Tournament and Seminar Schedule 2010
January
1/8-9-
Action Martial Arts Magazine Hall of Honors Atlantic City NJ Alan Goldberg (718) 856-8070
1/9-10
Philly Sports Extravaganza and MMA Expo Philadelphia PA) ames Jefferson (609)
923-2663
1/9 Junior
National Championships Valley Forge Convention Center PA., Master Jose Torres
(609) 871-=6000
1/16-
Karyims 24th Battle of the
Martial Arts (Dundalk Md) Howard Karyim Moore (443) 834-5487
February
2/27 Sport
Weaponry Championships Edgewater Park NJ., Master Jose Torres (609)871-6000
2/26-27 Beach Blast Martial Arts Championship 2009
(Virginia Beach Va.) Less S Peregoff-Ken Morgan (757) 474-1030
March
3/6-
Dragon Tao Karate 15th Martial Arts Championships Randallstown MD.,
John Kellam, Jr. (443) 604-4706
3/ -14th Annual MercerCounty Karate
Championship Lawerenceville NJ., Sensei Ivan Mendez (609) 540-3039
3/13 –East
Coast Martial Arts Championship Upper Marboro MD., Diane Jones, Karen Lawerence
240 210-9195
April
4/ -27th
Annual Maryland Open Championship Baltimore Md., Master Apolo Ladra (410) 370-4433
4/17 –
Noble House Spring Youth Tournament Potomac Md., Grandmaster Robert E Belt Jr.
(202)291-3198
4/17 - Master
Kobaleski’s USA Karate Chapionships Clark Summit PA., Eric Kovaleski (570)
307-5425
4/18 –
Renassinesss Citty JPro/Am Karate Championship West Orange NJ., Gerald Eatman
(973) 596-7619
May
5/1- The
JW Spring Classic Martial Arts Tournament (Oxon Hill Md) James Wyatt (301) 655-6690
5/2 –Delaware
Valley Open Karate Championship Springfield PA., Paul Cheng (610) 622-5260
5/15 –
Lions Den Grappling Karate Championship Beaver PA., Master Bill LaVoice (724)
495-7646
5/28-30 –
Kumite Classic Martial Arts Expo Pittsburgh PA., Bill Viola (724) 861-5162
5/28-30 –
The Kumite Classic Pittsburgh PA., Bill Viola (724) 861-5162
5/28-29 –
Nafina National Championships Atlantic City NJ., Master Jose Torres (609) 871-6000
5/29 –
North American Hall of Fame Banquet Atlantic City NJ., Master Jose Torres (609)
871-6000
June
6/12 – TyGa
Hall of Fame Banquet, London England, Soke Gary Wasniewski (240) 997-5647
6/6-
Maryland Super Showdown Baltimore Md., (443) 286-9680
6/12 – 4th
Annual Spirit of the Samurai Tournament YMCA
Baltimore Md., Gerald Jackson (443) 857-6448
July
August
September
9/19 – Nobel House TKD 30th Annual Tournament of Champions Potomac Md., Grandmaster Robert E Belt Jr. (202) 291-3198
October
10/ - The
Black Tiger Martial Arts Championships Towson MD., Del Art Rawlings (443) 540-
3672
10/ - 27th
Annual Battle of Baltimore Baltimore Md. , John Burdyck (410) 676-1776
November
11/12-14 –
EUSAIMAA Hall of Fame Banquet, Pittsburgh Pa, Soke John Kanzler (800) 456-3872
December
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010
Wisdom of the Samurai is available
in book form for $29.95. If you want a
copy of this book call (301) 482-0000 and ask for it, and it will be packaged
an mailed to you. Do you want to manage
your life and your relationships with others well. These articles with some
additional information are in book form.
(Note that we have tried to make it
easy for anyone to ask a question or make a comment and get it answered. If you
want to ask a Martial Arts related question you can email Gamasensei at
Damascuskarate dot com(Translate this to an email address). I will do my best
to answer all emails in a timely manner
Feb
22, 2010
Violence
A good friend of mine named John Desmond sent me the
following quote about violence, “violence is like duct tape, if it doesn’t
solve the problem you didn’t use enough.”
The issue of Violence doesn’t often arise in a Dojo
, after all, this is what we train so hard to be able to handle. However,
students have to deal with violence or potential violence in their everyday
lives. What do we teach our students about dealing with violence and how do we
teach the students to deal with violence are important aspects of any Martial
Artist training and we ignore it at the risk of producing poorly trained
students. Almost all of us have seen examples of behavior we do not like in
students. How do we deal with these students, what can we do for them, and how
do we train them would seem to be questions we have all asked ourselves. Now
most of us as Sensei’s do not have real violence in our Dojo because we do not
accept students who are violent and we have an emphasis on safety in our Dojo’s
besides we are well trained to deal with violence. But how do we teach our
students to deal with violence in others. Remember, if someone is a jerk and
you knock them out, they are just an unconscious jerk. We need to educate our
students to deal with violence in others.
A good place to start our discussion would be with a
definition of violence, for our purposes violence is the use of force against
others with the intent of compelling a course of action. Note that we have
purposefully left our suicide (violence against oneself), war and genocide, and
other types of problems, not because they are not worth discussing but they are
not relevant to this discussion. Note also that the purpose of violence is to
compel a course of action. This gives us the first clue that violence starts
long before a blow is struck, there is a planning phase, an assessment phase,
and an execution phase. This illustrates something that all of us who teach
self defense realize, there is a movement to violence and it starts long before
a blow is struck. Students don’t
misbehave because of some flaw in their personality. the fundamental problem
with these students is education i.e. they see
no alternatives to compel a course of action. This indicates some need
for negotiation and mediation skills in the students or at least the ability to
teach these skills to others. This clearly indicates why teaching skills in an
advanced black belt are so critical.
It is instructive to see what the Government has
done about violence. To quote from the county website “County Executive created
the Office of Community Partnership (OCP) in 2007 to help break down the
barriers of race, income and religion … VVV voice versus violence recruits
professionals volunteers who have expertise in violence prevention, conflict
resolution/mediation and counciling skills at workshops held at various
elementary and middle schools throughout the country”. The other organization
in the local government the addresses violence is the Department of Juvenile
Justice. Let us look at how this part of government deals with violence.
From the county website we have :
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“CONFLICT RESOULTION CENTER OF
MONTGOMERY COUNTY (service connected to DJJ) For a free and confidential inquiry, please call 301-942-7700.
The Conflict Resolution Center of Montgomery County (CRCMC) is a non-profit organization
dedicated to providing quality dispute prevention, resolution, and education
to individuals and community organizations. Department of
Juvenile Services (DJS) The Department of Juvenile
Services refers community conferencing cases directly to CRCMC. Community
Conferences are facilitated processes involving the communities of both a
youth who has caused harm and those who have been affected by the youth’s
behavior. If an agreement is reached (which happens in 75-80% of the cases)
the matter is dropped by DJS. DJJ Metro Region –Programs
|
As one can see the government has developed several
programs to help deal with the problem of violence, but I think even the people
in the programs would tell you that they don’t have the answer to how to deal
with violence. So how can we as Martial Arts instructors contribute both for
the good of our community and for the good of our students? I think we need to
do a couple of things, let us discuss them.
First, recognize that dealing with violence is a
complex issue and one lesson is probably not enough to cover the topic.
Next, a good self defense course is essential. This
course should cover the planning phase, the assessment phase and the execution
phase of violence. In this course attention should be paid to how to interrupt
the planning and assessment phase of violence.
Communications, negotiations, and mediation skills
should be taught in this course. Some amount of role playing should probably be
included to ensure the students have learned the necessary skills. Students
must learn that violence is the end result of a process and what they must do
to interrupt that process.
Discipline needs to be taught to all of the
students. This can be done as difficult exercises which force the student to
work at the edge of their abilities and as classes where the students get a
chance to demonstrate and practice their emotions and their discipline
If this seems like a lot remember the Shoalin Monk
who developed Kung Fu from which we get Karate and Monks and trained in these
types of techniques incessantly.
Dec 7,2009
A Lesson
in Effectiveness
I must apologize for being off the air for so long. My computer
decided to self destruct and Santa Clause just delivered a new one to my house.
So now I am back on the air.
A lot has happened since I last wrote for this BLOG in August of last year. We met Kathy Long at
the EUSAIMAA conference in Pittsburgh
and found out she was victorious in her first MMA fight and I want to
issue her a belated congratulation for her victory I look forward to seeing her
in many more MMA matches.
We traveled to London in June of last year to attend Soke Gary
Wasniewski’s Hall of Fame Banquet. It was a wonderful event and chance to meet
old friends and see new Martial Arts talent on display. We look forward to
attending this event next year and seeing the world famous Shizumi Manale
perform. For those of you who don’t recognize Shizumi Sensei she was an actress
in the movie commonly known as “National Treasure II” and is a world famous Dancer
and Opera Singer who has performed at the White House, the Kennedy Center,
and at other notable venues worldwide.
With all of this going on, let me not forget to wish all of the
readers of this work a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Like the famous Mr. Spock says “Live
long and prosper”.
Let me talk about some
interesting things that have happened in the Dojo regarding training. We have a brand new Black Belt in the Dojo.
She is everything and instructor could ask for in a student. She is young(15),
dedicated, and works hard. I struggled with what to teach this brand new Black
Belt. One of my instructors taught a lesson on commitment to this young ladies
class. The objective of this lesson was to teach student not to execute a
technique unless they were committed to the technique. We worked on things like
targeting, speed, control, and effectiveness. I was amazed at the end of class
when we engaged in some Kumite and the students looked much more like fighters.
They were committing to their techniques and no one was getting injured.
I started thinking after this class about what lessons could be learned
from this class. It is sometimes difficult to teach young people the concept of
sending unwanted messages during a fight. They are simply not ready and to
young to deal with this issue and frankly see no reason for learning about
unwanted messages. Effectiveness seems to be easier for the young student to
grasp. I am going to explore with this young student other area’s for improving
her Martial Arts capability. Maybe my amazement is due to my lack of education and experience
in the Martial Arts but I always worry about what to teach someone who achieves
the rank of Shodan. It seems like I have found and answer to this question. One
goes back and improves the students existing capabilities. This does not
require the young student to try to grasp concepts for which they are not ready
and see no need, and allows you the Sensei to postpone some of these more
difficult concepts until the student is ready for them It is clear that if we
must tailor our teaching to what our students in the class can absorb.
Aug
1 2009
Emotions
As Sensei’s we have to deal with the
people who walk thru the door of our Dojo. We don’t get to choose our students,
and the highly disciplined skilled Martial Artist that many students envision
themselves becoming is the product of years of training. This makes the job of
being a Sensei a very people oriented position. If we are aware that emotions
drive the reactions of most students then what should we tell the students
about emotions?
In our Dojo’s we tend to have young
people and adults. Adults often accompany their children into the Dojo so the
focus of many adults in the Dojo is to oversee the Martial education of their
child. These adults would like not to be injured, not to look foolish in front
of their child, and to grow themselves in their Martial education.
Young people are difficult to
understand. Their view of the world is radically different than adults it is
influenced by odd things such as the fact that the distance between their wrist
and elbow is different every day.
Young people are wonderful little
balls of energy, they can move fast, strike hard, and have an almost
inexhaustible supple of curiosity to try new things. It is this last trait that
ends up getting young people into trouble. Here are a few questions for the
reader. Where should a young person turn if they get into trouble? Are we
offended by the rude and sometimes boorish behavior exhibited by some young
people. Of course we are, but the rules of the Dojo apply here just as well,
you would not let a young person do something to injure them selves or others
in the Dojo so in life you should not let a young person out of ignorance do
something to injure themselves or others.
This lack of experience in young
person means that the most difficult thing they have to deal with is hidden
agenda’s. Young people are not unlike the rest of us, most of their time is
spent in searching for the truth. Almost always the only person a young person
can count on for an honest opinion is their parents. You may not like what the
parents have to say but almost always it is the accumulated wisdom of a mother
and father and is as unbiased as is possible. Young people would be foolish to
ignore this repository of wisdom that exists in almost every home.
Some guidance on what we should
teach students about their emotion would seem useful. For the sake of clarity
and at the risk of being dull the following is a bullitized list of advice to
all students in Dojo’s :
- Be of good character: The bottom line is that in life as well as in the
Dojo people will make judgments about you based on your character. Are you
honest and truthful, are you fair with those you deal with, do you take
advantage of the weak and powerless, do you forgive those who have wronged
you, are all important questions that each of us needs to answer in our
lives and in the dojo.
- Love Carefully. Making to many commitments can complicate your life.
When you are young you can love many people and many things, Love your
parents, love your job, love another person, and love your country are
some examples of love that
sometimes present us with difficult problems to manage.
Listening to those you trust can
help anyone with these issues
- Embrace Hardship. Do not attempt
to avoid problems, hardships make you stronger. Learn to deal with them in
your life and take whatever action your character demands. This may not be
an easy course of action but those who know you will respect you for these
actions.
- Embrace Work Many students, especially children do not know how to
work hard. Hard work may not be fun
but it will make you stronger. Many parents recognize this and therefore
support the work done in the Dojo. Students should pay attention to the
guidance of those you trust and learn how to work hard
Emotions are the engines which drive
our actions. To deal with them take experience and wisdom. Do not fear to seek
advice from those wiser than yourself. In fact in life this is why we hire
lawyers, doctors, accounts, etc. As Sensei’s, in the Dojo, we have a tendency
to think about who has the fastest and hardest back fist, or reverse punch, or
front kick, or round kick, but these are not the problems students normally
show up with in the Dojo . The original Buddhist monks were priest and although
we don’t normally teach Buddhism in our Dojo’s it would improve many of our
students Martial Arts to incorporate more of what the old monks taught. .
May
11, 2009
Happiness
Martial Arts students are not unlike
other human beings. They are searching for those things in their life which
gives their life meaning, love,
happiness, health, and wealth are among some of the things the Martial
Arts student looks for. As Sensei’s we are not trained psychiatrist, but we are
often turned to for advice by students whose only opportunity for guidance is
access to a Sensei. Realizing this it behooves us as Sensei’s to prepare as
best as we can to provide our students wisdom in this search for meaning..
One of the questions that try to
answer is what makes them happy? This question is asked by both adults and
children but most often young people who have little experience with the issues
of life.
At the risk of sounding negative I
can tell you what happiness is not. It is not having everything you want, or
having an easy life, or having people idolize you. So happiness is a fairly
complicated emotion which many student struggle to obtain. As we discuss below
the famous Philosopher Aristotle links happiness to something called virtue. It
is worth remembering something that one of my students told me once, if you
don’t have television or radio you are much closer to nature. So the question
remains why are students happy? Where
does happiness come from? If you have everything you want will you be happy? By
happiness I don’t mean just signing up for another month in class, or another
belt rank, I mean satisfaction that you are doing something worthwhile in your
life.
First of all, why are students
happy? I don’t think the student knows why they are happy or not in class. A
student comes to class and says thing like “ I want to learn to defend myself”
But if you watch them carefully during class you will see the they are smiling
during Kumite. Or some students come to class and behave in such a way that
their parents approve of them. I have a young student in my classes whose
parents bring her to class and like good parents everywhere they stay and watch
their daughter train. As a result of this the young student behaves like a
young lady in class. What I have discovered by watching and talking to this
young woman is that she likes fighting. She is physically strong, is not afraid
to take a hit, and she enjoys the challenge of Kumite but she is not confident
of her own abilities, so I compliment her a lot to try to encourage her to
excel in kumite.
I had another young student whose
mother brought him to me and said “I can’t do anything with him can you help
him?” My response was I don’t know but I will try. The student was a young
child and he refused to do even the warm
up exercises during class. After several
classes I noticed that he was behaving better during class. I commented about
this to his mother and I learned that his dad was a soldier who was serving in
Now, where does happiness come from?
Philosophers have debated this question for ages. Aristotle
says that certain virtues must be accomplished in order to achieve happiness.
He makes a connection between happiness
and virtue, where the individual’s virtues compliment his state of happiness.
As Martial Artist we might ask “What are these virtues that Aristotle talked
about and what do they mean to the Martial Artist”? It seems to me like
commitment and honor are good starts at defining these virtues. A committed student
is a happy student, they are so busy
being committed that they don’t have time to be unhappy. How to teach
commitment as a path to happiness is a challenge for every Sensei.
Honor is another virtue
of the chronically happy student. Can one be happy without being honorable? I
think not. Acting with no honor in your life is a path to unhappiness. I want
to be very clear here, following a path which leads to no honor is sometime
easy and the converse i.e. following a path which is honorable is sometimes
difficult. But that is why Martial Artist are such respected people. We are
expected to walk a difficult path. I don ‘t think I need to elaborate here on
what is honorable behavior, but everyone who can read this article knows where
the pitfalls to honor lie, in drug abuse, in dealing with money, in alcohol
abuse, and in dealing with other students to name a few places. Can one behave
without honor? Certainly, but the destination of that path is unhappiness. The
road to happiness is paved with honor, this is not an easy road, and in fact in
may sometimes be very difficult, but that is why Martial Artist are such
respected people because they can walk difficult paths.
Now, the final question,
if you had everything you want would you be happy? Happiness lies not in
possessing things but in disciplining yourself to not need possessions. Possess
nothing so that nothing can possess you. Now, you must be pragmatic in applying
this rule If your family depends on you for housing, food, etc. you need to
spend enough time in your life acquiring this things so that you do not fail in
your obligation to your family.
The truly difficult
decision that most adults deal with is how to balance these two competing
obligations.
What then brings us
happiness? If I had to sum it up in one word I would say “ Balance”.
If you are unhappy
something in your life is out of balance. There are certain virtues associated
with being happy, Honor and Commitment are two of these virtues. This fact
argues that we need to undertake some training in our Dojo’s in these
area’s.
Feb
2, 2009
Hatred
My lovely wife Linda is a Historian
for the Daughters of the American Revolution. As a result of this I have had
the privilege of visiting several Revolutionary war battlefields and have
learned a lot from this process.
There was real emotion driving the
actions of many of the Revolutionary war figures we read about in the History
books. It took a lot of courage to say things like “Give me
This started me thinking about the
Martial Arts implications of what happened during the Revolutionary war. Most
colonist would take the life of a British soldier without hesitation. Most
British soldiers were not bad men, they were husbands, brothers, and fathers
simply serving out a tour of duty in the army of Great Brittan. Also most
colonist were not bad men, they were simple farmers and merchant who felt
compelled to take up arms against this large British army. So the important
question is what happened to make these two large groups of men start killings
each other?
Of course there are places like
As Martial Artist most of us would
not knowingly injure someone. However how many times have you snapped out a jab
a little harder than usual to show your opponent that you could defeat them? In
fact this is one of the occurrences we have to be careful to monitor during
kumite because it is almost a subconscious reflex in many students.
In our dojo’s we demand respect and
commitment from our students. I think we should also add communication to that
list. We must led by example. Out students should be encouraged to come into
our office and talk with us. We should encourage our students to talk with each
other during kumite. We should remind out students that kumite (sparring) is
not street fighting and we should admonish our students to be good partners and
remind them that it is hard to learn when you are getting the pie beaten out of
you.
This doesn’t mean out students
shouldn’t be able to take a punch but it does argue for a more controlled
introduction to that event.
So what happens if we let out
emotions run free during kumite? Generally you end up with the bigger and more
experienced students beating up the smaller and less experienced students. This
is a poor way to teach students the art of kumite. What must be done to teach
kumite is to teach perfection in the basics. Drills with speed, power,
accuracy, intensity, and strategy will all improve a students kumites
capability. Soke Gary Wasniewski is one of the finest examples of this strategy
that I know off. His style which he calls Ty-Ga consists of much work in
perfecting the basics of Karate. He is lightning fast, immensely accurate, and
extremely powerful. I told Soke Gary one time that I could have stopped his
first kick but I could not have stopped his second, third, and forth
kicks.
So what lessons does the
Revolutionary war hold for us as Martial Artist? I think encouraging
communications between our students is a primary one, teaching your students to
be good partners and help your opponent learn is another one, and finally it is
important to teach your students to control their emotions during kumite.
Jan
5, 2009
Reality
First of all I am a little late but Merry Christmas!!! to all of my
students, both past and present, I hope you are doing well wherever you are and
please remember you are all always invited to stop by the Dojo and say Hi!
I had two new students stop by and enroll in the school
and I was struck by the opportunity these new students represent and I though
talking about it would be educational.
First of all, the first question I
had to answer was ‘What am I going to teach these students in their first lesson?”
We did some preliminary work on stance and blocks, some basic Japanese terms,
and protocols used in the Dojo. Driving all of this was my desire to help the
students learn to “fit in” i.e. I wanted the new students not to feel
uncomfortable in moving around the Dojo. I became concerned as the lesson drew
to an end that I had not addressed all of the really important issues like
commitment, character, and integrity that I have discussed in other sections of
the writings. Then I realized that we had smiled and laughed and had fun
together and that this was the beginning of building trust with these two
teenage boys. All of the other stuff that I worried about would come later as
these students continued to train. One thing that being a Sensei has taught me
is that you must be patient with the students, you have to give them time to
develop into what you think they will become.
One of the things that was notably
lacking in these two boys was blatant emotionalism. It struck me as notable how
little complaining that these two new students were doing, despite that hard
workout that I put them thru. They did what all good students do, they endured.
Of course I was careful to make sure that they didn’t injure each other during
Kumite and I made sure that I gave them my sternest lecture on being a good
partner and I made it clear that I didn’t want to see any blood or bones during
the kumite section of class.
So the question that still persisted
was what do I teach these two young men. They were going to return to their
home in
Again I was struck by what I had not
had time to teach these students, what about all of the problems which have no
place in the dojo like the failure of interpersonal relationship, the dislike of
others in the dojo, the lack of commitment to the learning of Martial Arts and
all the other problems which tend to crop up in the dojo.
I guess in the final analysis I
decided that I had to be more patients with myself and these students. It takes
time and training to put into the students all of the character and training
that you would like to see them possess. I finally realized that the problems
with these students did not originate with these students it originated with
me. All of the problems that students would face in their Martial Arts careers
could be discussed and an appropriate response developed but it takes time and
commitment on behalf of the students and myself to develop this level of
dialogue.
I opted for providing them with some
tools to take with them back to
Sept
22, 2008
Things
Change
I had the privilege of testing a
young student for the rank of Shodan this month and I acutely aware of the
changes that had occurred in this young student and I thought talking about
them would be educational.
First, I was struck by the changes
in behavior of this young child. I remember an awkward and cute young child who came into the Dojo 7
years ago and what I saw as I hacked at her with a sword was a poised young
woman who would grow into a great Black Belt. This whole experienced reinforced
in me the idea that the practice of not promoting a child to the rank of Shodan
until the reached the age of 16 was in error. This practice may have been
useful in
Could this child be defeated in
combat? Of course, I could have struck her, or cut her, or damaged her in any
way I felt was appropriate during her test. However, that has nothing to do
with her age. I could have done the same to her if she was 21years old, or 31,
or 41. My responsibility as her Sensei was not to destroy her but to guide her
to grow and progress into the ranks of Black Belts without seeing her come to
harm.
What about the other attribute of a
Black Belt the we like to see in our Shodan’s?
Self-Defense is a reasonable
substitute for humility. I teach the children that if somebody want to pick a
fight with you the best thing you can do is run. This is not a perfect solution
but it works until the child has a chance to grow some humility.
Wisdom in a child is difficult. I
think it comes in time and there is no doubt that this child will grow into a
good Black Belt.
Honor in a child can be taught by teaching the child to behave honorably.
Respect others and their views, Don’t lie, don’t cheat, and don’t steal are
good places to start.
Character in a child comes from
training him or her how to make hard decisions. This is why character education
should be a part of every children’s Martial Arts program.
Humility, Wisdom, Honor, and
Character all seem like good attributes of any student, particularly a student who
is very young
We are in the business of training
families when we teach the very young, we are not in the business of training
soldiers. What the child needs is a clear vision of the way ahead, skill as a
combatant will come with time.
We must struggle to make the parents
understand their commitment is their child’s commitment and to the extent that
they are committed their child will succeed in the Martial Arts. .
We must ensure that the candidate
has a clear vision of the way ahead, this includes how to act when confronted
with conflict, the nature of an honorable course of action, and we must equip
them with a spectrum of capabilities concerning how to deal with the very mild,
to very severe threats to their well being.
This is the job we have when we
teach children.
August
25,2008
Compulsive
Behavior
Words don’t seem adequate to discuss
the subject I would like to talk about but like all good Martial Artist I will
try. As Martial Artist do we exhibit
compulsive behavior? My answer to this would have to be yes. Most of us will
train all of our lives and sacrifice all or our worldly possessions to continue
to train(Ask anyone who holds the rank of Shodan and you will get a long story
on how they sacrificed to achieved that rank). In fact, our friends, our
parents, and the people in our lives who
love us will encourage us to do this. What is it about the Martial Arts that
engenders this kind of behavior? Can this behavior be misused or misguided? The
answer to both of these questions unfortunately if yes. If we are doing our job
as good Sensei’s we will make sure that
doesn’t happen.
Is compulsive behavior a good thing?
That depends on the behavior. If a students in College studies 12 hours per day
at their desk most of us would say that’s a good thing, however if that same students went out and
spent 12 hours per day in a bar most of us would say that is a bad thing.
What’s the difference? If your answer is that the students time in the bar
injures the student I would point out that in the Martial Arts we injure
students(Usually not intentionally) and most people would agree that the study
of the Martial Arts is a good thing.
So, as Sensei’s we are in the
business of training people’s behavior, not just their behavior in the dojo but
their behavior in life, because their behavior in life affects their life in
the dojo. Most students will disagree with this and in fact tell you as a
Sensei that how they conduct their lives is none of your business. This
view is a students way of not committing
to studying the Martial Arts. This view
of Sensei’s as just another kind of teacher is held by many students and is
shortsighted and unfortunately true for many Sensei’s. However if you as a
Sensei accept this view and consider yourself as just another teacher you miss
an opportunity to make the lives of your students much more meaningful. As a
Sensei your whole life is an open book to your students and whether they say it
or not you will teach your students much more by how you live your life than
you will in the dojo.
So we have a bit of a quandary here,
what we get in the dojo are happy children/families with almost no training in
the Martial Arts. In fact when a new student or their parents tell you they
want you to train their child or themselves
in the Martial Arts usually they
have almost no idea of what that means. If we were to make a list of the
attributes we would see in new and would like to see in experienced students it
would look something like this:
New Student Experienced
Student
Friendly Honorable
Nervous Committed
Knows no Martial Arts Understands
and is able to demonstrate many techniques
Undisciplined Disciplined
Reasonable Physical Fitness Excellent Physical Fitness
Ego Humble
Our job as Sensei’s is to change the new student into the
experienced student? The questions for us as Sensei’s then is How do we do
this?
Honor comes into a student because
they have been educated. I don’t want to imply that a bunch of fact constitutes and education, I
mean an education that provides the
ability and willingness to put facts together to serve others and to forge a
better life for those around you.
Commitment comes with character and
education. We should not forget that children are not the masters of their own
destiny in the dojo, they need their parents support. In fact, success in the
Martial Arts for children is directly related to how much support their parents
are willing to provide for them.
Understanding techniques,
discipline, and physical fitness come with training.
Humbleness is the opposite of
ego This is a difficult attribute for
many adults to obtain because it requires that the student acknowledge that
there are others who know more about the process of training a student in the
Martial Arts than they do. The students knowledge finally hardens into a
position and the student becomes inflexible. The inflexible student makes a
poor student and teacher. As Sensei’s how do we teach the value of humility.
This is a difficult question to answer. I think education and maturity helps
the student achieve appropriate level of humility. What then should we teach
the student about humility? Respect for other views is a good start, couple
this with a couple of years of dedicated training and you have the beginnings
of humility in a student. This is the best case I can make for keeping a
student in the dojo for many years. This position is not popular with students.
But awarding a student the rank of
Shodan to early in their career run the risk of producing a Shodan who does not
exhibit the attribute of humility. The question of training children raises its
head here. In many dojo’s the rank of Shodan is not awarded until the student
has reached the age of 16. In our dojo I don’t follow this practice because I
think if interrupts a child’s willingness to train in the Martial Arts.
Although I do make each Shodan candidate submit a two pages paper before their
Shodan test which describes where the student has been in the Martial Arts and
where they hope to go in the future. The purpose of this paper is to help the
student expand their view of the role of Martial Arts training in their lives.
As Sensei’s we are given the charge
of guiding a student (both child and adults) through the minefield of growing
up. There is no more vauluable and life altering skill than this. Most of our
students will remember when they are old how we changed their life as their
Sensei.
This is the awe inspiring job we have as Sensei’s.
May
26, 2008
Behavior
and Expectations in the Martial Arts
But I say to you who listen: Love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you
Bless those who curse you, pray for
those who mistreat you
If anyone hits you on the cheek
offer the other cheek also, and if anyone takes away your coat don’t hold back
your shirt either
Just as you want others to do for
you, do the same for them
Luke 6:27-31
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought
If a man speaks or acts with and
evil thought
Then pain follows him
If a man speaks or acts with a pure
thought
Then happiness follows him
Like a shadow that never leaves him”
Buddha
Hurt no one so that no one may hurt
you
The
Prophet Muhammad
Above all else I love Honor
Steven
Segal
Do unto others before they do unto
you
A
US Marine Drill instructor at
As you can see from the above, the
subject of Human Behavior had been the focus of a lot of discussion. Underlying
the Martial Arts is human behavior, so some discussion of this issue would seem
educational.
Can we distinguish between bad
behavior and good behavior in the Martial
Arts and if so what is the difference and what causes this difference?
Bad behavior is any behavior which
inflicts pain on others.
Good behavior in any behavior which
helps others find enlightenment( This is a Buddhist term which I like because
it conveys the correct concept)
Is bad behavior intentional? Mostly
I think not, it is driven by an inability to master ourselves and a lack of
education. For instance if during Kumite a bigger student strikes a smaller
students, the bigger student probably didn’t harbor any thoughts of injuring
the smaller students, the larger student was poorly educated, he or she was
simply overcome by the emotions of the moment and was not educated to
understand that the smaller student needs to learn also and that learning is
difficult when you are getting beat up.
On the other hand good behavior not
only helps a student it provides them with a memorable experience which they
will use to modulate there behavior for the rest of their lives.
I don’t believe I am against the use of titles in the Martial
Arts. It help provides structure to the students learning process. However, we
must be cautious with the use of title because they are interpreted to mean different things by
different people, The terms “Sensei” “Master” and “Grandmaster” not only have
different requirements in different Martial Arts but very often mean different
things to different people within a specific Martial Art. This is all very
confusing to practitioners of a specific Martial Art but to outsiders who view
the art as a novice.
Even, more confusing is the
migration of titles from on field to another field. I hold the title of Ph.D.
in the Martial Arts. But a Ph.D. is normally associated with an academic
environment so what should a Ph.D. in the Martial Arts know? I have struggled
with an answer to that question. Perhaps we need new titles in the Martial
Arts, I have heard some Martial Artist refer to themselves as Reverend. Since
Martial Arts deals with how we conduct our lives this title seems to convey a
more precise concept of the capabilities of it holder, however Reverend also
has a spiritual connotation which doesn’t seem entirely appropriate for a
Martial Artist. I like the African Arts
titles such as Mufundi (instructor), Askari (enforcer), or Mwanzo (Founder) but
I could be in error here, since these titles are not as well known, and over
time these titles may develop their own baggage. One thing I am very sure off is that all of
these titles are very confusing.
Another thing that I am sure of, is
that those who are leaders in the Martial Arts, such as Gary Wasniewski, and Kathy Long have reached this state of enlightenment and
work very hard to help others attain this state. I cannot imagine a more
worthwhile goal for all of us who train in the Martial Arts to pursue.
March
24, 2008
Teaching
Young Children Martial Arts
Many parents have questions
regarding the Martial Arts and their children, like “How old should my child be
before I start training them?” or “What is the best Martial Art to teach my
child?” I though writing about this subject would be instructive.
Lets start by answering the above
questions. Most 4 year olds simply don’t have the discipline to study the
Martial Arts. This is more of a comments about the development stage of the
child than the child himself or herself. I say “most” because I have had some
very successful 4 year olds come thru my school. Training them just takes time
and patience. Can a little child of 4 profit from Martial Arts training. Of
course they can, I have had several children this age come to the dojo and
learn to take and follow directions, learn to deal with adults, learn how to work
with other children, and overcome their fears. So training 4 year olds is not a
bad thing, it just take a lot more time
and more patience In general 5 year olds have more of the discipline necessary
to train in the Martial Arts.
Now, I don’t think it matters what
Martial Art you teach a child, what matters is the relationship between your
child and the Martial Arts instructor. Is he or she kind to your child, does
your child like the instructor, does the instructor spend time with your child
making sure they are learning correctly. In general is studying with this
instructor a happy experience for your child. If you don’t see these things in
a dojo you should probably shy away from this dojo.
There are some other considerations
when selecting a Dojo for you child, these are Safety, Instructor Quality, Dojo
Quality, Training Techniques, and Class Size
Let us address each of these area’s:
Safety:
Are all classes taught by a Black
Belt level instructor? Martial Artist are required to make many subjective
judgments during a class. Black Belts holders are generally trained and
qualified via their experience to make the kinds of judgments.
Instructor
Quality
Does the person who will instruct
your child a good character? Your child will come to view his/her Martial Arts
instructor as a role model. You want to make sure that the role model your
child sees is appropriate for your child.
Dojo
Quality
Is the Dojo part of a larger
organization. This is not a show stopper, some Dojo’s which are not a part of a
larger organization can be very good. However, being part of a larger
organization help define what is taught in to your child, it helps ensure that
all of the instructor are current in their Martial Arts training, and it helps
each instructor gain access to new material to teach your child.
Training
Techniques
Is the instructor cruel to you
child. The problem the instructor has is
how to make a child size student “tough”. In the name of “toughness” I have
seen children as young as 12 years old knocked unconscious, kicked so hard they
have had the wind knocked out of them, and stuck with a weapon. None of these
thing happen if a parent stays with the child..
Class
Size
Does the instructor have time during
class to spend with your child. It doesn’t matte what the class size is but
does the instructor have time during the class to come around and talk to your
child. This is the process that generates learning in your child.
The Martial Arts is a wonderful
discipline for children to study. It teaches the very young how to follow
directions, how to work in groups, and builds strong and healthy bodies. All of
these are necessary to a child to succeed in school.
Meeting
the Grim Reaper
Feb
18, 2008
I had a stroke. I though
writing about the experience would be
informative so below
Are my thoughts on the subject and
its relationship to what we learn in the Martial Arts.
The actual stroke was a terrifying
experience. The things that you depend
on to work well for just don’t seem to work any more.
I am a 65 year olds male who is very
strong physically. The strength that I have depended on all my life to
accomplish things no long worked, I was physically weak and unable to even
speak.
The stroke itself is a humbling
experience. Simple things like eating, drinking, and speaking, are beyond your
ability to perform. It is a very frustrating experience. I kept thinking that I
should not have eaten the last piece of Veal Pot-roast for dinner Luckily for
me the people involved in caring for stroke victims are a kind and gentle group
who treated me with kindness and respect during the whole experience.
What helped me from the Martial
Arts? While it not exactly Martial Arts, I was glad I had all of my Family
Planning done. All of a sudden thing like did my wife know where our money was
and how to get to it, were all of my Wills in place, and did I have a living
Will in place be came very important. Next, I think physical fitness came thru,
I don’t mean the ability to do pushups, I mean have a strong frame on which to
hang my body. My heart worked well, my Brain got busy repairing itself, and the
Dr.’s did the rest. Attitude helped, when you cannot hold a spoon you
appreciate people who can hold you’re
hand and form your hand as needed to hold a spoon. Finally I think Honor was important, I had lived a good
life and those who knew me would think well of me and that thought was
comforting. I had a long discussion in the Hospital with one of my friends who
teaches Astronomy, he told me that when we don’t have a radio or TV in out
lives we tend to be closer to nature. This statement helped me realized how
much of my life was shaped by access to radio and TV.
I learned several things during this
experience. Those who deal with strokes and their victims are very interested
in the Martial Arts Not because we can
pound somebody into pie but we know how to fall. We train ourselves to hit hard
and fall to the matt without being injured. . Stoke victims are not interested
in pounding people into pie but they have a keen interest in learning how to
fall without being injured.
Faith helped a lot, when you are
eyeball to eyeball with the Grim Reaper and you know you can’t win this battle
you tend to close your eyes and say “Lord, please take care of me”.
The
actually stroke occurred very quickly. I went to dinner on Saturday night with
my family and I was fine. That night I went to the movies with my Son and his
family and I was beginning to slur my speech. By Sunday morning when I woke up
I was unable to speak so I had my wife drive me to the Hospital. This is
probably not the best scenario for a stoke victim but I had to have something
important fail before I realized how much trouble I was in.
What did I
appreciate. Visitors were especially nice Even, if they didn’t bring anything,
just the fact that someone would take
time out of there busy schedule to come and see me meant a lot to me.
I wanted
to enjoy the simple things of life again I wanted to hold hands with my wife, I
wanted to talk with my son and tell him how proud of him I was, I wanted to drive a hot car and feel the power at my
command, I wanted to go to the movies with my son again, and I wanted to eat a
steak dinner.
There was little fear involved, only
the realization that my body wasn’t working well.
What made all of this bearable was a
lot of friends who visited my hospital room as soon as it became well known
that I was ill. I will cherish the many cards and gifts I received especially
from my many friends in
Thank goodness, I survived this
stroke. At the present time I am OK. I
am now on the long road to recovery and I am getting stronger each day. I have
learned to appreciate the kindness and consideration of others during this experience.
I hope somehow to be able to pass on to others what this experience has taught
me.
A
Walk Thru Life
December
17, 2007
Most of us come into this life as
small squirmy and noisy little packages whom are cared for by some people
called their parents until you are able to care for yourself and then we set
out on a walk thru life, probably better thought of as a Journey. Then we reach
old age and something malfunctions in our body and we leave this Earth. This is
an event which happens to all of us.
What we do in the course of this
Journey is pretty much up to us. Most of us get involved in making a living,
supporting our families, and of course practicing the Martial Arts. What we do
when we undertake this journey thru life has significant effects those around
us.
Do we fear the end of our existence
here on Earth? This is generally not a very productive emotion to let drive
your thoughts. Some people on this Earth have learned to deal with this fear by acceptance. The idea is that if we accept the
fact that the end of our time on this Earth is coming we are freed from fearing
it.
The remainder of our journey thru
life becomes a management problem. What do we want to accomplish with our time
here on Earth? In our case what do we want to accomplish in the Martial Arts
when we are here on Earth. Be careful what you wish for those people I know who
are leaders in the Martial Arts world very hard at the business of training in
the Martial Arts. Whatever our goals for our lives there seems to be some clear life management
guidelines, which I call HRC, that
would assist us all. Lets talk about these guidelines.
Honor
What does it mean to be honorable?
Many people have struggled with this question so here is my answer. Always
speak the truth, and be honest in your dealings with others.
Respect
Respect the people and things around
you in your life. Start by respecting yourself, eat right, exercise, and train
in your Martial Art. Respect the customs of others, even if you disagree with
them. The customs are clearly something that somebody sees some value in, or
they never would have been shown to you. Respect the Earth, we are all
privileged to live in a pristine world
and we should shepard the Earth for those we share it with.
Courtesy
Be kind in dealing with others even
if they are not kind with you. If someone treats you badly, and you respond by
treating them badly, you have not improved the world around you. . Show an
interest in their goals in life, you make more friends with an apple than a
lemon. Your affect on the Earth when you leave it will be in the minds of those you leave behind. Most
of us don’t want to be remembered as mean, or vindictive. Remember, that all of
those people you meet in your life will carry the memory of you when you no
longer walk this Earth.
These guidelines will make your life
easier. Notice that I did not say they would be easy to implement. To implement these guidelines you must gain
control of your emotions and assume responsibility for your own actions. Two
things which require a lot of growth in most individuals. I was involved with a
wonderful example of what could be accomplished by following these guidelines.
I recently had several of my students throw my wife and I a surprise Xmas
party. This was a group of approximately 20 adults and children who came to the
party to honor someone. What struck me was how happy everyone was. We even had
people including children call the dojo and wish my wife and I a Merrry Christmas.
The lesson I learned from this event
was that we are all happiest when we help others. It is the act or providing
assistance or honoring others that seems to provide us the most
satisfaction.
Merry
Christmas everyone!!!!!!
November
12, 2007
A
Gathering of Eagles
I had the pleasure of attending the
Eastern USA International Martial Arts Association (EUSAIMAA) conference in
Several things happened at the
Conference which I thought would be instructive to talk about.
First, was the advent of all of the
little children whom I have watched grow into teenagers and are now all my good
friends. I am amazed at how quickly the shy little children I remember coming
into the dojo have become powerful Martial Artist. I am also concerned about
the future of these little children. What do you teach these children to ensure
that they grow and prosper in the future? I suppose I am not asking any
questions that most parents haven’t asked themselves, and in fact I remember
asking the same questions about my son when he was a young man. Most of us are
not in a position to manipulate our child’s future however we as Sensei’s can
arm these young people with some weapons that they may or may not have. If you
as a parent a teachers, and associate, or just a friend, think about what has
caused you they most problems in your life you will generally find that these problems have
occurred when and individual has lost their way on the path that we teach in
the Martial Arts. The things that guide us best in our lives are honor,
integrity, and character. These are not easy things to teach, but if we teach
our students these things they will be well armed to face future
challenges.
I was privileged to attend this
conference with my good friend Sifu Kathy Long. Something happened at this
conference regarding Sifu Kathy which I thought was very instructive. Sifu
Kathy received and award at this conference, when she rose to go to the podium
to receive her award she was one three people in the room who received a
standing ovation from the audience of approximately five hundred well known
Martial Artist. My understanding of this event was that it indicated how much
respect there was for Sifu Kathy in this audience of her peers. Everyone in the
audience understood what a hard fighter she is, how hard she works, how kind
and humble she truly is, and that a leader Sifu Kathy is in the Martial Arts.
The other thing that happened at
this conference which was very interesting was my good friend Keith Turner
taught a Jiu-jitsu Seminar. Sensei Keith is a smaller gentleman, he is probably
five feet six inches tall but he is a superb technician in his art. I watched
people try to grab Sensei Keith and end up flying all over the flood. It was
truly one of the most impressive seminars I have ever seen. I had an
opportunity to discuss the seminar later with Sensei Keith and I asked him how could you make all of
those different people with different sizes, shapes, and strengths, fly around
the mat so easily. Sensei Keith answered me with one word, “Technique”. Sensei
Keith was clearly one of those Masters who had so much skill in his art that he
could make hard things looks easy. I came away from this seminar hoping that I
could master my arts as well as Sensei Keith has mastered his.
One of the other things that
happened at this conference involved the little children. We had several little
children this conference from my dojo. I was a little reluctant to nominate young children at this conference
until I had a discussion with one of the young students . This young lady came
up to me and told me what a good time she was having. I learned latter that
upon arriving an the conference this young lady was very reluctant to work out
with other students because of her insecurity about her age (9Years old ) and
rank (Go Kyu). However during the conference she learned to overcome her
shyness and by the end of the conference the young lady was telling me about
what a great time she had and how much she had learned.
My observation is the this
conference was very educational to all who attended it, and was well worth the
time and financial commitments involved. I would encourage everyone to attend
at least one of these conferences.
October
8, 2007
The
Size of our Lives
It
seems to me that many of us, both students and teachers in the Martial Arts
have a very short sighted view of our lives and our accomplishments,
lengthening this view would make us better teachers and students.
Many of us attend and compete in
Martial Arts tournaments. We work hard to prepare, we learn all we can about
the tournament, we learn all we can about competing and competition, and then
we spend days preparing our self and presenting our forms.
This is a tremendous amount of work
which involves many months if it is done properly and in such a way as to make
yourself competitive.
The truth of the matter is that
whether or not you bring home a trophy from a tournament has very little to do
with the benefit you receive when competing in a tournament. If you win a
trophy you are exuberant, if you don’t win a trophy you come home and sit down
and ask yourself “Why didn’t I win?” You agonize for days over what you did or
didn’t do during the competition. You even feel bad because you sometimes
believe that the fact that you didn’t “win” a trophy makes you feel incompetent
as a Martial Artist. But the truth is that you are not incompetent as a Martial
Artist, you are just inexperienced. As you gain experience, you learn how put
power, strength, speed, and all of the
other attributes that judges like to see into your forms. Now, if you are
fortunate enough to have a good Sensei, he or she will help you improve your forms
before you have to go thru all of this extra work. The fact that a tournament makes you do this
is the real value that you receive from competing in a tournament. I tell my
students that whether or not they win a trophy is immaterial, they have won if
the learn something at the tournament.
Lets talk about some other things
that happen in the Martial Arts. Sometimes you run across students whose
personality is so obnoxious that they are difficult to deal with, we commonly
call these people jerks. If you knock them unconscious you haven’t fixed them,
you have just made them into unconscious jerks. If you help them improve their
personality and teach them to learn, to be better Martial Artist, to be less
abrasive, and not to take advantage of others then you will have changed their
life forever. By the way, if you do this to a student or another Sensei they
will remember you forever. You will not only have made a lasting friend but you
will build a monument to your skill as a Sensei.
Most of us remember our first Sensei
because he or she helped introduce us to the Martial Arts.
Many of us learn Kumite (Fighting)
by practicing a lot and getting hit hard. It is absolutely necessary to fight
hard at some point in your Martial Arts career if you are going to learn to be
a hard fighter. However it seems like some students and instructors lose sight
of the goal of building a good fighter and begin to measure their success as a
fighter by how many other students they can defeat. The truth is that to be a
better fighter you need to practice against people who are better fighters than
you. Roughing up less capable fighters does nothing to improve your fighting
skills. Some of the best fighters in the
It seems like those people at the
top of the Martial Arts such as Soke Gary and Sifu Kathy have learned to treat their
students with great respect but that some of us in the Martial Arts have
forgotten that lesson. What needs to be done is to emphasize in all of our
classes that we need to be good partners and that our objective in class is to
help each other learn and grow.
Why do students and instructors
behave in such detrimental ways? I am not sure that I know the answer to that
question. I do know that the path to excellence in the Martial Arts includes
learning to show respect for your opponent and to help your opponents grow
their skills in the Martial Arts. Most students and instructors in the Martial
Arts are wonderfully talented people who have been made very tough both
emotionally and physically by years of training and they want to do well by
their students. Let me pose five questions that still abound in the Martial
Arts for which each of us would profit
from learning an answer:
1. What should we try to teach a
student with an abrasive personality in
our classes?
2. What do we tell the student who
says “I don’t like to hit anybody” (Usually a new student)?
3. How do we make a student “tough”
without destroying their willingness to train?
4. How do we teach a student
character?
5. How do we positively handle
children who come into the dojo and behave like children i.e. run, laugh, talk,
etc.?
It seems to me that it would help us
all to learn to measure our skill as a Martial Artist by taking a larger view
of the events in our lives
Sept
3, 2007
The
Destiny of the Samauri
Is helping a student manage their
life part of the job of a Sensei?
What is the secret to managing your
life so that you are successful, well off financially, and don’t have other
problems that you are unable to deal with? As I have said before, if I knew the
answer to this I would bottle it and sell it and become a wealthy man. However
I have accumulated some knowledge about these things in my life and I would
like to pass some of it on to those of you who read this column.
First of all, why do we as Martial
Artist care about how our students manage their lives? The answer is that it
affects their Martial Arts training. Students don’t leave the Martial Arts
because they can’t do a sidekick, or a front kick, or a spinning backfist.
Students leave the Martial Arts because their life is in disarray and this
disarray has pushed studying the Martial Arts so far down in the priority list
of activities in their life that it has fallen right off of the list. It seems
to me that all of the reasons that you hear from students about why they left the
Martial Arts ( Health, Money, Time, Work, etc.)
are designed to conceal the fact that the student won’t admit to
themselves that they are no longer committed to the Martial Arts. A student may
hold this view of their life because of a faulty character education. If this
is in fact the case then it seems like spending some time teaching the students
the benefits of adopting the character of the Martial Artist is time well spent
on behalf of educating the student. .
All of us would like to live our lives
and be happy, secure, and healthy. Happiness isn’t achieved because we behave
badly. There are no circumstances ever under which telling untruths is
justified. Always tell the truth, no matter how difficult that may seem.
Most of us would not think of ourselves as not
being truthful however we get led down this road because we make easy
decisions. To remedy this we need strong character. This is why character
education is so important to a student. Remember, you become what you defend,
teaching students not to respect a defeated opponent is not a good thing, it
sends the wrong message to the students and pushes them down a path towards
becoming something that most of us do not want to see as Martial Artist.. It is
simply unrealistic to believe that all of the holds and strikes in the Martial
Arts i.e. the technology of the Martial Arts was developed without developing
the character of the practitioner. If we treat people with courtesy and respect
always then when you must make a hard decision regarding these people, even if
they don’t like the decision they will respect you for making it and this will
help you respect yourself.
What should we do about all of
this? It seems to me that some
guidelines for teaching character in the dojo are useful, so here is my best
attempt:
Character
Guidelines
1.
Advertise
I
have a poster on the wall of my dojo with a picture of my good friend Kathy
Long on it. The poster shows Kathy in a Gi executing one of her beautiful side
kicks. Beside the picture of Kathy is one very large words “VIRTUE”. The
message to the students is clear, virtue is something admired by the Master of
this dojo and is to be admired in this dojo.
2.
Sacrifice
The
students need to see an example of what a good character is. How you interact
with your students sends and important message to your students. The students
need to see a Master who cares about their progress, about their learning, and
about their well being. If the demands of your schedule, your personal life,
your work, or other endeavors keeps you from spending time with your students,
you are sending a poor message to your students.
3.
Example
As
teachers, we should always act well in and outside of the dojo. A mean,
vindictive, or cruel Master sends a very poor message to the students. Is your
tutelage cruel or kind. Because you are the Master of the Dojo and powerful
within the dojo does not mean you should use your position to abuse your students.
4.
Tolerance
Be
kind, respectful, and courteous to your students, even if they do not behave
this way towards you. Remember, poor behavior in the dojo is an educational
issue and in fact may sometimes be a physical issue, I have a student who is an
adult male and has difficulty staying still in the dojo. Even when we line up
to begin class. This behavior has alienated many students in the dojo but has
not offended me because what I see is an experienced and kind adult male who
has ADHD. The students simply need to be given a chance to grow in the Martial
Arts and to learn the advantages of good behavior in the dojo.
5.
Courtesy
Courtesy
is a tool which a student can use to demonstrate that they have control of
their own emotions. Courtesy should be expected of all students in the Dojo. A
failure of a student to demonstrate courtesy in the dojo shows a lack of
education and discipline in the student. A failure of the student to
demonstrate courtesy in the dojo will make the dojo almost unmanageable by the
dojo Master.
If we are to achieve the goal of
being a good Warrior and Master we must
adopt and follow the guidelines above.
You can train a student to deal with a difficult environment without
being mean or cruel to them. The students needs to understand what their goal
should be in a difficult environment. The legacy of the Master who was mean or
cruel in their tutelage is to soon be forgotten, students remember the Master
whom they admired as an individual. Remember, we all write our own destinies
and the destiny of the true Samauri is not how we die but how we live our
life.
August
6, 2007
Prepare
Yourself
Have you ever wondered what is it
about a person that makes them a successful Martial Arts student?
It seems to me that character has
more to do with being successful than anything else. If I start trying to talk
about what makes a successful Martial Artist I find myself using words that
describe traits of a persons character like dedication, hard work, discipline,
etc. Our task then as Sensei’s is to figure out how to shape the character of
our students to make them successful Martial Artist.
This is not an easy task. If you
watch the students in a dojo you will find out that like most dojo’s you will
see a cross section of humanity. You will observe students who lie, cheat, and
steal, and you will see students who sacrifice their time, money, and sometimes
even their blood to come to the dojo and train. You can observe this in many of
your students. I have a brother and sister in my dojo who both come to the dojo
and train. The brother is gifted with athletic ability, he is very athletic and
learns new kata quickly while the sister is pretty much exactly the opposite.
She is not very athletic, takes a lot of time to learn things, and has difficulty
mastering new techniques. However it is the sister who impresses me most as a
student. I saw her during a Kumite class get hit in the nose so hard it
bloodied her nose. I turned around to look at her during class and was
surprised to see that there was blood all over her face. My first reaction was
holy cow, I hope she is alright. I was comforted by the fact that she was still
standing upright and her knees were not wobbling I instructed the young lady to go into our
restroom and to wash her face. When she came out of the restroom something
interesting happened. I fully expected the young lady to go into the lobby of
our dojo and sit down and not participate in the rest of Kumite class. What
happened instead was that she put on her gloves, informed me that her nose bled
easily and not to worry about her, and stepped back out onto our dojo floor to
engage in kumite again with the same young man who had bloodied her nose. I
remember thinking, wow, this young lady wants to learn Karate. My esteem for the
character of this young lady went up several notches during this class. She
continues to be a dedicated student who is now a Blue Belt and is working her
way to becoming a good third degree Brown Belt.
Now what can we do for our students
to help them gain this type of commitment on the dojo floor? Is character a
genetic quality of a student or can it be trained into a student? I believe
that just like motor skills character can be trained into a student. Note that
this is not always a painless process. Sometimes you must give student the
chance to temper their own character in the fire of their own will. There
certainly seems to me to be some character related areas that paying attention
to helps the student learn more and to improve their own character. These areas
are:
- A Positive Attitude in the Dojo
Students should learn that making mistakes in the dojo is
ok, they can make mistakes without being criticized. This will help the student
to learn to try new things in the dojo. Many students, especially children,
have motor skills problems. To expect that they can accomplish initially the
complex tasks required in Karate is simply not realistic. Our job as Sensei’s
is to guide, help, and encourage them
along this path until they are successful. A positive attitude in the dojo is
also maintained in other ways
Neither profanity or brutality
should be allowed into the dojo. If I hear profanity used in our dojo I will
talk to the student and inform them that kind of language is unwelcome in our
dojo and ask them to sit out the rest of the class. I have been in dojo’s in which the environment can only be
described as brutal. Shedding blood, and inflicting pain were encouraged in
these dojos with the consent of the Sensei. I remember thinking what were these
students learning? They were all ferocious fighters but not very good Martial
Artists.
- Recognition
As Sensei’s how many of us take time in our dojo to
recognize our students. It can be a little thing like congratulating a student
at the end of class for a good performance during class, or giving a student a
best testing award during a rank promotion test. I remember how much these
types of thing encouraged me The Kumite
instructor in my dojo does something I like a lot. At the end of each class she
tells each student how well they did during the class in front of the other
students. You can see the students virtually beaming at the end of the Kumite
classes.
The Martial Arts community is replete with Halls of Fame
Banquets where students are recognized for their Martial Arts accomplishments.
It is not the awards that the student receives at these banquets that is
important it is the effect that receiving that award has on the student.
Students come back from these banquets better motivated, better disciplined,
and more committed to achieving in the Martial Arts. How many of us as Sensei’s
have taken the time in our lives to take our students to one of these banquets?
One of the best Halls of Fame Banquets I can recommend is the Eastern USA
International Martial Arts Association Black Belt Hall of Fame Banquet held in
November of each year in
- Example
Children and Adults come into the
dojo with different views of what a Sensei is. Many children view Sensei’s as
some type of teacher who has achieved almost magical prowness in the Martial
Arts. Adults see a warrior who is honest, strong and unafraid of hardship. I
see nothing wrong with either of these views. They both have elements of truth
in them and both serve as a good starting point for the development of a
students character. What this means to us as Sensei’s is that we must ensure
that we always behave well in the dojo. In the presence of conflict and
personality clashes we must always maintain the position of an honest broker in
developing resolutions to any conflicts. We must always take the long term view
and assist the students in accomplishing what is best for their Martial Arts
career.
4 Respect
In our dojo, part of every Rank
Promotion Test involves answering History of Martial Arts questions, my
students bow when the enter the dojo, they bow when the step onto the dojo
floor, and bow when the step off of the dojo floor. They commit to memory all
of their Sensei’s (Their Karate Lineage) and the learn how to count and execute
all of their techniques when the commands are given in Japanese. We also have a
real Japanese Geisha who teaches Japanese dance at our dojo. I am convinced
that you cannot understand a Martial Art unless you understand the culture from
which it arose. These activities help the students understand and respect the
culture which gave birth to the Karate which they are studying.
What you
see here are some tools for teaching character in a dojo. A Sensei can ignore
these things at the risk of producing characterless Martial Artist (Something
no good Sensei wants to do). A Sensei should remember to never give up on a students.
No matter how bad the character of the student you as a Sensei must always
struggle to repair the damage done to a students character
If you are
contemplating studying the Martial Arts, prepare yourself to meet a man or a
woman called Sensei who will change your life forever.
July
30, 2007
The
Nutritional Martial Artist
I recently had my good friend Kathy
Long help me with some nutrition issues i.e. she helped me plan a diet. The
experience was instructive and I thought it would be educational to talk about
what I learned.
I had become concerned because I
have high blood pressure and I had decided after some discussion with my
physician that I would try to loose some weight. In fact I was beginning to
look the same coming, going, or revolving. So with this as a background I
decided to try to improve my meal planning.
One of the first things I learned
was that loosing weight is not just a matter of not eating, it is an issue of
eating healthier. Most of us have gained weight because we have eaten poorly
for a long period of time. I, like most good martial artist am pretty well
disciplined and I can stop eating anytime. The problem I had was what to do
when I started eating again. Kathy helped me understand what was good for me
and what wasn’t. She helped me understand the difference between what my body
needed and what my body wanted and she showed me some healthy substitutes for
some of my favorite foods, like cheese.
This turned out to be a lot trickier
process than I had envisioned. Did you know that egg whites have protein in
them? I always thought protein came in the form of steaks and hamburgers.
I also had another problem of what
to do in a restaurant. Because I live and work in the
I learned to eat more often. Now I
eat five times a day, I just don’t eat as much each time I sit down to eat. I
have learned to eat when I feel hungry.
I had seen friends diet before and I
remember thinking how could I possibly survive as a Martial Artist on the small
amounts of food these people are getting. Today, I have an English Muffin for
breakfast, a grilled chicken salad for lunch, and a bowl of cottage cheese for
dinner. If I get hungry during the day I eat another bowl of cottage cheese.
Even now this looks to me like amazingly little food, but I will certify that
on this diet I do not get hungry and I have plenty of energy when I go teach a
Martial Arts class. Part of this diet involves training yourself to eat
properly. I have to confess that over the years I have let my diet disciple
disintegrate and I am now having success at reinstating that discipline.
Because of this whole process I have
become more aware of how careful world class Martial Artist like Kathy Long and
Gary Wasniewski are with their diet. I have also become aware of the complexity
of structuring a good diet and how tough a problem that can really become.
Eating healthy, especially eating
the types and amount that a Martial Artist should it is a very complicated
endeavor. I would recommend that any Martial Artist who wants to eat healthier
should seek the help of a professional. My journey into the area of nutrition
has taught me that eating healthy i.e. becoming a nutritional Martial Artist is
within the reach of everyone.
June
18, 2007
Crossing
the Space
There is a space between
practicing the Martial Arts and being a
Martial Artist which is difficult for many Martial Artist to cross. Any high
performance athlete knows this space. As Sensei’s, we see students who come
into out dojo’s and never successfully
cross this space. What we don’t to realize that the students inability
to cross this space has multiple causes, one of which is ineffective teaching i.e. if you are going
to make a student into a high performance athlete you must give them a goal. In
fact, you must induce your students to want to become high performance
athletes.
There are practitioner’s of the
Martial Arts and there are teachers of the Martial Arts unfortunately these two
types of people are not always found in the same individual. Practitioner’s are
often highly skilled individuals who execute wonderful jump spinning hook
kicks, side kicks, backfists, etc. The practitioner’s focus is always on
themselves. Everything they do is designed to improve their skills as a Martial
Artist. Now there is nothing wrong with trying to improve your Martial Arts
skills, that is called “training” but if that is all you do you are still a
practitioner of the Martial Arts and not a Martial Artist. Dedicated Martial
Artist commits to the Martial Arts. I am talking about more than just time. We
all commit our time to the Martial Arts, that is called training. I am talking
about something much more substantial, like money, personal prestige, assuming
risks, spending your time searching for the path and leading others to that
path, and putting the interest of your students ahead of your own interest.
None of this is easy, that’s what makes the job of being a Sensei so difficult.
Now let’s talk for a minute about
the poor student. The student comes into the dojo knowing nothing of about this
space. If you examine most new students motivation for undertaking the study of
the Martial Arts you find that the student wants to be a “Black Belt”. This is
mixed with a little bit a desire for Self-Defense, a little bit of desire for
physical fitness, and a lot of desire to please Mom and Dad who bring many
students to the dojo. Very few White belts understand what it means to be a
“Black Belt”, they depend of the Sensei to educate them in the realities of
obtaining a Black Belt. This is often not a very easy task. This task is
complicated by many things. The Martial Arts is a disciple where students
strike each other. You must teach a student to do this and to do this in such a
way that they do not damage each other.
Students and the parents of students do not like it when they are
damaged or their children are damaged. In order to avoid this as Sensei you
institute and enforce rules for Kumite (fighting) in the dojo. But at some
point the responsibility for not injuring your Kumite partner transfers from
the Sensei to the student. Some children do not want to learn the Martial Arts.
After all, a child’s life is usually pretty good. You have Mom and Dad who take
care of you, feed you, and are your friend when you need one. The Martial Arts
is about sweating, hard work, getting hit, and a lot of other things that many
students would prefer not to happen in their lives. Changing this perception of
the student involves education, the student must be shown that change in their
life is inevitable and that he or she
can deal with this change and that achieving
in a difficult environment can be both fun and rewarding. Finally some
students are just not very athletic. They dream of themselves becoming the next
Bruce Lee when in fact they move like they move like
Training high performance Martial
Artist involves training the mind as
well as the body. I have a young student who is preparing to take her Shodan
examination soon. This young lady is truly a very talented child. She is hard
working, diligent, dedicated, and in general everything a Sensei could want in
a student. Yet a year ago you would hear very negative statements from her like
“I can’t do that” or “Every time I fight him I get beat up”. So the question of
interest is “What has happened in the last year to change things?”. In the dojo
we concentrated on teaching this young lady how to strike something, we
concentrated on teaching this young lady fighting strategy, and we made sure to
reinforce the confidence of this young lady in her ability to defend herself.
We also gave this young lady time to adjust to a new performance level. This
approach has worked admirably. This young lady is now a high performance athlete
and realizes that the challenges that come at any level of performance are just
something that one learns to deal with.
So, we return to the question of
what makes a high performance athlete. I am not sure I can answer that question
accurately, all I can tell you is that at some point the student realizes the
value of assuming control of their own destiny and at that point they begin
their journey across the space between doing the Martial Arts and becoming a
Martial Artist. .
May
28, 2007
Something
Else in the Martial Arts
When I put together the dojo we
currently train in, I assumed a hefty financial risk that I would be able to
fill the dojo with paying students. The more I meet other dojo owners and
movers and shakers in the Martial Arts community I realize that these people
have all done the same thing in one way or another i.e. those who affect the
Martial Arts community invest time and money and effort in that endeavor.
Now let’s talk about the
students. What makes a student
successful in the Martial Arts? I’m not talking about achieving the rank of
Shodan, I am talking about a student that wants to be skilled in the
Martial Arts. Is it the quest to acquire the rank of Shodan?, is it to acquire
status as a Black Belt?, Is it some macho driven desire to pound all of your
opponents into apple pie and thus prove you are the best of the best, or is it
as I think, something else. It is illustrative to pursue this line of
discussion a little bit further.
What makes a student successful in
the Martial Arts is a difficult question to answer. If I knew for certain what
the answer to this question was I would bottle it and sell it and become a
wealthy man. The reality of the Martial Arts is that it is not a large money
producing profession. Frankly I would advise anyone who is interested in making
money not to go into the Martial Arts as a profession. I have a good friend who
I hope will forgive me for using her name, but Samantha lives in
Is acquiring the rank of Shodan a
worthy goal? Of course it is, but it is the journey and not the rank that is
important. In fact, I would say that achieving the rank of Yondan(4th
Degree Black Belt) or Godan (5th Degree Black Belt) is much more
important because that is where a student begins to look and behave like a
Master. I have two students, a young man named Alex and a young girl named
Alyssa who are both shinning example of this principle. Each child came into
the dojo about five years ago to begin their training and they are now first
degree brown belts (Ih Kyu) getting ready to test for the rank of Shodan (First
Degree Black Belt). I expect both Alex and Alyssa will continue their quest to
learn more about the Martial Arts after they achieve the rank of Shodan. Alex
and Alyssa were both shy little children when they came into the dojo and now
they are confident as they throw jump spinning hook kicks, practice
combinations on the bag, and run thru their kata. What has happened to both of
these children is that they have found the path. Something in the years of
sweating and pounding on the bags, and practicing kata has moved the souls of
these little children to make them want to achieve.
Is it macho to want to defeat an
opponent in Kumite? I don’t think so. We have to be careful here because Karate
is after all a Martial Art which involves students striking other students. It
is natural for anyone involved to want to test their skills in this
environment. What we do in the dojo is to keep the students safe. We establish
rules so that students are not injured but educated during Kumite. In a good
dojo, the minds, the emotions, and the egos of the students are all educated.
We have to say a few words here
about children. Children come into the dojo not knowing anything about the
Martial Arts. Children do not understand what focus, intensity, concentration,
and even hard work are. The good Sensei works with the tools available to him
or her to help teach the child to understand what these ideas represent.
So success for a child may be different than success for an adult. If children step out of
the dojo understanding what focus, concentration, intensity, and hard work are
I would call them successful students.
Will having a Black Belt give you
status? I had a student one time tell me that he wanted to teach Karate. I
asked him why? They students will not worship you, they will not bow down to
you except once in a while, and you will have to deal with some of the
strangest personalities you will ever see. Some of the children that come into
the dojo have such serious personality problems that they are almost
handicapped. Had I known how difficult it was to teach small children Karate I
probably would have charged more. I think after hearing my advice the student
opened his own dojo only to close it about three years later. I have had students kick me, bite me, accuse
me of buying trophies, and other nefarious deeds which are two numerous to
mention here. Not much status or respect here. Frankly I was able to ignore all
of this behavior because I realized that it was driven by lack of knowledge and
shortsightedness about the Martial Arts.
How do we as Sensei’s fashion
successful Martial Artists? As I said before, this is a difficult question to
answer but I will try my best.
Students and Sensei’ need some
guidelines so here is my best shot:
·
Always behave with Honor and Respect
in the dojo. A good dojo is a place where standards of conduct are upheld.
Failure to show Honor and Respect in the dojo tells more about the student or
Sensei than anything else.
·
Safety is of prime importance in a
dojo. Make sure that adequate safety measures are in place to protect the
students.
·
Do not worry about advancement in
Rank. Make yourself the best Martial
Artist you can be an advancement will follow
·
Brutality is not strength and
Compassion is not weakness. A good dojo will accommodate all levels of skills
and interest
Finally
·
Be patient with Children. With
kindness and patience you will change the child’s life forever.
It is my sincere hope that these
guidelines will help us all find that something else in the Martial Arts that
makes it so special to all of us.
April 16, 2007
The Art of Coping
I had a student make a statement to
me that the Martial Arts isn’t about learning to fight, it’s about learning to
cope. After some thought I think I agree with this statement, although I do
believe that there are other things that the Martial Arts teaches you besides
how to cope.
If you begin studying the Martial
Arts you soon find out that it is hard work. If your response to this is to say
I am to old, or I am to crippled, or I am to feeble, or I am to young, etc.
what you are really doing is making a decision to avoid hard work of studying
the Martial Arts by avoiding committing to this study. This has huge
implications for how you deal with difficult things in your life. Some people
have this kind of commitment but it is not easy to find. One of the most
committed men I ever knew was a gentleman named Charlie Gaskin. Charlie is dead now, he died of lung disease
several years ago but right up until the week before he died he was in the dojo
working out. Something that I learned by watching Charlie was that he enjoyed
working out. Charlie was never fearful of his impending doom, although I am
sure he realized what was in his future. Charlie never mentioned his illness in
the dojo and always had a smile and a kind word for all who were in the dojo.
Charlie was a true warrior who had learned to cope admirably with a serious
illness. I know that part of this was Charlie’s character but I like to believe
that part of Charlie’s wonderful warrior spirit was something he learned from
studying the Martial Arts
All of us who teach the Martial Arts
have had on occasion the experience of having some unknowing student or
bystander make silly comments like “ I think I could take you” or “ To be a
good Martial Artist you have to draw blood”. Listen, drawing blood has no
relevance to a persons skill as a Martial Artist. The end result of a well
delivered Martial Arts blow is unconsciousness or death, neither of which we
like to see in the dojo, although I have to agree that these types of things do
occur during tournament competition in the United States.
As far as the “I think I could take
you comments” my response is good, go train harder. I had an educational
experience happen in our dojo a couple of months ago related to this type of
comment. As I was closing the dojo a group of young men were standing outside
of the dojo and came into the dojo to talk. They asked me if they could really fight hard in
the dojo. My response was sure, I will fight you as hard as you like, up to and
including breaking bones. They then asked when they could do this and I said
right now, come on in and we will do it immediately. The young men thought this
was a wonderful idea and came into the dojo and began to put on kumite
equipment. Since I was ready first, I asked the young men, before we step on
the floor, please tell me if any of you like going to the hospital. The
universal answer from all of the young men was no, going to the hospital is a
bad thing. I then suggested that in view of their answer that before we fight
hard we should talk about some rules. You could see the light in these young
men’s eyes as they considered this suggestion. These men had been educated in
the real purpose of the Martial Arts.
It seems worthwhile to discuss one
other event which happened in my dojo. I had a friend of mine bring in another
Black Belt. The other Black belt turned to me upon entering the dojo and said “
I want to go hard with you” . My response was ok, I get to kick you in the
knee, shuto you in the groin and in the throat, and stick my fingers in your
eyes. His immediate answer was no, I don’t want to do any of that. My response
was ok, what you want to do is go hard according to your rules. I then informed
him that I was not interested in such an event.
Parents and adults do not bring
their children or themselves into the dojo to be injured. They come to the dojo
to learn. They depend on us as Sensei’s, to construct an environment in the dojo which keeps them safe and allows
them to learn. If we fail to do this we have failed in one of our
responsibilities as a Sensei.
Learning the Martial Arts is about
learning mastery. It is about learning not how to master others but to master
yourself. I am convinced that this is what parents are seeking when they
provide their child with Martial Arts training. The Martial Arts is a tool for
teaching young and old alike the value of coping. It is about learning the art
of coping.
March
26, 2007
The
Value of the Path
In the Dojo, one sees all sorts of relationship
malfunctions. Since these malfunctions affect a students ability to train in
the Martial Arts they often become the problem of the Sensei. The interesting
question is how do you deal with these problems, what causes them, and what can
be done to prevent them?
It is easiest to see some of these
malfunctions in the little ones, in fact it is an extremely complex task to
wend your way thru the emotional minefield of a little child and end up
producing a highly skilled Martial Artist. One of the dangers one faces in
training a child is to expect adult skills and behavior from the child.
Children have no hidden agenda’s. As any parent can tell you, a child acts
exactly how they feel. The motors that drive children’s behavior are not the
same motors that drive adult behaviors. So some children tend to do things in class that we don’t want
to see in a student, like talking during class, refusing to exercise, not
focusing, not working very hard, etc. If you work with the children long enough
you soon see that these are not behavioral issues, they are educational issues.
Since children tend to work in
groups the child needs around him or her an environment where the other
children all do those things i.e. focus, work hard, exercise, etc. i.e. when
you train children, paying attention to the group dynamics of the children’s
classes and making sure that each child has a positive learning environment is
important
It is also important to remember the
earlier comment about the motors that drive children’s behavior not being the
same motors that drive adult behaviors. I had one small five year old boy come
into my classes and refuse to do any of the warm up exercises. After talking
with him for a while I discovered that his father was in
Adults relationships tend to go
astray in different ways. Many adults simply choose to stop learning in the
dojo. The consequences of adult relationship malfunctions can be much more
serious than with children. Many adults come into the dojo proud of the fact
that they can run their own lives. The idea that they may need help, and their
willingness to accept that help simply never has crossed their mind, even
though they exhibit what most people would characterize as serious
malfunctions, such as alcoholism, depression, loneliness, a sense of isolation,
etc. We could discuss in great detail the types of relationship malfunctions
that affect adults in the dojo but it is worth remembering our original
question which was how do you deal with these problems, what causes them, and
what can be done to prevent them?
For answers to these questions we
must turn to what our ancestors in the Martial Arts have taught us.
Chosin Chibana (The founder of
Kobayashi Shorin Ryu Karate) has stated “ A good Karateka would cross the
street to avoid a fight.
In many dojo’s the Dojo Kun will be
posted. The traditional translation for the Dojo Kun is: seek perfection of
character, be faithful, endeavor, respect others, and refrain from violent
behavior.
The Dalai Lama at the turn of the
Millennium has said
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson
3. Follow the three Rs:
a. Respect for self
b. Respect for others and
c. Responsibility for all your actions
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of
luck
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship
7. When you realize that you have made a mistake take immediate steps to
correct it
8. Spend some time alone every day
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll
be able to enjoy it a second time
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation.
Don’t bring up the past
14. Share your knowledge. Its a way to achieve immortality
15. Be gentle with the earth
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each
other exceeds your need for each other
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon
Finally, a lesson from a Japanese Master. This Master during the Meiji era
(1868-1912) received a visit from a young woman who wanted to study the Martial
Arts. He served her a cup of tea. When he served her he poured her cup full and
then kept on pouring. The young woman watched this until she could no longer
restrain herself. Its overfull she said, no more will go in. The Master looked
at the young woman and said Like your cup, you are full of your own opinions
and speculations, how can I show you the Martial Arts unless you first empty
your cup.
Remember, violence is not strength
and compassion is not weakness. The above advice is a lot of good advice from
some very smart people. What struck me were some of the overriding common
thoughts from these people, avoid a
fight, seek perfection of character, be faithful, respect for others. This is
the path. This path was articulated by people who are much wiser than most of
us, including myself, and is what we must teach in our dojo’s. With some luck
and a lot of hope the students will see the value of this path.
Feb
19, 2007
Caretakers
of the Tao
If you train a person in the Martial
Arts does it affect other aspects of their lives? The answer given by most
martial artist is of course it does. Many problems in a persons life are in
general, caused by a weakness in the character of that person. If you fix the
weakness in the character of a person using Martial Arts training then the
problem in the persons life should disappear.
The question of interest then is can
you train a person in the Martial Arts without paying attention to how they
conduct the rest of their lives? I think the answer to this question is no. If
a man or a woman came into our dojo seeking Martial Arts training and we knew
they were a criminal, most of us would refuse to train them. In fact in our
dojo they would be escorted to the door.
This approach generates a host of
questions about the responsibility of a Sensei and how a Sensei should
determine a students character. Should you be harsh with the new student in
order to make them tough? (i.e. make them sit on a stump in the rain for three
days outside of the dojo as they did in the old Kung Fu TV show). Should you
interview with a new student in order to learn more about them? What criteria
should you use to accept new students i.e. do you accept only new students who
are the most talented and the least flawed, or do you accept students with many
flaws in the hope you can correct them? How do you determine a students
character and once you make this determination what do you do if you don’t like
what you see? Who gives us the right as Sensei’s to make these types of
decisions about a student?
Lets try to address some of these
questions. First of all is the question of harshness with a new student.
Harshness is a very negative approach to training a student, you see this best
with children. Adults make these same kind of decisions but they are not always
as easy to discern as they are in children. Children come into the dojo full of
energy and life and knowing absolutely nothing about this strange person called
a Sensei whom their parents have introduced into their lives. If this new
person called a Sensei is harsh with the children, the children, because they
are very adaptable will quickly learn the rules for dealing with this person
called a Sensei. However, the children may also make another decision that
studying the Martial Arts is not enjoyable and I don’t want to do it. They
won’t walk off of the dojo floor because they want to please their parents who
brought them to the dojo but they will stop trying to learn new things that the
Sensei tries to teach them. So harshness runs the risk of destroying the most
valuable asset a Sensei has in a student, their willingness to try to learn new
things. In fact if you observe the most successful Martial Arts programs for
teaching children you will find that they are very positive. They compliment
the student a lot and reward them for achieving in the Martial Arts.
I like the idea of interviewing a
new student. I think it is valuable to be able to look a prospective student in
the eye and talk with them. This gives me some information about the student
and gives my intuition some information to work with. Besides when you
interview a student you can develop answers to questions you generally have a
hard time asking, like do you have any character, are you a nice person, are
you willing to work hard to achieve, etc. Of course a student can mislead you
but in the give and take of and interactive conversation these is not always
easy to do.
It seems to me that when you
interview a student you can find out a lot about them. It is not what they say
that is so important but how they act i.e. are they at ease during the interview,
are they dedicated to the Martial Arts, and are they truly interested in the
discussion you are having with them Is this student going to be the next Bruce
Lee or the next Larry, Mo, and Curly? Somewhere during the interview you are
going to have to make a decision to accept or not to accept the prospective
student. A cruel irony of the Martial Arts is that the more flawed the student
the more they can profit from Martial Arts training. I don’t think there is any
right or wrong answer on who to accept into a dojo. If a student can find out
about the types of students already present in the dojo it will give a student a hint of the Sensei’s
preferences in students. Our dojo tends to have a mix of children and adults.
We have a lot of families and a lot of young people. This is a personal
preference of mine, I like teaching families and young people mainly because
they have so much energy.
I was a bit naïve when I opened my
current dojo. I thought I would set up a place to train and people would all come
and train and we would all be friends and go home after class. I was totally
unprepared for all of the interactions which occur when one runs a dojo. I live
near
The name for a teacher about life is
“Sensei”. A Sensei is a bit of a philosopher, only a Sensei’s realm is physical
as well as intellectual. A Sensei teaches his or her students how to deal with
difficult problems and how to solve them. During this process the Sensei lays
down some guidelines for his or her students about how to find solutions to
difficult problems. That is what we do as Sensei’s and I believe that these
guidelines are one of the things students are seeking when they enter the dojo.
The Martial Art we teach will become what we make it and as Sensei’s we do what
we do because we have inherited a responsibility as caretakers of the Tao of
our Art.
Jan
29, 2007
A
Sense of History
It seems to me like many students in
the Martial Arts lack a sense of history. Each
decision they make helps them manufacture their own history. Students
manufacture their destiny one decision at a time. If the student is fortunate,
he or she will have the fortune to find a good Sensei who teaches them the
Martial Arts and in general provides them guidance in their growth in the
Martial Arts, in this way the student builds an excellent history in the
Martial Arts. Then, for some reason, a student decides to leave the Dojo and
the Sensei whom they found and trained with and with whom they have a long
history of success and being helped to
find their way in the Martial Arts. I
call this the “Grass is Greener” syndrome. Students are generally unaware of
the perils and pitfalls that lay ahead of them in their Martial Arts careers
when they do this. In fact, I would say that lack of good guidance for a
students growth in the Martial Arts seems to me to be one of the biggest
problems students have in building a good Martial Arts history. One cause for
this phenomena is lack of commitment on the part of the student.
Most students start building their
Martial Arts history when they are a child. If they are fortunate, their Sensei
takes them to an awards banquet and at the banquet the student learns at an
early age that they will. benefit from hard work and commitment.
The teenagers come to the Martial
Arts with all of the grace and enthusiasm of youth. In the dojo, under the
guidance of a skilled Sensei, the teenager grows confident and learns that they
can accomplish difficult tasks and that honor and character are important
ingredients of any adult.
The adult enters the dojo sometimes
almost reluctantly. They have been forced to enter the dojo by their children
or by other events in their lives. The
adult is nervous about the dojo because the dojo is forcing change in their
life. In the dojo the adult relearns the value of movement and exercise that
they knew in their youth, that they don’t have to surrender to the effects of
stress in their lives, and that they can be active participants in any event
well into their old age.
Now, the most interesting question
is how do all of these things happen and what tools do we have available to
make them happen?
As a student grows in their Martial
Arts career they learn that they inherit a responsibility to help others in the
Martial Arts community. If they fail to recognize this responsibility they will
loose their ability to grow in the Martial Arts. This is a difficult
responsibility for many students to accept and many students cease to grow in
the Martial Arts because they never accept their responsibility to help others.
Another tool to help students
improve their Martial Arts understanding is the Martial Arts Banquet. I have
had long discussions with Master Sri Denish from
What is important in the Martial
Arts is the way we affect peoples lives. We can teach children that they can
achieve, we can teach teenagers that they can deal with the challenges of life,
and we can teach adults the rewards and happiness that comes with training and
the friendships that they develop in the Martial Arts.
To depict the rewards we can achieve
in this arena I would like to quote the halting language that a little 8 year
old girl in one of my classes wrote for a school project about Thanksgiving.
It is without a doubt one of the
finest letters I have ever received and I am very proud of it:
“When giving thanks on Thanksgiving
there is only one person on the top of my list, and that is Sensei Gilbert. I
would invite him because he inspires me so much. You are probably wondering who
he is. Well, he is my Karate teacher. He makes me feel so comfortable, because
he doesn’t look at me as a kid with Cerabal Palsy, he looks at me as a kid who
can do anything. Sensei has a way of making a kid who feels different good
inside. When he sees me he always seems happy to see me. When I walk in the
door to Karate there is a smile on his face. He’s always saying “Hey Michelle
how is it going?” Sometimes I can’t even describe how great he makes me feel.
There is no other way to spend Thanksgiving with someone who is special to
you.”
This little girl gained the will and
the courage to fight the effects of cerebral palsy for the rest of her life
because she got a chance to study the Martial Arts, and by the way, she also
wrote a very articulate description of something that studying the Martial Arts
does besides teaching combat skills.
Jan
8, 2007
The
Chronicles of Sensei
My wife and I just returned from a
Black Belt Hall of Fame Banquet in
The first thing I noticed about this
banquet was that I got a chance to meet many old friends. The Martial Arts are
a big family and everyone who has ever put on a Gi is part of that family. I
couldn’t talk about old friends without mentioning an old friend I met at the
banquet, Grandmaster Gary Wasniewski. Grandmaster
The next thing I noticed at this
banquet was that I got to meet a lot of old friends that I hadn’t seen for many
years. I got to say Hi and and renew some friendships with some people whom I
hadn’t seen in 10 years. We talked about training and some of the events that
had affected our training many years ago. It was above all a refreshing
experience. This is one of the reasons that I would recommend that everyone who
is involved in the Martial Arts one way or another attend one of these banquets
i.e. everyone should take some time and money out of their lives and their busy
schedule to go enjoy themselves in their Martial Arts community. If you don’t
do this you run the risk of becoming obsolete in the Martial Arts.
The next thing I noticed at this
banquet was the wide variety of Martial Arts currently available. I saw a
demonstration from a group that was from
the
I saw a wonderful demonstration of
the African Martial Arts at this banquet. I knew about the slaves bringing over
the African Martial arts to
I also met several old friends from
I was also fortunate enough to meet,
talk with, and get my picture taken with several well known Martial Arts
celebrities. I was struck again by how kind and friendly all of these very well
know Martial Artist are, there was no doubt in my mind that any of these
celebrities could have kicked me all over the floor and tied me in knots
easily. Cynthia Rothrock was kind and friendly, had a beautiful smile, and was
kind enough to let me take her picture with my wife and myself. Don (The
Dragon)
I could write for many more pages
about what a wonderful time we had at this banquet but let me try to summarize
some of what I learned here.
No one is alone in the Martial Arts,
There is kindness, wisdom, and friendship in the Martial Arts community, all
you have to do is to go look for it.
All of the people at the banquet
were working in their profession. They were involved in selling books,
pictures, developing new ways to make money, and to improve their images. This
didn’t diminish from their stature. They were clearly Human Beings making a
living and were easily recognizable as leaders of the Martial Arts community.
I was struck again by how kind and
personable all of the leaders of the Martial Arts community are. They all are
acutely aware of their leadership role in the Martial Arts community and they
all strive to meet that challenge.
We build our lives one event at a
time. It is clear that how we act is important. I am sure that each of these
individuals had to face frustration, fear, loneliness, the unknown, and all of
the other problems that we all deal with each day. One must look to their
Martial Arts training to deal with these issues which sometimes must be dealt
with without the benefit of the wisdom of others. Each of these leaders of the
Martial Arts community were kind and benevolent individuals and it was clear
that the some total of their lives work has influenced the lives of millions
all over the Earth.
I felt myself privileged to walk
among these people and I will certainly try to communicate their teachings to
my students.
December
4, 2006
The
Time of Sensei
What is the most important thing to learn in the Martial
Arts? Is it how to fight? Or is it something else. When you are 21 years old,
learning fighting skills is a lot of fun, when you are 51 years old, other
things seem to become important and fighting skills don’t seem quite as
important as they use to. I had a student ask me one time what was the most
difficult skill to learn in the Martial Arts. I found this a difficult question
to answer and I had to stop and think about it for a while. Finally I told the
student that “Correct mental and emotional attitude at all times” was the most
difficult skill to master.
Many of us who teach the Martial
Arts devote our lives, our fortunes, and our “Sacred Honor” to the Martial
Arts. This seems like a lot of commitment to an art whose only intent was
teaching fighting skills.
I went to a Black Belt Hall of Fame
Banquet last weekend. If you watched the children when they received awards you
could see that they were excited. Recognizing the accomplishments of these
children put them on a path which they know is difficult but they were willing
to attempt. In fact the children were on a path that they were not only willing
to attempt but they were willing to modify their behavior and to undertake what
they knew were difficult tasks in order to achieve progress on their path. This
is the real secret of the Martial Arts. We have within the Martial Arts the
ability to teach our young to become good men and women and to motivate our
young to achieve more than our generation. Isn’t this the goal of all parents,
of all adults?
What about adults? I won’t mention
any names here because I would prefer not to be turned into an unconscious and
broken lump but at this same Hall of Fame Banquet I met three extraordinary Martial Artist. Two
were from
There was something else I noticed
at this Hall of Fame Banquet. Those students who received awards and the Green
Belt and Blue belt levels were just as happy as those who received awards at
the Black Belt level. Clearly, rewards and awards should start early in a
students training. They play an important part in developing the character of
the student and that development can never start to soon in a students
training. You could see the lack of calmness and serenity in the younger
students. It was clear that time is an important factor in their training. It
may not make the student happy but you could see that time to master
themselves, their emotions, and the
Martial Arts skills they were learning at their current rank was a necessary
ingredient in all of the students training. Now, how do you tell when a student
has matured enough at a certain rank. I am not sure that I know the correct
answer, it is a pretty subjective judgment and that is what makes the job of
being a Sensei so interesting.
I guess we should get back to the question we started with which is
“What is the most important skill to learn in the Martial Arts?” I don’t think
it is what we learn that matters, it is what we become. If we practice
brutality then we become brutes. If we practice antagonism and critizism then
we become arrogant, if we practice sarcasm and vindictiveness we become mean
and cruel, and if we practice kindness and humilty we will stand with and take
our place in a long line of men and women who have made the human race, human.
November
6, 2006
Rank
and Promotions
I would like to ask a question to
all, if you have the legitimate authority to award new ranks to students in the
Martial Arts, why should you? I suppose you could rephrase this question to a
more technical question like “What are the criteria for rank promotion in the
Martial Arts?”.
Should a student be promoted because
they can fight? Well, knowledge of how to fight is an integral part of the
Martial Arts, so it seems like some knowledge of how to fight is an absolute
necessity to achieve advanced ranks in the Martial Arts. This knowledge is
often hard to learn and takes a long time and lots of hard work to gain. I had
a young lady tell me that fighting was a natural instinct and there wasn’t
really much to learn. During Kumite that evening with the young lady I feinted
low and when the lady dropped her hand I stuck her (Lightly) in the head. I
don’t know if she understood what I was trying to teach her or she just thought
I was intent on giving her a headache.
There is another problem in the
Martial Arts with using fighting as a metric for achieving rank promotions. If
a 21 year old man defeats a 50 year old lady, does that mean that the 50 year
old lady can’t fight and shouldn’t be promoted.
If that same 21 year old man now defeats an 11 year old boy does that
mean that the young boy can’t fight? Most people would agree with the statement
that for a fight to be fair among other things the fighters should be close to
each other in age and experience, otherwise the younger fighter will use the
strength and speed of youth to overcome their opponent. It is true that
knowledge about the Martial Arts can provide more senior fighters the ability
to overcome the advantages of youth, this is why for a fight to be fair the
experience level of the fighters must be similar.
There are other problems with using
fighting as a metric for rank promotions. One of the 9/11 terrorist held the
rank of Shodan. Did that make him an accomplished Martial Artist? He held a
certificate for the rank of Shodan but
he certainly was not a Martial Artist. We expect much more from a Martial
Artist than just the ability to fight. We expect Honor, Character, Compassion,
Hard work, and a willingness to help others. When parents bring their children
into the dojo these are the things they are searching for, not just the ability
to fight.
Yet we have several traditions in
the Martial Arts that seem to disagree with these views. You will still find
many Martial Artist who will not promote anyone under the age of 16 to the rank
of Shodan. This tradition originates from a very old school view which
originated in a society where fighting was anticipated as a student grew. Even
today some students under the age of 16
will receive a “Youth” Black Belt i.e. a Black Belt with a white stripe in it.
It seems to me that the streets of middle America, of Chicago, or LA, or
I asked a very respected female
Martial Artist one time about awarding Children Black Belts. Her answer was if
it sets them on the correct path, why not. Isn’t setting a child on the correct
path in the Martial Arts a worthy goal? I had a student one time ask me why I
didn’t teach about Honor in our classes. That surprised me because I thought we
did. This young lady was a good student an as a result of this question I have
gone back and reevaluated the curriculum in our dojo. I would ask each of us
who had the responsibility for molding Black Belts what do we teach our Black
Belt Candidates. Do we teach them Honor, Characters, Integrity, or something
else. If the world was run by our Black Belts would it be a kinder and gentler
place to live or would it be Sparata?
What
are The Students Searching For?
There are so many thing to write
about in the Martial Arts it is difficult to choose what to write sometimes. On
my Karate Schools website, which I will admit is not much different than
hundreds of other school websites, I have the ability to see what people were
searching for when they used a search engine to end up at our website. The
following are the results for one week in September 2006:
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As one can see, a lot of interest in
the technical aspects of Karate, Martial Arts personalities, and surprisingly,
some interest in the biology of the Martial Arts.
I reiterate that this data was not
collected scientifically, it is simply a
week in the life of our dojo’s website. I show it here because I do believe it
to be representative of what the general public is looking for from those of us
who teach the Martial Arts.
August
21, 2006
Who
are we?
I was told another horror story last
week about a student being mistreated by another instructor and I thought I
would write a little about it.
The bottom line is that one of my
students who is now a very accomplished Third Degree Black Belt told me that when she was a new
student she had been sidekicked so hard by one of her previous instructors that
she had trouble breathing for over a month.
Now, one might ask why any
instructor would kick a new student so hard that she would have trouble
breathing for over a month. Was he practicing his Karate with a new student as
the target, was he trying to make his new student “tough”, or was he confusing
his training regime with his teaching regime. This type of discussion will
quickly lead us back to the discussion of why students take Martial Arts
lessons in the first place.
If a new student comes into the
dojo, do they come into the dojo to be beaten? I think most new students come
into the dojo to learn Self Defense followed by a heavy dose of Physical Fitness.
With children, especially young
children the story is a little bit different. Children do not come to the dojo
alone, they are brought there by their parents. The parents often turn to the
Martial Arts to help modify their child’s behavior. Whether or not this is a proper use of Martial Arts training can
be debated for hours but the fact of the matter is that a parents motive for
bring their child to train in the Martial Arts is often not the same or only
mildly related to the adults reason for studying the Martial Arts.
When these types of students show up
on the doorsteps of our dojos how do we treat them? Do we train them to be
world class competitors in the Martial Arts? While this may be the answer for
some it doesn’t seem to be what most of the new students I have seen want out
of their training. Do we train new students to become skilled destroyers of
others i.e. accomplished assassins ready to go out and do the bidding of their
Master’s. This is the answer for almost no one I know of in the Martial Arts.
Are we training students to become experienced fighters? To do this the
students must train long enough and hard enough to reach the middle Black Belt
ranks. Most students are simply not that dedicated to the study of the Martial
Arts and new Shodan’s are not generally experienced fighters.
To help understand who we are it is
instructional to discuss some of the common events that happen in the study of
the Martial Arts:
Hitting
a lower ranking student hard: If
you do this or allow this to be done you have lost control of yourself and of
your class. If you feel the need to hit someone hard seek out a higher ranking
Black Belt and ask them to participate.
Kumite:
Kumite is practice fighting, it is
not fighting. Kumite is not combat. If Kumite is allowed to become combat all
of the students involved will have a difficult time learning anything.
Combat:
Real combat should never be allowed
to occur in a dojo. The intent of real combat is to destroy and opponent. This
arena can be explored but safety must always be a concern when exploring the
combat arena. I had a very interesting thing happen in the dojo regarding
combat skills. Late one evening after practice, a group of teenage boys walked
into the dojo and asked me if they could really fight hard in the dojo. My
answer was “Sure, if you want to fight hard I will be happy to accommodate
you.” Then I asked them if they like staying in the Hospital. Of course they
all said no. When they said no I then suggested that before we fought we should
talk about some rules. The light was turned on in these students and all at
once they all saw the reason for Kumite rules.
Being
“Tough”: Does beating someone make them
“Tough”. If you beat a student
unconscious (which I have seen done) it doesn’t seem to me like they learn
much. There is a common saying “Train like you are going to fight”, which is
commonly interpreted to mean hit hard, but if a student is getting hit hard, he
or she isn’t learning much, they are more interested in trying to survive. The
discipline, speed, and power a student needs to execute a technique or the
ability to add power to a technique can be taught quite effectively using a
hanging bag or hand held kicking and punching pads. A student does need to
learn how to block hard punches and hard kicks. But here again technique is
also very important, judging direction and speed of the power, distancing,
fading, redirecting, and setting up follow-on techniques are all critically
important in being able to block well. Pounding on a student seems to me to
ignore the real needs of the student
Shedding
Blood: This is a terrible idea. Students do
not walk into a Martial Arts school to have their blood shed. If they want to
see blood shed they can go to the movies. Yet this does happen in Martial Arts
schools. In my dojo we had a class studying the combat environment. For safety
reasons the attendees were all fairly senior students. I walked into my office
for less than two minutes because the instructor was doing a very good job with
the students and when I came out everyone had blood all over them. Everyone was
happy as a clam and proud of the fact that the seminar had reached the point of
bloodshed.
I was alarmed that someone was
injured so I stopped the class and inquired about each students health and well
being. I found out that one student had been hit in the nose and had a bloody
nose and that all of the blood I saw came from the same student who was not
seriously injured. I then explained to the students that shedding their own
blood is generally a bad idea and that if you shed someone else’s blood you
should remember that the person whose blood you shed is a father, mother,
brother, sister, etc.
All of the above types of events are
very emotion provoking and some of them are not very useful in educating a
student in the Martial Arts. In the dojo we also have the expectations of
students, the expectations of parents, the expectations of all of the
instructors in the dojo, and the requirements of the Martial Arts. It seems to
me like Dojo Masters must continually work to ensure that all of these powerful
forces are in harmony
To keep these forces in harmony,
clarity and communications are powerful tools. As dojo masters we must
continually strive to let our students, our parents, and our instructors know
who and what we are.
July
31, 2006
Martial
Arts Miscellany
A bout with severe Arthritis in my
hip succeeded in doing what no opponent has done in many years. It put me flat
on my back for a couple of weeks.
In the dojo, there exist a lot of
misconceptions about some issues in life in general and in the dojo in
particular. Let me try to address some of the issues:
Martial
Arts Training
Why do people undertake Martial Arts
Training? Martial Arts training is not meant to be easy. Martial Arts is after
all a fighting disciple. This however, doesn’t mean that the new student should
be beaten unconscious when they enter the dojo. I am aghast at some of the
horror stories I have heard from students who entered our dojo from other
dojo’s, beginning students who have been hit so hard they have broken ribs,
teenage boys and girls who have been hit on the shins with a nunchuku ( a hard
wooden weapon) because they make a mistake in performing their kata, and
students who have had teeth knocked out and bloodied because of the violence of
the Kumite at their former dojo’s. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t teach
students how to fight and survive in a violent situation, but that we as
Sensei’s should craft a path thru this training that will help the student successfully
complete this training. Kumite is after all just that, it is not combat.
Students engaged in kumite are training partners, not enemy combatants. This
doesn’t mean that we can’t explore the combatants environment with our more
senior students. However safety must always be a concern when developing this
type of training. We have a little bit of a dichotomy here in the Martial Arts.
When we talk about the Martial Arts we emphasize character development, self
confidence, initiative, and honor. However many training programs completely
lack any effort in these areas and are structured on the premise of hit hard,
move fast, draw blood, destroy your opponent, etc.
What is needed is a clear definition
of the path to gaining combat abilities and some respect and recognition that
there are students at all levels on the path to gain these abilities and a
recognition that discipline and control are a prerequisite to gaining these
abilities. While we would not teach a five year old how to hit hard enough to
break bones, we might teach a twelve or thirteen year old who is an advanced
rank and has demonstrated discipline and control this skill. So in our dojo’s we have students
at all skill levels. This doesn’t mean that they are bad students, just that
they are at different skill levels.
Problems
Students get into problems in the
dojo and in their lives because they choose a bad path i.e. they take actions
which are not honorable. Following an honorable path and making an honorable
decision is not always easy, especially when you are alone, but it is a path
that is guaranteed to make your life and your training a rewarding endeavor and
thus bring you happiness. As Sensei’s we tend to see lots of students who have
made poor choices in their lives and in the dojo. Remember, our job is not to
chastise but to help our students. Some students are misled onto a bad path for
themselves. I will never forget riding to
Be patient with students, if they
have made bad decisions it doesn’t mean they have a bad character, in fact most
of the times it means something is missing in their education. Teach you
students always to walk an honorable path and you will never be disappointed in
the behavior.
Money
Most students are under a
misconception about wealth. Wealth doesn’t fall out of the sky and hit you on
the head one day, wealth is built one day at a time. If I gave you $100,000 (a
lot of money) you would immediately start thinking about how to preserve it.
You would eventually reach the realization that it is not the money that is
valuable it is what the money can help you acquire in our economy. This would
lead you to thinking about how to invest this money in our economy. Students
and Sensei’s should both be investing a portion of their money for the long
term. Most people who control any kind of wealth have reached this conclusion.
Now this means that if you want
money from someone or some organization it is often not readily available. You
don’t just wheel up you little red wagon and say “fill-er up”
Wealth must be built over time, this
is why organizations such as banks, clubs, credit unions, friends, etc. which
control wealth take so long to deal with.
Being
successful
I am continually amazed at how often
I hear questions like “ Sensei, how can I get a big house, have a good job,
drive a nice car, etc”. Most of the time the people asking the questions are
really asking “How can I be successful”. You become successful by building
friends, not enemies. Success is built one friend at a time. For anyone to be
successful the people in a position to make them successful must respect them.
If you owned a company, you would not promote someone to a high ranking
position in your company whom you didn’t respect. This means that we should all
live our lives honorably. Those qualities like trust, honor, integrity, all
become important factors in influencing success in your life. It is not
training, education, and experience that count, it is that thing called trust,
honor, and integrity which drives you to acquire training, education, and experience
that counts i.e. your underlying character must be honorable if you are to be
successful.
Behavior
Learn to look at other students
behavior thru their eyes. I have a student who is rather loud in the dojo.
However if you go to a tournament where this student competes everyone is loud
and this student if not out of place, he simply has adopted the behavior
patterns of those around him. The real challenge is to educate this student to
adopt other behavior standards. The dojo Master has the absolute right and
responsibility to establish the behavior standards for the dojo, however if you
don’t agree with these standards try to understand why these standards are set
like they are. Perhaps the dojo Master sees something that you as individual
students do not see. A dojo is a reflection of its Sensei. In any case, always
show respect for a Sensei, being a Sensei is a very difficult job, and your
Sensei has done and sacrificed a lot to help you get when you are on your path
through the Martial Arts.
Don’t complain about how hard these
things are to teach. It is part of our job as a Sensei to help our students
understand what they can become. That is what makes the job of Sensei so
difficult and so rewarding.
The How and the Why of the Martial Arts
If you have the fortune to know some
of the leaders of the Martial Arts community you will find that they are
eminently nice people. Almost surprisingly so given how hard these people have
trained and how tough they have had to become to rise to the top of this
community. In fact when you meet one of these leaders you will find that their
primary concern is with your character. Why is this? In fact most of the
leaders of the Martial Arts community are astonishingly pleasant people to
meet. .
In the Martial Arts we teach people
to kick and punch and grapple. But we also teach something else. On the road to
becoming a good kicker, or puncher, or grappler, you learn to work hard,
discipline yourself, to respect your Sensei and your fellow students and to
never give up. You learn Honor, Integrity, and Trust in yourself and in your
fellow students. If you don’t learn these things you have missed something in
your Martial Arts education.
When parents bring their children
into the dojo they almost never say “My child is strong, well motivated,
intelligent, well disciplined, and I want him/her to learn a Martial Art” What
you tend to hear is “My child is -------- and I want my child to learn the
----- and the -------- of the Martial
Arts. The first blank is some problem
with the child and the second two blanks are some attributes that the parent
wants inserted into their child’s behavior. When you work with the child for
some time you tend to find that the parents don’t know their child. Most of the
children are just that, they are little children, they just need attention and
direction and they will grow into fine young people.
Adults as a rule are a much harder
group to teach these underlying principles of the Martial Arts than are
children. By the time an adult arrives at your dojo their character,
discipline, and principals have all been solidified and the adults have been
working with these principals for some time. Adults sometimes have great
difficulty changing these underlying principals that guide their lives. You can
see why, these principals have guided the adult for most of their lives and
have worked ok so why should they change. They answer is that the Martial Arts
are a new part of their lives and in the Martial Arts because we exist in such
a physically challenging environment, we have a requirement for high
principals. Another part of the answer is that what is ahead of an adult is not
what they just passed thru so if they are to prosper in their future they must
learn new skills and the ability to adapt to change. Most people I think would
agree that their life from 0-30 was much different than their life from 30-60.
When we loose our parents, and we go thru a divorce, and we become seriously ill, we need a much
different character than most of us had early in life. Shouldn’t we attempt in
our dojos to teach our adult students the character and principals they will
need in their future?
So, lets get back to the question of
why the leaders of the Martial Arts community tend to be such eminently pleasant
people. I think it is because they understand the how and the why of the
Martial Arts. Let me try to explain it like this. If you lead the Martial Arts
community and you send the message that what a student should become is a
strong fighter and nothing else then I think you run the risk of producing a
generation of barroom brawlers. Barroom brawlers are strong fighters but they
are just that, barroom brawlers. Don’t we want the next generation of Martial
Artist to have more status and respect than a barroom brawler. I think most
Martial Artist would agree with this statement.
In our dojo’s, we have mom’s, we
have children, teenagers, young people, handicapped, elderly, and sometimes we
have the just plain curious. Don’t we want to provide these people with more
options than just becoming a barroom brawler?
From the business point of view the mom doesn’t come into the dojo and
she doesn’t bring her children into the dojo to teach them to be barroom
brawlers, teenagers and young people are looking for some fun and friendship
and need some knowledge about what might lie ahead in their lives and how they
can deal with it. The elderly, the handicapped, and the just plain curious need
our professional guidance to help them learn what they can do for themselves
physically. In the business of the
Martial Arts, most of those who teach have been around long enough to be able
to shed some light on these types of questions. And we are acutely aware that
most of the business we get is our dojo’s is from people seeking answers to
these types of questions.
The characteristic of people who can
help others to find answers to these types of questions is called “Class”.
Don’t we want out students to all have Class? The Martial Arts certainly seems
to have a lot more to offer than teaching
someone to become a barroom brawler. The public perception of the
Martial Artist is that all Martial Artist have class. Unfortunately this is not
always true. As Martial Artist we must remember that we become what we protect.
If we protect the right to brawl, we become brawlers, if we protect arrogance,
then we become arrogant, if we protect the right to hurt others, then we become
cruel, and if we protect the right to help others learn and grow and improve
their lives we will have class. The leaders of the Martial Arts community
understand that the “how” of the Martial Arts is something that most of us can
teach, they also understand that the “Why” of the Martial Arts is just as
important as the “How”. This is what the
leaders of the Martial Arts community know and what makes them so pleasant to
be around.
May
2, 2006
Commitment
I had the pleasure this week of
training with my good friend from
When you meet Soke Gary if all you
see is a highly skilled Martial Artist you need to look farther. I learned this
week that a man could be more than just
a man, he could be an embodiment of an ideal. He could be a leader. Soke
As we traveled on the train I asked
myself “What makes Soke Gary such a pleasure to be around and such a nice man?”
The answer which struck me like a bolt from the blue was his character and his
commitment to good. How many of us have met a man who was committed to doing
good? Unfortunately I don’t think there are many of us who have had that
privilege. Partially I think because there are not many men around like Soke
Gary Wasniewski. For those of you who want to know more about Soke Gary this is
his website http://www.ty-ga.co.uk/
Soke
Commitment isn’t just a word, it’s a
feeling, a way of acting, and a way of behaving that changes your life. You can
commit to a Dojo, to a Style, to a Sensei, or to any other worthy goal in the
Martial Arts. You have to be careful when you commit to something, to many
commitments in your life can make your life very complicated. Commitment is
never easy, there will always be forces which seek to destroy your commitment.
The real battle in life is against these forces. However the reward for
commitment is happiness and a fulfilling life, this certainly seems to me to make
this battle worth fighting.
The good news in all of this is that
there are leaders in the world like Soke Gary who will help us define and
establish what we should be committed to and if we have trouble maintaining our
commitment, a few minutes with Soke Gary
will help reinforce our willingness to keep our commitments and make us
stronger Martial Artist.
The
Mysterious Definition of Honor
I went for a ride with my son
yesterday. During the ride another car passed us and my son said “I must pass
him, he challenged my honor”. I thought, what a strange definition of honor my
son has. After giving some thought to this subject, I came to the conclusion
that some discussion of the concept of honor might help us all understand the
concept a little better.
The dictionary provides the
following definitions of the word honor:
High respect, as that
shown for special merit; esteem: the honor shown to a Nobel laureate.
Good name; reputation.
A source or cause of
credit: was an honor to the profession.
Glory or recognition;
distinction.
A mark, token, or
gesture of respect or distinction: the place of honor at the table.
A military decoration.
A title conferred for
achievement.
High rank.
The dignity accorded to
position: awed by the honor of his office.
Great privilege: I
have the honor to present the governor.
Honor Used with His, Her, or Your as a
title and form of address for certain officials, such as judges and mayors: Her
Honor the Mayor.
Principled uprightness
of character; personal integrity.
A code of integrity,
dignity, and pride, chiefly among men, that was maintained in some societies,
as in feudal
A woman's chastity or
reputation for chastity.
honors Social courtesies offered to guests: did the
honors at tea.
honors
Special recognition for
unusual academic achievement: graduated with honors.
A program of individual
advanced study for exceptional students: planned to take honors in history.
Sports. The right of being first at the tee in golf.
Games.
Any of the four or five
highest cards, especially the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of the trump
suit, in card games such as bridge or whist.
The points allotted to
these cards. Often used in the plural.
tr.v. hon·ored, hon·or·ing, hon·ors
To hold in respect;
esteem.
To show respect for.
To bow to (another
dancer) in square dancing: Honor your partner.
To confer distinction
on: He has honored us with his presence.
To accept or pay as
valid: honor a check; a store that honors all credit cards.
As you can see, this
isn’t a very helpful approach. Lets look at what some philosophers have said
about honor:
Plato
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of
honor, and lovers of gain.
Aristotle
“Nicomachean Ethics” is
an account of Aristotle’s views on happiness and virtue. Aristotle gives his
readers a detailed description of happiness, describing how and who can attain
it. He says that certain virtues must be accomplished in order to achieve
happiness. He therefore makes a connection between happiness and virtue, where
the individual’s virtues compliment his state of happiness.
All actions occur with
the means of reaching an end. One may complete an action to receive a reward,
or the action may be valuable in itself. In the latter case, the action is done
purely for the sake of the action. An example of this type of action is
singing. One may sing as a career to receive money and fame, but also simply
because he/she enjoys singing. Whether the action is done for extrinsic or
intrinsic value, the action seeks some good. This end product, the good end, is
better than the actions that have taken place in order to receive the end. This
is a perplexing concept, because there are many different actions that lead to
many ends, all of which are good. As a result, there must be some good and end
that is better than all the others. Aristotle determines this end to be none
other than happiness.
Some common words found
in the essay "Honor versus Magnanimity in “Nicomachean Ethics”" are:
happiness, virtue, aristotle, virtues, intermediate, actions, therefore,
action, magnanimity, respect, individual, complete, people, receive, feelings,
believe, example, addition, activity, reason, pleasure
Socrates
Serenity,
regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity,
Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity,
nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these
eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
In
honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or
thought.
This
seems to be a little better but still doesn’t seem to offer much concrete
guidance on how to become honorable. Lets examine some more current views:
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
And it is
most honorable to your countrymen, that nowhere, did I receive the slightest
indignity, but was treated everywhere with the most marked respect---even in
the steamboats, where, as you know, there is not much ceremony or respect for
persons.
George Bernard Shaw
A life
spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life
spent doing nothing.
H. L. Mencken
Honor is
simply the morality of superior men.
Walter Lippmann
A man has
honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient,
unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
This last group of more
current views about honor seems to be easier for me to understand but it is
clear that “Honor” is a very difficult thing to define, especially honor as it
relates to the Martial Arts.
Lets talk about some of
the characteristics of “Honor”.
- It seems to be a set of actions which have an existence
of their own and are associated with an individual.
- Honor seems to be an internal attribute i.e. we can
make ourselves honorable or what we believe to be honorable, integrity
seems to be an external attribute i.e. others have to confer on us the
gift of integrity.
- Honor seems to
be associated with morality
- Honor is
associated with our actions towards ourselves and towards others
- Honor is
associated with respect
- Honor like beauty seems to be in the eye of the
beholder.
While we might not agree
with all of the above definitions and we will always be able to find
counterexamples, they seem to provide a framework for a picture of Honor. At
the risk of offending everyone let me try to define Honor in the Martial Arts:
Honor in the Martial
Arts is related to how your actions
affect yourself and how your actions
affect others. Perhaps the best definition is one I saw on a poster
which I have in my dojo. It says “Virtue is a habit of the mind”. We can
rephrase that to say “Honor is a habit of the mind” and have something which I
think is a good definition of Honor.
Evolution
in the Martial Arts
At the risk of getting hundreds of
angry emails I am going to weigh in with an opinion on a controversial subject
which is currently being discussed in the Martial Arts community. I will start
by asking a question, do people join gun clubs to learn how to shoot people? If
you say of course not, I would agree with you. People join gun clubs because
they are a safe environment where people can learn about fire arms. Now, let me
ask you another question, do people join a dojo because they want to learn how
to fight? If you state that the purpose of the Martial Arts is to teach combat
skills your answer to this question is clearly “Yes”. The answer to this
question can be surprisingly controversial. The source of this controversy
rages around the answer to the question “What is the purpose of studying the
Martial Arts?”. On its surface, this seems like a ridiculous question, the
purpose of studying the Martial Arts is to learn how to fight right! Actually, it seems to me that people walk
into a dojo to learn how to avoid fighting. For those of you that hold the
first view I would like to point out a few things. I will quote some
statistics, and I will admit up front that these statistics have not been
collected in any scientific manner, they are just empirical data collected as a
result of having run a Martial Arts school for a long time.
99% of the people who walk thru the
door of a Martial Arts dojo have no desire to learn how to fight, in fact many
people stay away from Martial Arts training because they think it involves just
learning how to fight. What do you plan to teach these people? What do you
teach the Mom who walks thru your dojo door with her two little children,
little Johnny and little Sally who probably have serious motor skills
deficiencies and a very short attention
span in addition to having no image of themselves as achievers. Aren’t these
worthwhile problems to fix using little Sally and Johnny’s Martial Arts
training? Do you plan a training program for little Johnny or little Sally that
will make them able to fight on the street or do you plan a training program
which will help little Johnny and Sally’s current problems? Shouldn’t your
curriculum reflect the wants and needs
of 99% of your dojo’s students. In fact what happens if you don’t reflect the
wants of your student body is that the composition of your student body changes
and you will find yourself with a student body that wants exactly what you
teach.
If a student walked into a dojo and
said “I like to beat people up” he or she would probably have a hard time
finding training it that dojo because most of us who study the Martial Arts
believe that there are some other characteristics that a Martial Artist should
possess that are valuable in addition to the ability to fight.
Most students in a dojo don’t want
to be injured and they don’t want their children injured. This is why safety is
so important in every dojo. If your training program in the dojo is so
difficult that students get injured what they will learn from that is not to
come back to your dojo.
Most really good fighters that I
know do not perfect their fighting skill in the street, they perfect their
fight skills in the dojo. The question in the dojo is who are you fighting?
Luckily, this question can be answered by most experienced Sensei’s in the
dojo.
The number one reason people walk
into a dojo is not to learn how to fight “in the street”. 99% of the people in
a dojo will never have to fight “in the street”. This doesn’t mean that they won’t
be involved in conflict, but that they will choose other methods than
physical combat to resolve their conflict. Isn’t this good self defense?
Frankly, if I was attacked in the street I would defend myself and then go find
a policeman. I don’t want to be sued and I don’t want to put parts of my body
up for damaging if I don’t have to. I have fought in a street scenario and it
wasn’t fun. Today, I would fight only if I had no other alternatives. This
means that 99% of the student body in a dojo will be looking for other
alternatives to physical combat in a street encounter. This fact alone should
be enough to make us think about what we are teaching our students in the dojo.
Something that we teach Self Defense students but we don’t teach enough of in
our Martial Arts classes is that self defense begins long before the first blow
is thrown. Shouldn’t our curriculum be designed to incorporate these basic Self
Defense steps? Shouldn’t the Martial Arts be taught as a life preservation art?
I must question how viable is any Martial Art that puts a student when
challenged in the position of having no alternatives except to go out and engage in combat with a thug in
the streets.
In ancient
Now, to answer the question I asked
above, the Martial Arts should teach combat skills, but it should teach other
things also, a Black Belt in the Martial Arts should signify a combat capable
individual. The Martial Arts are a character development tool and a process
which happens to teach its students physical combat skills. Martial Arts
training should include a spectrum of skills all of which can be used to
preserve life and limb. The Martial Arts are a life preservation art and they
should be taught as such. Little Johnny
who is five years old and can’t do one pushup deserves as much a place in the
Martial Arts as Tony the soldier who likes to come into the dojo and rumble for
a workout. I guess what I am arguing for is a broader view of the Martial Arts.
I don’t think this view makes us any less capable fighters, it just makes us
more capable teachers.
March
13, 2006
Family
Martial Arts
We are fortunate in our dojo to have
many families which train in the Martial Arts together. As an instructor it is
quite rewarding to see a Mom, a Dad, and all of the kids lined up in class when
we bow the class in. In fact, I guess our dojo is getting a reputation as a
place where families can come and train together. I am pleased with this
reputation and I will continue to work to make sure we have a family friendly
dojo. I thought some discussion of the problem of training families might be
educational for all.
Dad
Dad is probably a young to middle
aged man. If the truth be known, Dad doesn’t want to engage in a fight to the
death or to serious injury. Most people that I know who have been in that
environment don’t want to go back. Dad feels his first responsibility is to his
family and then to himself. This doesn’t mean that Dad doesn’t want to be a
good Martial Artist. Dad is sensitive to expertise and wants to feel that he
has obtained the best Martial Arts training available for himself and his
family.
What does this say about training
Dad? Dad is probably a little out of shape, since he sits at a desk most of the
day and has not had a chance to do any strenuous physical exercise is some time
due to the demands on his time. This means physical fitness for Dad is important.
As Dad grows older he will want to stay strong and healthy. To do this he needs
to become strong and physically fit in his middle age and learn to appreciate
exercise again. Dad was probably like this when he was young but the demands of
work and raising a family have combined to rob him of these abilities. Dad is
not a coward, but he doesn’t want to shed his blood or be injured. Dad is the
bread winner for the family and he is aware that he can’t perform this task
from a hospital bed. Dad remembers when he was young and powerful and he sees
Martial Arts as a tool for maintaining that power as he grows older. So, to
train Dad we have to make him physically fit, we have to teach him good solid
Martial Arts techniques, and we need to teach him how to maintain his strength
as he grows older. Occasionally we have to test Dad’s abilities and let him
spend a few rounds with a tough fighter so he can grow in the Martial Arts and
be proud of what he has become. We can never let Dad get hurt in the dojo, his
role as a bread winner is of primary importance to him and to his family.
Mom
Mom, like dad is most likely a young
to middle aged woman whose first allegiance is to her husband and her children.
Mom doesn’t have the muscle mass that her husband has but like her husband she
would like to be physically fit. Mom is sensitive to how she looks because she
remembers when she was young and much lighter so Mom not only views the Martial
Arts as a vehicle for improving her physical fitness but as a tool for helping
her control her weight. Mom is very committed to her children so she sees the
Martial Arts as a tool for assisting her in inserting into her children all of
those things we talk about in the Martial Arts, disciple, respect, control,
honor, etc. This also makes Mom very interested in working out with her
children in the same class. Mom would like to be better able to defend herself
so she feels more freedom in her life, but she doesn’t know how to improve her
self defense skills. Mom is not a coward either, but she also has no desire to
be injured because she realizes that she can’t be a very good wife or mother
from a hospital bed, and because she was raised as a girl she hasn’t had to
chance to test her physical skills like her husband. So Mom is uncertain of her
ability to exercise, to strike others, to be struck by others, or to deal with
the intensity of combat situations. What does this say about training Mom?
First, Mom needs to grow to the same Martial Arts skill level that Dad will
grow to. The truth is that she will get there via a different path. Women bring
to the Martial Arts a natural skill and speed and crispness that most men don’t
have. However, Mom doesn’t have the strength that her husband does. Mom needs
to be given plenty of opportunity to train with her children in the dojo and to
assist her husband and children with their training i.e. to bond with her
family. Mom needs to be given plenty of opportunity to investigate her own
abilities to exercise, to strike, and to block. Finally, we need to be sure
that we don’t shortchange Mom, we need to architect a training program for Mom
that ensures that she arrives at the rank of Shodan (First degree Black Belt)
with the same Martial Arts skills that her husband will have. When we are
training Mom, we must always remember that Mom may find herself engaged in
combat some day and we must make sure that her training provides her with the
tools to work in that environment.
The
Kids
Lets try to clarify what a kid is.
For the purposes of this discussion, the kids are assumed to be under the age
of ten. Somewhere around the age of ten children start becoming those scary
things called teenagers, this is a subject for another discussion.
Children arrive at the dojo with all
of the problems that children normally have. They have miniscule fine and gross motor skills, they are not
very physically fit, and they have an incredibly short attention span. Some
other problems children have which are not quite so obvious is that they have
no image of themselves as achievers, and they are not sure at all of their own
abilities to accomplish physical tasks. Ask a young child
“What color is a white Gi?” and their first answer we most likely be “I
don’t know”. This is not because the child is inattentive or unintelligent, it
is because the child does not think of himself/herself as being an achiever. One of the great things
that the study of the Martial Arts can do for a child is to cause them to think
of themselves as achievers. Training children in this age group requires lots
of find and gross motor skills drills, in our dojo we have children practice
bounding balls while they are running back and forth in the dojo. We have the
children practice a lot of basic blocks and punches and we are very patient
with the children when they have motor skills problems. Fortunately, with
training, these motor skills drills will make the child’s motor skills problems
go away. No matter how much the parents may want to, you cannot force feed
children Martial Arts. They most important
asset you have when you teach children is their willingness to try. If you
force feed Martial Arts to them they will make the decision that this is to
hard and they will quite trying to learn. They won’t walk out of the dojo
because Mom and Dad are still there but they will not learn any new skills no
matter how patient you are with them because they have internally made the
decision that they don’t want to learn
the Martial Arts. So when you work physical fitness drills for the children
they have to be fun. They children have to have a good time and during the
process they have to work hard.
They children have to be given
difficult tasks to accomplish and then guided thru the steps necessary to
ensure that they are successful at these tasks. In this way the children will
learn how to accomplish very hard tasks. When they accomplish these tasks they
will look back and remember how hard these tasks looked when they first entered
the dojo and they will gain a sense of themselves as achievers.
Now, I realize that I have discussed
the things above in pretty general terms. There will always be combat Moms,
combat Dads, and combat children who love the excitement of combat. This is why
we must always evaluate who we are training. A good training program will push
everyone to their limits and then help them grow without breaking them. We have
ignored the subject of training teenagers,the elderly, the handicapped, and the
young non-father or mother all of which are vital parts of any dojo.
When we train families we must train
each of the family members as individuals because they each have individual
needs. Finally we must always remember to teach courtesy and respect in our
dojo’s because these are vital parts of any family’s life and their training
needs.
March
6, 2006
Some
Observations on the Behavior of Martial Arts Students
In our dojo we have had students who
have run the gamete of behavior during their training. I thought some
discussion of this behavior might be of interest to all:
- Beware of closing your mind. The decision that you do
not like someone and therefore will not learn from them is one of the
easiest to make and most destructive of your ability to learn new things.
- Managing Black Belts is probably the most difficult
task in any dojo. Black Belts are trained for conflict, strong willed, and
by in large not afraid of a fight. This makes them a very difficult group
to manage.
- Humility is a virtue. It seems to be very hard for
students who have trained a lot to remember this fact. Humility can be a
wonderful Self Defense tool. Most opponents don’t feel like fighting when
you call them “Sir”.
- Arrogance is Greed cloaked in Morality
- Children can be wonderful Martial Artist, you must
always struggle to understand them. When you look at a child you must
remember that they don’t know how to work hard, to be disciplined, and to
be kind to others. They are in your class because someone wants you to
teach them how to do these things.
- Most students
will never engage in a fight to the death, thank goodness. In fact most
students will probably never engage in a fight to unconsciousness or where
serious injury will occur. It seems like the number 1 reason students show
up in a Martial Arts class is Self Defense followed closely by Physical
Fitness.
- The desire to achieve drives many Martial Arts
students. It seems like students are sometimes driven to achieve the rank
of Shodan i.e. first degree Black Belt. But then the question is why
should they continue to train. In order to answer this question as instructors
we need to stay focused on Mastery, not achieving the rank of Black Belt,
but achieving the rank of fifth, or sixth, or seventh degree Black Belt.
- Children are the hardest students to teach but they
offer the most reward when they learn. Studying the Martial Arts can
change a child’s life forever
- Techniques are the least important thing we teach in
the Martial Arts. We are molders of character, we teach the students how
to temper their bodies and spirits using the force of their will.
- Combat is a tough environment. Those intangible things
that we try to teach in the Martial Arts like character, integrity,
honesty, kindness, discipline, all help a student function in the combat
environment.
- Good students leave the dojo. This is a sad but true
fact of life in the dojo. We always talk a lot about how to get new
students into the dojo, but I don’t think we pay enough attention to
keeping those students that we have made good. The only reward we get when
good students leave the dojo is knowing that we have provided them with
something that will change their lives and will be with them forever.
There seems to be a multitude of reasons why students leave the dojo but
none that I know off stand out as being primary. Students must remember
that leaving a dojo has a two long term consequences, you will always
carry a part of you that was made in the dojo you are leaving, and you
will have to do something new and learn new ways in the dojo you are going
to. Whether this is good or bad depends on the students objective in their
training. However as Sensei’s we must always allow the student to proceed
to something that they want to try. Our job must always be to provide them
support if they need it as students.
- Teenagers like competition. They like winning shiny medals,
and being able to stand in the winners circle. This sometimes makes
teaching all of those other things we would like to see in our students,
like discipline, hard work, humility, etc. difficult.
- All of the bad things in life, drug addiction,
alcoholism, mental illness, all find their way into the dojo through
various students and their behavior. While we cannot tolerate this
behavior in our students we must remember that the students are often studying
the Martial Arts in hopes of learning how to control this behavior. Isn’t
this a form of Self Defense?
- Fear is uncertainty. Some students don’t like being
hit, some students don’t like hitting other students, and some students
don’t like to perform in front of other students. This is not because the
students are cowards, it is because they are uncertain of their own
abilities. Can they control the power in a punch, can they take a punch,
can they perform under pressure are all questions that the students are
trying to learn the answers to.
- Some students treat their Sensei badly and other
students badly because they have no understanding of what the dojo has
done for them. Knowledge of this fact makes most Sensei’s more lenient in
dealing with these types of students. Sadly sometimes it is necessary to
ask a student to leave the dojo because some lessons cannot be taught,
they have to be lived.
- All of those things we like to see in our students,
like Honor, Kindness, Compassion, are the underlying engines which drive
our Martial Arts behavior, this is why it is so important to teach these
concepts in the dojo.
- Martial Arts often presents the student and Sensei with
difficult choices. For instance, if a student does a terrible form, do you
tell them it was terrible, or do you tell them there is room for
improvement. The latter approach seems to be more positive and achieves
better results.
- Combat intensity is a difficult thing to teach. There
are drills and exercises that can be performed but they must be approached
with the proper training for the student to succeed.
- We must always be patient with Children. After all, we
tell the children not to hit each other, and then when they enter the dojo
we tell them hit each other with control. No wonder they get confused.
It is certainly not an easy job
being a good Sensei. We must remember that many of our students come into our
dojo’s with all of the about problems
and they are seeking our help in identifying a path for them to gain control of
their lives. Teaching each student the skills they need to do this is the real
challenge for a Sensei
January
30, 2006
Popeye Philosophy in the Dojo
We often see people in the dojo who
don’t have a very good self image. One of the reasons this type of person shows
up in a dojo is they are seeking a way to improve themselves i.e. to improve
their self image. We see this in the negative statements we hear from them or
their parents. “I am not coordinated”, “I am to old to learn”, “My child has no
discipline”, or my personal favorite “I can’t concentrate”. These people show
up in the dojo because they are tired of thinking of themselves in such a
negative way and are searching for a more positive way to think about
themselves. What these people are lacking is the ability to affirm their own
self-worth. The truth of the matter is that everyone has limitations, even
Sensei’s. When dealing with limitations people have a tendency to use moral
words like “I’m good” or “I’m bad” The
reality is that the ability to perform the skills required in a dojo has
nothing to do with “good” or “bad”. What is “good” or “bad” is how you use
these skills i.e. how you use your martial skills to shape your destiny. If we
teach our students how to deal with their limitations they will grow and become
stronger.
For one reason or another the
students who have these types of problems often don’t tell the truth or don’t
recognize this fact about themselves. If you watch and listen to the student
you can observe the following types of behavior:
Negative beliefs which
they have about themselves and of which they remind themselves daily.
Negative statements
about themselves which sprinkle their everyday conversation.
Self-deprecating remarks
that influence their behavior or beliefs.
Negative self-images
which they have about their body, looks, face, weight, coloring, hair, feet, or
other parts of your body, which influences their presentation of self to
others.
Negative assessment you
or others have made of their competency, skills, ability, knowledge,
intelligence, creativity, or common sense. They have agreed with this
internally and, thus, believe it true. In order to avoid this it is important
that we exercise courtesy and a positive attitude in the dojo.
Negative feelings about
their past behavior, failures, or performances that they systematically run
over in their mind and which influences their current behavior Feelings of anger, resentment, hostility or
rage they feel toward others for real or imagined mistreatment. This so
immobilizes them that their emotional
growth gets stunted and they feel negatively about both themselves and life in
general.
Negative statements that
you or others have made about them, their future, their success, their
relationships, their family, or their health; the student adopts these
statements internally as they face a daily struggle to "win'' in life.
The student denies themselves rewards for their
goodness, hard work and caring by: (1) not taking time to enjoy the fruits of
their labor, (2) living in a style of self denial and austerity and (3) being
afraid to let down their guard and relax, lest they fail to achieve their ``Big
Pay Off.''
The student has feelings of
over-responsibility with which they burden themselves. This includes the
feeling that others in their life will never be able to fully take care of
themselves and that they are "responsible'' for them no matter what. (I
see a lot of this in our dojo)
Feelings of inferiority that the
student harbors about themselves and the belief that no matter what they do in
life, it will never be ``good enough.''
Feelings that the
student has that there is someone in their life (e.g., spouse, parents, a
family member, a former teacher, a peer, co-worker, a boss) from whom they are
still waiting to receive recognition of their worth, their goodness, their
competency, their beauty, and their
overall qualities.
Enough of all of this negative stuff. The real
question is what do we do about all of this. The answer is that we must change
the students opinion of themselves. We must teach the student:
To have a positive
opinion of themselves to counter their negative self-opinion
We must give the student a vehicle by which they can free them self from their over-dependence
on other's opinions, attitudes, and feelings about them so that they can feel
good about themselves.
We must teach the
student to visualize a new order and sense in their life, which they can work
toward achieving.
We must teach the
student to take personal responsibility for their health and emotional
stability.
We must teach the
student to let go of negative emotional baggage they have been carrying. Only
then will they be able to deal with their life in a realistic and positive
manner.
The student must learn
to resolve feelings from the past so that they can face the present with a less
obstructed view.
We must teach the student to give
yourself permission to grow, to change, to take risks, to rise up, and to
create a better life for them self, or as the old sailors use to say “Not to be
afraid of the wind in their sails”
Finally, we must teach the student
that successful prophecies , when visualized, imagined, or believed in, do come
true.
Now, you ask the obvious question
“How in the world do I do all of this”? The difficulty of teaching all of these
concepts is what makes a Sensei’s job so challenging..
Here are some suggestions on how to
teach these concepts:
You can ask the students to create in their minds positive I
am, I can, and I will, statements and to silently recite them every day. We see
some of this approach in the reciting of the dojo creed each class. Here are some examples you can give the
students:
I am competent, I am energetic,
I am strong, I am enthusiastic, I am intelligent, I am relaxed I am beautiful, I am joyful, I am a good person, I am
trusting, I am caring, I am generous, I am
courageous, I am smart, I am forgiving, I am creative
I can lose weight, I can
grow, I can stop smoking, I can handle my children, I can let go of guilt, I
can gain self-confidence, I can let go of fear, I can take risks, I can
change I can be a winner, I can be
positive, I can be strong, I can be a problem solver, I can laugh and have fun,
I can be assertive, I can control my temper, I can succeed
I will like myself
better each day, I will lose weight each day, I will smoke less each day, I
will control my temper today, I will give others responsibility for their lives
today, I will grow emotionally stronger each day, I will praise my children
today, I will feel good things about me today, I will sleep easily tonight, I
will take care of me today, I will challenge myself to change today, I will
take a risk to grow today.
By now you are all
saying that this sounds silly, but remember what we are trying to do is to
change the students opinion of themselves for the better. Please also remember,
that Sensei’s are not trained psychologist, if you have a student with a
serious problem you should council them to seek medical attention.
To help our students, we should
after all, teach them to accept the old Popeye philosophy, “I am what I am”.
January
16, 2006
To
Godan and Beyond
I had a terribly interesting thing
happen in my dojo last week. A Mom came into the dojo with her young daughter
and asked me “Why should I bring my daughter here?” The young girl was ten
years old and had achieved the rank of Shodan in another style of the same
Martial Art that we teach in my dojo. Now whether or not this young child
should be a Shodan, or should she have achieved the rank of Shodan, can be
debated, however these questions are irrelevant to the situation I faced. The
facts of the matter were that the young girl had achieved the rank of Shodan
and her mother was asking me where I would take her from there.
I asked the daughter to step out
onto the dojo floor and do some forms for me. It was clear that the little girl
was very talented, very dedicated to the Martial arts, very disciplined, and
very kind. She was in fact the kind of child that every parent would love to
have. I did not give her Shodan rank to her so I did not feel that I had the
right to take it away from her in my dojo, even though we studied a different
style of Martial Art than the one she had trained in. It was also clear that
the little girl was very proud of being a Black Belt and I was sensitive to the
damage I could do to her self image if I forced her to wear a White belt. I am
aware of the fact that there is a school of thought that says that she is a
White Belt in the style we teach and I should have forced her to swallow her
pride and wear a White Belt in the dojo. My thoughts raced, this was a ten year
old girl I was dealing with, she does not have the kind of discipline necessary
to walk that path. However this was a ten year old girl and isn’t the purpose
of Children’s Martial Arts training and what we do in the dojo to improve a
childs self image and not to damage it. I was also aware of the problems that
can be created by allowing someone to wear a Black Belt in a style that they
have not trained in.
As I considered this problem I
became more convinced that what the child needed to do was to step onto the
road to Mastery. What both the Mom and the Child were searching for was the
beginning of that road, this young child had several obstacles to overcome, but
I felt that they could all be overcome while on that road. I realized that if I
accepted this young girl as a student what I had to do for her was to plan a
path for her to become a Master. This was truly a scary thought. I do not call
myself a Master but I am a pretty good Martial Artist and I thought I could
help this young girl i.e. I could help her get to Godan and beyond.
That night, I went home and wrote
down what I considered to be the attributes of a Master, the list looked
something like this:
·
Has an Honorable Character
·
Performs all kata in the system
flawlessly
·
Has a broad and working knowledge of
Martial Arts weapons
·
Knows how to teach the Martial Arts
·
Is flawless in the execution of
individual Martial Arts techniques
·
Is Humble and Kind
·
Is knowledgeable of another Martial
Art than the one he/she trains in
·
Is Fearless in Combat
·
Has an excellent knowledge of
Martial Arts history, and the cultural background from which his//her Martial
Art arose.
These attribute will serve to help
me develop a training plan for this little girl.
The reader will be happy to know
that I accepted the young girl as a student and I allowed her to wear her Black
Belt in my dojo. The young girl smiled from ear to ear when I told her this
news. I did sit down with both the Mother and the daughter and explained to
them some of the problems we had to watch out for and some of the
misunderstandings that could arise because the daughter was wearing a Black
Belt earned in her previous style.
I now have the awesome task of
turning a dedicated, hard working pre-teenager into a Master of the Martial
Arts.
For those of you who are interested,
email me in 10 years and I will let you know how I did.
January
9, 2006
Dedication
I found this letter to a Karate
Sensei on the web and it was so good I thought I would share it with you.
Dear Sensei, I wish this letter will
find you in good health and your work at the dojo is still as much fun as it
was when I trained with you. On this cloudy morning, I am sitting here and
trying to review my Karate in the last several years and somehow i feel kind of
depressed and not so hopeful when I look far in the future.
You taught us to cultivate Karate
and its cultural values for guidance in our study of Karate. But so often, I
feel like your and my work is treated badly by the students these days. I often see students come and go as they
please, dash in the Dojo and dash out just like a
McDonald. It is
so different between now and the old days when even rain or shine,
dawn or dark I put my gi and came to the dojo where I met lots of friends practicing. I remember
training in my old Gi, which usually got torn up during practice.
It is so different today, students are treated much better today with all of the
courtesy from teachers, it doesn’t seem to me that the students appreciate what
you have done for them. I certainly do since I have left the dojo and seen
other schools and karate students. It seems to me that there is something that most of the students today them don’t
have: Spirits ? Aspirations ? Something that they could make their practice alive
in every thoughts and breaths. Something that could make them come to practice
days or nights, rain or shine.
I have some students that have good potential, well behavior, and they
absorb Karate pretty good, after all our efforts to teach and correct their
techniques and etiquette. I also have some problem students. Their parents puld them home with reasons such as :
My son is so busy at school now, my son has to play piano twice a week ..etc. or
they simply left Dojo no matter how hard
we try to explain or try to work out a schedule for them, or reduce their
tuition. They just left, sometimes those things make me hate teaching so
much, sometimes i just want to retire. When I studied with you I learned what I
value and what I appreciate. I thought
the way of Karate should be calmness in our minds and bring peace to our souls
but sometimes walking on this Path our minds are full of strugglings. . I guess my point is that I should train with
much more dedication. I have been training mentally for a long time. Every day
I use martial arts in everything I do from opening doors to dodging people in
the hallways to constructing simulations in my brain when I am bored. Morally,
I follow the code of Bushido, and I meditate on a few breaths before going to
bed. However, with all of my homework, web site work, and clubs, I haven’t been
physically training as hard. I know this, and I can feel that my energy is
disturbed. After reading that letter, I realized how lucky I was to be able to
train. Any place can be a dojo. I make a personal promise to practice at least
one kata every day.
What an interesting letter. It seems
like some problems are universal among Karate Sensei’s. Let me end this work
with a quote from Gichen Funakoshi, the founder of Karate: “You may train for a
long, long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and
down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning to
dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have
failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do”
January
02, 2006
Trust
I have seen many acts of courage,
bravery, honesty, and sacrifice in the
dojo. I thought we would spend some time talking about a key ingredient of an
honorable relationship, trust. Trust is difficult to define. It is a way of
behaving, an ability to behave in such a manner that others will trust you and
you will trust others. This is a crucial skill in the development of any
Martial Artist. Trust is letting others know your
feelings, emotions and reactions, and having the confidence in them to respect
you and to not take advantage of you. Trust is sharing
your inner feelings and thoughts with others with the belief that they will not
spread them indiscriminately and placing
confidence in others so that they will be supportive and reinforcing of you,
even if you let down your "strong'' mask and show your weaknesses. Trust
is assuming that others will not intentionally hurt
or abuse you if you should make an error or a mistake. Trust is the inner sense of acceptance you have of others with whom
you are able to share secrets, knowing they are safe. Trust is the ability to
let others into your life so that you and they can create a relationship built
on an understanding of mutual respect, caring, and concern to assist one
another in growing and maturing independently. Trust is opening yourself up to let others in on your background,
problems, concerns, and mistakes with the assurance that they will not
ostracize you because of these things. Finally, trust is the act of placing yourself in the vulnerable position of
relying on others to treat you in a fair, open, and honest way.
Why do people in the dojo have
trouble trusting each other? In the dojo people tend to reenact their family
lives and relationships. People have trouble trusting if they have:
- Experienced a great deal of emotional and/or physical abuse
and/or neglect.
- Been chronically put down for the way they feel or for
what they believe.
- Been emotionally hurt in the past and are not willing
to risk getting hurt in the future.
- Had problem relationships in the past where they were
belittled, misunderstood, or ignored.
- Experienced the loss of a loved one through death. They
can get so caught up in unresolved grief that they are unable to open
themselves up to others, fearing they will be left alone again due to
death, or, abandonment.
- Experienced a hostile or bitter divorce, separation, or
end of a relationship. They may be unable to believe anyone who opens up
to them in a new, committed relationship.
- Been reared in or have lived in an environment
emotionally and/or physically unpredictable and volatile.
- Experienced a great deal of pain at the hands of
another. Even if the other finally recognizes and accepts the
responsibility to change such behavior, the person fears that if they let
their guard down, the pain and hurt will begin again.
What are some beliefs
of people who have problems trusting?
- I have been hurt too much in the past, and I refuse to
be hurt again now or in the future!
- People are out to get all they can from you, so avoid
them to survive!
- As soon as you let your guard down, you will be stepped
on again!
- No one is to be trusted!
- You always get hurt by the ones you love!
- I get no respect from anyone!
- All men (or women) are dishonest and are never to be
trusted!
- Everyone is out to get me!
- As soon as you care and open up to someone, they will
always leave you!
- There is no such thing as a healthy relationship!
- You can never let your guard down because all
%%##$$ will break loose!
- All reformations are short-lived!
- If I give in and believe you have truly changed,
relaxing my defenses, I am most certainly going to be hurt again once you
backslide!
- There is no such thing as change in behavior. It is
only manipulation by others to get their way with you!
- Everyone is out to get as much as they can out of you!
- There is no such thing as a fair employer, generous
company, or supportive work place!