny = ¾ of an inch

16 pennies = 1 foot

48 pennies = 1 yard

84 480 pennies = 1 mile ($845)

$ 1.5 Million = 1776 miles

It seemed ironic to me that it equated to such an important number to Philadelphia and the United States.

If 300 Million people 5% of the world population would donate a penny a day for one year, we would have 1 Billion 95 million dollars.

We must stop the human suffering and we must win this race.

I founded Pennies in Action™ when I realized that the very people that are our hope to solve this horrible disease have to spend so much of their time on trying to get funding instead of spending that valuable time on research and development. It occurred to me, what if top athletes would have to spend so much time on raising funds for training instead of actually training. By the time they would get to train they would be much too tired to produce a gold medal worthy performance.

But we do expect that from our doctors and researchers.
Please check my web-site www.penniesinaction.org and please help...

ignorance is bliss, but is it ?...

I found lately there is a sense that “ignorance is cultivated and knowledge, experience and accomplishment is minimized”
I had a very smart young student that categorized people so well…
#1. They do not know
#2.They think they know (dangerous category)
#3.They know
#4.They know what to do with what they know
I added the number 5
#5.They have the skill to know precisely when and where to use what they know.
In other words the Masters.

Sadly so in many cases we follow the #2 (they do not know) because they are more likely to say what we want to hear, even though it probably is not based on any sound foundation.
I wonder if that is why Asia is getting more and more ahead of us , since wisdom backed by experience is cherished.

So many thoughts...

Ever since I got involved a year ago in my foundation “Pennies in ActionTM”
I have been waking up many a night so excited about new ideas and thoughts.
The funny thing is, when your creative juices are flowing they do not stay limited to one area of your life.
It has been so interesting to me how this has affected every part of my life.
I have always been goal oriented with very big goals in my sport of figure skating. I have reached many of them …
As you get older you start wondering “Is that all there is?...” When you do something all your life it is very difficult to keep up a high excitement level indefinitely.
After 2 bouts with cancer this new mission is a perfect match for me.
But to my great surprise after 1 year of this charity work for cancer vaccine research the excitement and joy and sense of accomplishment I feel from doing this work has totally reached over into all of my life.
I again love teaching skating more than ever. I am more creative than I ever was…

Balance versus Balancing...

The key is to be balanced or in balance. We often confuse balancing for that.
In skating I use the expression “be balanced to move not move to balance”
I can use my appendages for two things either balance OR acceleration. It is either or…
True balance has no tension. It is natural weight distribution with your center of gravity over your point of contact.
What we are looking for is dynamic balance.
In skating rotation is a main ingredient. The most important thing is to have balanced weight distribution around the rotational axes. This is to insure smooth rotation when in motion.
As rotational speed increases the effects of unbalance become more and more detrimental. The fact is, the force caused by unbalance increases by the square of the speed.
If the speed is doubled the force quadruples, if it is tripled it increases by the factor of 9 and if the speed quadruples it increases by a factor 16!!!!
Now apply that to single, double, triple and quad jumps and you can imagine the wear and tear on the joints…
Our biggest problem in skating are abuse injuries caused by poor body alignment (see blog” alignment in skating to prevent injury”)
We need to go back to teaching the language of skating with its proper grammar and technique based on the laws of physics, not personal opinion…

On being kept accountable

I have the foundation “Pennies in action” which currently raises funds for breast cancer vaccine research. ( we raised $ 104 000.00 + to date and counting...)
We have containers up in our rink “Iceworks” to raise funds all year long.
Being an athlete all my life, it is all about space and time for me. So money gets translated into distance. 1 penny is ¾ of an inch, 16 pennies is a foot, 48 pennies is a yard, 84480 pennies gives us a mile. If 15 million people would donate 1 penny a month we would have 1.5 million dollars at the end of the year and with that the funding for a multi city trial…
Well my grandchildren know how committed I am to this.
The other day my grandson Justin gave me a penny as a donation. 2 days later at the rink he saw me put some money in the jar and he said: “Omi , remember the penny I gave you a couple of days ago, did you put that in the jar too?” Naturally I had done that, but he wanted to make sure I did not forget…
We could learn a lot from the children on expecting accountability for where their money is going !!!

Never judge a book by its cover

It has been so exciting to see, that right now the biggest star on the radar screen is Susan Boyle check her out at www.youtube.com/watch/boyle
How many times have we dismissed people because of the first impression and our shallow way of judging people.
There is a 47 year old woman who by her own admission has never even been kissed. She has harboured this amazing talent that till 5 days ago has never been given a chance.
As one of the judges commented:” This has been a wake up call.”
I have been coaching figure skating on the elite level for 30 years. I remember when I had the pleasure to coach Elvis Stojko (3 time World Champion),
When people in the know, told me “He will never make it” He did not fit the mold of a figure skater. I guess , he showed them, by becoming the biggest star in figure skating in his time. The emotional pain he had gone thru by the time he got there was immeasurable.
Every time I watch the tape of Miss Boyle’s appearance (I have been watching it often since yesterday) I relive the pain Elvis went thru to be determined to get to the top.
I hope she will become the biggest star ever and serve as a reminder that our statements” she has it” or “they will never get it” should never discourage anybody from following their dream…

The basic human rights

• Right to your own perception
• Right to clear information
• Freedom of choice

This seems to be very self explanatory, but to use it in everyday life is very difficult. Sure we try to fight for our own rights . But do we at the same time allow others to preserve their rights…?
This is where it becomes tricky. The one that seems to get violated the most is the “right to your own perception”. We often like to control the way others see things and when they do not agree we tell them they are wrong.
As you can tell this is not a black and white situation . We come from different vantage points to a situation and see things from a different angle. Once we communicate and listen to each other we would recognize that we are often talking about the same thing ,we are just perceiving it differently. Since we are using our senses selectively, we could gain so much by listening and respecting someone else’s point of view. Often it is not a matter of being right or wrong, but rather gaining a wider and additional perspective to the same situation.

“Clear information”: We should be allowed to ask questions until the information is clear to us.

“Freedom of choice”: As we collect clear information we now have the freedom of choosing what to do with it. But so often we are supposed to accept the information or answer we are getting as the only choice. We are often expected to give up our freedom of choice after asking a question…
We do not like when this happens to us, but always ask yourself. “ Am I doing the same thing onto others???