1. Age
2. Class Attendance
3. Practice Time

Age: In our school a person below 18 years old will not earn a full black belt.  We award junior black belts to exceptional youth student’s between 13 and 17 years of age.  In the 7 years I have been at GHKA we have awarded only one of those.

The adult martial arts program is set up for a true beginner ages 13 and up to earn a black belt in 3-4 years provided their attendance and practice time are consistent.

Attendance: It is hard to learn and progress without attending martial arts classes regularly.  Just getting in the door every week helps students get closer to their black belt.  Inconsistent attendance will not only slow progress, it will almost always lead to failure.  I recommend that all students attend (at the absolute minimum) attend 2 hours/week of class.

Practice Time: They 3 secrets to mastering martial arts are practice, practice, practice.  All students need to train on their own at least 1 time/week in addition to their regular class attendance.  More practice is great, but practice time cannot replace class hours.  Students who attend classes but do not practice on their own will only go so far.  Students who practice on their own but don’t attend class will progress slowly.

There is nothing mystical about achieving skill in the martial arts, it takes work.  Students must attend classes and practice on their own.  That is what it takes.  Anyone who thinks they can become skilled in any other way is simply wrong.

Unfortunately for me, I did not interact with him again until many years later (shortly after I became a Shodan in Isshinryu Karate) at a George Shin kata tournament.  As I was leaving the building, Shihan Edwards asked who my sensei was and casually invited me to his school.

I did not visit his school until a couple years later, and I now wish I had gone there sooner.  Eventually, I began attending his class regularly and he visited my school on several occasions.  During that time, I can’t say that I learned or practiced anything “advanced” or even really new, but I began to understand karate in a way that I had never imagined possible.

It was astounding to me how much material he could extrapolate from something as “easy” as an outside arm block.  I was amazed at the intricate thought processes and martial arts strategy that he developed and deduced from less than 10 simple movements.  I realized very quickly that I had a lot less knowledge of Isshinryu than I had previously thought.

Shihan Edwards showed me that the only wisdom in martial arts is the wisdom that comes from humility.  I was watching one the most accomplished Isshinryu men on the planet tear down and rebuild an entire martial arts system in just his white belt curriculum!  How could this be happening?  I had spent so much time trying to become more “advanced” as a black belt that I had assumed away all the most important elements of Isshinryu.  Being part of Shihan’s class opened my eyes to the real value of Isshinryu karate as a martial art.

Beyond the precision of his technique, Shihan Edwards was the first Isshinryu Sensei to treat me as man first and a student second.  He was also the first Isshinryu man to recognize my training in other martial arts as an asset to my Isshinryu karate, rather than as a distraction from it.  I continue to look to Shihan for his guidance as I strive to develop my understanding of Isshinryu karate, and I believe that he understands the spirit of karate better than anyone else I have ever known.

My interpretation of what is presented in a seminar, class or test is not necessarily the point of the lesson.  Everyone has had moments in training when they ask themselves “why are we doing this again?”  Sometimes the reason for a lesson may not become clear until days, weeks, months or years later.  The moment of clarity is accompanied by some slight regret “If I had only figured this out years ago, where would I be?”

Martial arts is an incredibly deep pool of knowledge, wisdom and technique.  It takes years just to explore the surface of the pool with no time to dive down deeper and see what is below.  Whether exploring the surface or diving into its depths, the pool is still made of water.

The study of martial arts will never be anything but a journey.  Sometimes it will make sense, and at other times the journey will seem absurd.  Either way, there is only what is taught and what is learned.

I now understand that my greatest limitation is not what lessons I did not receive or what lessons I misunderstood.  My greatest limitation is me – when my mind is open and clear I can find value in almost any martial arts lesson.  When I am being stubborn and distracted I have trouble getting value from my own practice sessions.

Fighting skills are inherently dangerous and therefore must be practiced and demonstrated with an acute sense of personal responsibility.  This responsibility is to three distinct people or groups of people:

1. Ourselves: We must recognize what we have done, or failed to do, as we progress through the ranks.  We cannot blame anyone but the person in the mirror for lost training time or a lack of discipline.  We must be accountable to ourselves for our own decisions and actions.
2. Our Sensei/Sifu/Guro: Our instructor is a guide, a leader, a role model, and has sacrificed many things to achieve a high level of skill.  Our teacher is also our helper.  He or she pushes us to succeed and expects us to work hard.  Once we have learned the skills that the teacher asks us to practice, we are obligated to follow through.  It is our responsibility to respect the knowledge that is given to us and honor our teacher with our hard work.
3. Our Classmates: We owe it to our training partners and fellow classmates to train safely and to be competent in all areas of skill.  Our own lack of skill can limit our training partner’s ability to progress as well.

Responsibility cannot be learned from a textbook or a video, it is something we must practice by making good choices and respecting those around us.  In martial arts training, there are no excuses.  What defines our success or failure is our own level of personal responsibility.

To earn his Fitness Star awards, Sam had to complete 10 fitness challenges for the year including:

• 90 second wall sit (ouch)
• 3 minutes of jumping jacks
• 15 correct push-ups

Congratulations to Sam – hopefully there will many more students who follow your lead.

We even had several requests to take out team on the road and clean some households!  We must have done a good job.

The spirit of martial arts is one of humility and hard work.  Dojo cleaning day takes a lot of both of those qualities.  All participants cleaned hard with smiles on their faces and exhibited some great teamwork.  Thanks for your help!

We also thank the Shelton Isshinryu Dojo for making the commute to help us with our event.  The Shelton black belts were a huge help and their students were very respectful and had great attitudes.  We are glad to have supportive friends in martial arts community.

If anyone has photos or videos that they would like to share, please pitch in and we will add them to the websites, this blog or my YouTube channel.

Thanks again to all the parents, Sensei, and competitors and spectators who were involved in this event, it was a great experience!

Repetition training requires narrow focus and a lot of time.  No one likes doing the same kata for hours or practicing the same punch for years on end.  Whether people like it or not, repetition is how skills are developed. There is no other way to become excellent.

Many students practice a lot, but not a lot of the same thing.  So in all their training time, they have completed very little repetition.  The common error is that students practice things only when they are new and interesting and then they move on to the next skill.  The problem is that students want to refine their more advanced “cooler” techniques and they look past the value of the basics.  Advanced technique is always rooted in something simple – something that gets boring if we repeat it too often.  Boring or not, the best way to practice is to choose something simple and focus on it.

Just to give you all an idea of what I mean – I don’t count doing something 10 times as repetition training.  Repetition training is doing straight punches for 30 minutes, or doing kata for and hour and half straight. Repetition training also means that every practice session involves this kind of effort.  For example, to develop good kicking, it is better to focus on 2 or 3 kicks and really train them hard for an entire workout, rather than to practice 15 kicks (by doing a few of each) for 20 minutes as a segment of a workout.  The best way to develop kata is by constant repetition.  Sometimes, with kata, students need to focus on just one segment of the kata for hours, or weeks, or years.

The other issue is that if you tell people they need more repetition, they don’t understand how that will help them “advance” to their next belt.  Repetition is not something you can show on a test, because on a test you only get one chance to get things right.  However, if a student is used to high numbers of repetition, then the belt test is simply one more repetition, and not a dramatic or defining moment.

By using this kind of thinking, all skills are attainable if we commit ourselves to repetition training.  We also have to accept that repetition training is our own responsibility and not our instructor’s.

This is true in my own career.  It was always my choice to practice the same movements again and again – I was not forced or coerced to train.  I happily accept the result of that choice and its consequences – the things I focused on I usually became good at.  The things that I did not focus on and did not repeat, I did not become good at – and I accept that as well.  I do not blame my instructors for my inability to focus or my lack of training on certain aspects of my martial arts.  Nor do I think that my weaker techniques are inherently  “bad” or “wrong.”  I know that I just have not refined them for long enough to understand them quite yet.

I had a sensei that used to say “Repetition is the mother of mastery.”  I don’t know whether he was quoting someone else or if he made that up, but it is really true in martial arts.

• Asking the right questions will not instantly result in understanding of technique or philosophy.
• Attending private lessons or classes is not enough to progress.

Real progress comes only with constant practice, study and awareness with humility.  We must take our martial arts everywhere we go.  I am not suggesting that we walk around with a clenched fist or a pair of nunchaku, but that we keep our minds and bodies alert and aware of every detail we can sense.  This kind of investment is what the martial arts lifestyle requires.

No DVD, workout routine, or masterful instructor can bring us to our peak level of ability in martial arts.  Our investment in time is the only thing that we can count on to move us forward.  As Americans we always want a goal or a time-line to work towards.  Unfortunately, true martial arts skill cannot be quantified in these neat and tidy dimensions.

We have to accept the process of training for what it is, not what we would like it to be.  We would like it to be a clear and concise progression from one level to the next, but it is not.  In order to invest our time in training with confidence we have to assume that there will ups and downs, and that we will continue no matter what.  Martial arts training requires a level of investment that most people do not understand – that is why so few people become proficient.

If you are not ready to invest your time in training, then you must accept that you will only reach a certain level of skill.  There is no way to achieve the skills you desire without investing time in training.  People hate hearing this, but it takes years to become excellent at martial arts no matter who you are.  If you cannot make the full investment, don’t feel bad, just be realistic.  Be happy with the skills you can gain with the investment you can make and don’t put pressure on your yourself.

If you want to reach a higher level in your martial art, it is not up to your instructor to get you there.  You have to make the investment.

In karate schools everywhere in the world today, students don their various colored belts to represent their knowledge and skill in their martial art.  These colored belt systems were invented to help modern students feel good about their training and (hopefully) motivate them to continue to get their next belt.  Belt systems are excellent for training children and really help kids understand the value of their practice and the long term commitment required for real skill development.  Having curriculum organized in levels is also helpful in developing cohesive programs of instruction for children of diverse levels of natural ability and commitment to training.

However, belt ranking systems are more problematic for adults.  Once we place value on belts, adults just want the belt as a status symbol and they forget about the value of  attending classes and learning.  Adults tend to look at each belt as a “upgrade” rather than a step in the right direction.  Once one belt is earned, adults seem to believe they are “beyond” everything in that level and ready to “advance.”  In most cases, instructors look at belt levels as minimum standards of competence, not as definitive proof of complete understanding.  A black belt is like a high school diploma, not a master’s degree.

Unfortunately, adults want to earn black belts because they think it will elevate them above anyone wearing any other color.  In reality, a belt is a piece of dyed cotton, it has no special properties.  The value of the belt is only realized in so far as the person wearing the belt has actually developed their skills.  Adults get that, but only to a point.  Once adult students get into their advanced levels, they usually begin to forget why they started training, why they like to learn, and are focused only on getting that black belt.  this is really too bad because belts are actually not that interesting, but training is!  In their quest for rank, adults students miss out on so much learning.

Martial arts is a process of continuous learning and development for students and instructors of all levels.  This process goes beyond earning belts: it requires humility and a long term commitment to martial arts training.  Students believe their training culminates in earning a black belt, but in reality – black belt is where it all begins.