Buying a Black Belt and Frustrated Instructors

I've noticed a lot of students when training just tend to go through the motions. You might be able to get away with this in some parts of life, but when it comes to the things that matter you need to always give whatever it is that you do 100%.

When it comes to martial arts it seems more and more people are taking classes to "buy a belt". If they can remember all the moves in their tests they think they should pass because if you remember everything on a test in school you pass the test, that and the fact that they are paying money to go to the school so they feel entitled. I personally think there should not only be a requirement to memorize the motions, but to be able to do them at a certain level, and intensity to pass tests in martial arts. I believe that if a higher standard was held for belt testing in general than a black belt would still have the same meaning it had 20 or 30 years ago in society, where it was regarded with a certain level of respect. Now you can obtain a black belt in a year or 2 from a lot of places and I believe that, that degraded martial arts as a whole for us all.

Recently a new student came to my school. We practice WTF Taekwondo, and his former school (which recently had to close its doors) taught ITF Taekwondo. He currently holds a black belt in ITF Taekwondo and is working to re-qualify that in the WTF by learning all of the WTF forms and movements. Him being from the opposing federation to mine we've had a lot to talk about. One of those things was how in general even the good schools have commercialized to some degree to stay afloat in this mediocre economy. Even my school's level of difficulty had dropped a bit since I had left those years back to go back to college which led me to wonder what happened when I first came back and started to get back into shape. The intensity was gone from the school that started my martial arts journey.

This new student has a different view on things that I want to share with all of you though. While this is a very common things to say it doesn't make it any less true. "Lead by example". As one of my school's senior black belt students I have to set the intensity level of the class I'm in. It's not all on me, the other senior students need to do the same, but since I started giving it that extra effort and upped my intensity level and immediately the other senior students were inspired and started doing the same. We then had a trickle effect over the next few weeks and most of the lower belt students started doing the same, which then caused one last thing to happen... the instructors realized that we are not there to buy belts, but to study martial arts. The last month or 2 at my school has been very exciting because we've had an influx of new students, who are also there to "study martial arts" and not buy belts which is causing a transformation in how things are in the dojang. I also helped with this by volunteering my skills and editing the school web site. It was horrendously done and not kept up by the original creator.

I went back to Taekwondo in May of 2010. I had a hard time in the classes as they were then because I had gotten that out of shape in college. When I started losing weight and realizing that the school was in a bad place, I knew something needed to change. Upon meeting this new student I realized it was us, and not the place we were training. I know some of you will probably think that it's the instructors responsibility to keep the school going properly, which it partly true but I also think that they can only take so much and are human just like you and and can get discouraged. I believe that Master Park had gotten discouraged and because of it was just "going through the motions" himself. Now because of our change in attitude there's been a change in atmosphere and things are healing and getting better. We are back on the upswing signing up new students, and classes are a blast like they were in the old days before I left and I couldn't be happier.

Just remember that teachers are human and have a lot on their plates just like we all do. They need that encouragement from us as students to know that they are doing right by us just like we need their approval  to know that we are doing right by ourselves. In whatever you choose to do in life make sure you always give it everything you have. We only get one life to live so make the most of it.