MASTER GARY SCHILL EQUIPS THOUSANDS
OF STUDENTS AND PARENTS FROM 3 TO 68 FOR THE
PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL CHALLENGES OF
LIFE AT HIS PEAK PERFORMANCE MARTIAL ARTS ACADEMY
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF AUSTIN

By Jonathan Widran
With over 37 years of his life dedicated to the mastery of martial arts, Gary Schill knows more than the average person about rising to new challenges, conquering obstacles and the discipline required to achieve the next level of success.

Thirteen years ago, caught between the safety net of corporate success and following his heart’s desire, he found himself at a career crossroads. He was teaching as a master instructor part time at a church while traveling the world and making good money as an account executive in the computer hardware and software industry. He remembers when the feeling hit him on a trip to China and Korea. He felt trapped and it was time.

Upon his return from this trip he walked into the office of his Senior VP, quit his job and with his wife Paula opened Peak Performance Martial Arts Academy, which has trained thousands of students (from ages 3-68, literally!) in many forms of martial arts—and provided empowering life principles that can be applied far from the instruction mat. Serving the communities of Cedar Park, Austin, Leander, Round Rock and Georgetown, Texas, Peak Performance is more than an extra-curricular activity school—it’s a professional Martial Arts Academy with an emphasis on helping children and adults reach their goals at home, school work and every aspect of their lives. Schill and his staff focus on proven success principals that are used every day by Peak Performance athletes, educators, world leaders and business professionals.

The academy’s traditional instruction incorporates both “Weh Gung” (external energy development) and “Neh Gung” (internal energy development). “Weh Gung” is the physical aspect of the martial arts: blocking, kicking, punching, cardiovascular, core strengthening and flexibility. “Neh Gung” helps students develop the integrity, concentration, self-control, respect, honesty, humility, self-discipline, focus, perseverance, confidence and self motivation to strengthen and enhance one’s life energy and spirit. The ultimate aim is total mental/physical integration. As the mind and body begin to work in harmony, a person will feel a sense of calmness, peace and balance which will guide their emotions with wisdom and focus on the decisions which they need to make in all areas of their life.

Two years ago, based on the challenges he saw his students and their families facing in the troubled economy, Schill came up with (what he calls) a “crazy” idea to expand Peak Performance to become a “one stop shop” with a multitude of programs in a single location. Schill (referred to by his students as “Master Schill”) expanded the original charter of the academy to include mixed martial arts, including Gracie Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Combat Cardio and Yoga. These professional programs have been added to their award winning traditional martial arts program, after school program and summer camp programs.

Schill’s ultimate goal, as soon as he can secure a larger facility space, is to add other activities, including dance and gymnastics. “The idea is to have a family friendly place where parents and kids can come and spend time together,” he says.

In addition to overseeing the programs of the academy, Schill has impacted thousands of children in the Austin region with a unique annual personal outreach to nearly 30 elementary schools that he has been engaged in for the past ten years. His website (www.peakperformancemartialarts.com)
has a section on the small percentage of people in life who set concrete goals (he quotes three percent); this is one of the concepts he stresses at Peak Performance.

While teaching students martial arts in local elementary gym class, he also teaches them about how to impervious to bullying and negative peer pressure. In his academy, his Peak Performers students learn about creating what he calls “vision boards,” which he says that all successful people use. These are storyboards (like those used to map out scenes in movies) where people cut out pictures or words related to what they want to accomplish, have and do in their lives--and paste them on a wall. Schill also educates students about fitness and some very tough issues facing young people today: dealing with bullies (also covering how to counter the very current problem of “cyber-bullying”), negative peer pressure and abduction prevention.

“For a long time, I noticed that while many of our students acted very confident in the instruction setting, outside of it they would drop their heads down, not look people in the eye or have the confidence they need in day to day life,” he says. “It was an unusual disconnect. I believe that while we are developing their physical side, dealing with their emotional, mental and social side is massively important, too. It’s a different world today. While they’re not walking out the door and being challenged to physical fighting, they’re dealing with peer pressure, social networking challenges and cyber-bullying, which has replaced traditional bullying as the #1 bullying set. The internet and texting on mobile devices allows kids to say and do things they wouldn’t say or do face to face.

“When you see kids committing suicide due to cyber-bullying,” Schill adds, “you realize this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. We want to help kids develop the social intelligence on how to deal with the way people use social networking to gang up. Another reality we address is how hard it is in this fast moving world of cyber communication and video games for kids to sit still and focus in school. Our Peak Performance program takes kids through the kind of coaching process that I didn’t do until I was an adult. In addition to goal setting, we teach strong communication skills, how to overcome fears of interacting with strangers, initiate conversations and even succeed in public speaking.”

Schill and his staff developed an exciting new program called the “Parents As Coaches”. This program was built out of a necessity, we realized very quick that we were teaching life skills to the children the parents didn’t understand, say Schill. The program is part of the Successful Families Program, website (SuccessfulFamilies.com)The curriculum is designed to help parents deal with some of these issues which were not part of their children’s lives as recently as five years ago. The goal is to help them reinforce at home the life skills their children are learning at Peak Performance. As they help their kids develop the life skills they need to someday become successful as adults, the parents themselves learn disciplines designed to help them strengthen many aspects of their own lives as well.

On April 1, Schill will be going online with a videotaped seminar series. The topics covered both at the academy and in this series will include: “Begin With the End in Mind,” “How to Prevent the Quitting Habit,” “The Four Major Fears,” “The Three Levels of Learning” and “The Dos and Don’ts of Being a Great Parent.” Videos run from six to 15 minutes each.

Schill says: “To summarize all that we do here at Peak Performance: Broken down by four to six week lessons, we teach the vision board as part of goal setting, communication skills, team building, time management, basics of financial management and perseverance. The vision boards are done in November, where students set goals for the next year as to what degree belts they will earn as well as outside goals. We focus on a wide range of elements, but our core is still traditional martial arts, weapons training, sparring—all in the hopes of developing our students into well rounded martial artist with confidence in themselves. One of our core components is our black belt boot camp, which includes two classes a week for three hours each, then a retreat after 12 weeks which we call ‘mini hell weekend.’ We push them physically, mentally and emotionally, including written tests for nearly 48 hours with only 6-7 hours of sleep. They will emerge from the fatigue with the confidence to preserver and be successful at everything in their lives.”

A self-professed military Brat born in the Azores Islands off the coast of Spain, Schill’s background in martial arts goes back to the start of his training at age eight. His father, a career Air Force Soldier, provided him many training opportunities around the world; he has trained with members of various military outfits, including the Navy Seals, Pathfinders, Air Force P.J.’s, Special Forces, as well as member of law enforcement. He has also trained with military men from England, Germany and South Korea. More than 20 years ago, Schill decided to dedicate himself to Tang Soo Do, the core traditional martial art that is taught at Peak Performance; he has trained with some of the pioneers of this form, who themselves trained personally under Supreme Grand Master Hwang Kee. Only two generations removed from SGM Hwang Kee, Schill still trains with his original methods.

Schill has enjoyed watching the successful martial arts development of each of his five children (from two marriages), who range in age from 30 to 4! His three older boys are second degree black belts, while his daughter started her first black belt boot camp and his youngest son is a yellow belt. His background includes working straight out of school as a jack of all trades personal assistant to a renowned Texas billionaire and developing several companies as an entrepreneur. All of this was just prelude to Peak Performance Martial Arts, a dream in constant development whose “vision board” grows more dynamic and diverse by the year.

“Every rewarding aspect of what we do here comes together for me in the story of a girl named Chelsea, who came to me as a very shy nine year old,” says Schill. “I’ve had the chance to see her blossom into a beautiful, confident young woman. She had been babysitting since age 12, and had the discipline to save enough to buy her first truck at 16 for cash. While taking her regular high school courses and six hours of college classes, she earned a second degree black belt, and has always had a vision of where she’s going. She’s mentoring kids and doing other activities as she strives towards her goal of being a teacher. She once hated talking in public and now she’s confident leading her classes.

“Being part of that transformation is massive,” he adds. “Knowing we’ve made a difference in a student’s life is made even sweeter when we realize that the whole family is touched by what we’ve accomplished. It’s very rewarding to know we’ve done things that will positively impact them for the rest of their lives.”