Kickstart Your Black Belt Attitude

In the martial arts, Black Belt is a metaphor for excellence.

A Black Belt in any martial arts will have mastered a repertoire of physically impressive skills. In addition, a Black Belt will have also spent time cultivating and demonstrating positive attributes in terms of thought and behaviour, ie. the Black Belt Attitude. Put simply, having a Black Belt Attitude means striving for personal excellence in all areas of life, not just martial arts.

In Choi Kwang-Do, this is promoted within a framework defined by the Children's Promise, the Adult Pledge and the 6 Principles of Choi Kwang-Do, recently revised to:

Humility
Integrity
Gentleness
Perseverance
Self Control
Unbreakable Spirit

Now, we all know that every skill requires practice and review - whether it be a Side Kick or looking for the silver lining in a seemingly negative situation. So, in Choi Kwang-Do we observe the following two checkpoints to kick (pun intended!) the Black Belt Attitude into action every class:-

Checkpoint 1: Tying Your Belt

If you were walking down your local high street and saw a person wearing a blue leotard, red pants (over the leotard) and a red cape, the instinctive curiosity of human beings would make many stop and stare. In some ways, wearing your Choi Kwang-Do uniform is much the same; we may not be able to run faster than a speeding train, or leap tall buildings in a single jump, but we do have other ‘special powers’.

The ‘special powers’ of a Choi Kwang-Do student range from the perfect execution of a pattern right through the physical and mental spectrum to displaying self-confidence and respect by a firm handshake and eye contact when meeting people. These attributes (plus many, many more) are all components of the Black Belt Attitude.

Tying your belt is the last stage of putting on your uniform. Use it as a reminder of the new persona you now acquire - regardless what colour your belt actually is.



Checkpoint 2: Entering the Dojang

The dojahng (training hall; direct translation is House of Discipline) is the primary location where we learn and practise Choi Kwang-Do. An optimum learning environment requires one to the relaxed, yet alert. It requires students to be disciplined.

To set this frame of mind, students say, “Pil-Seung, Sir! Pil-Seung, Ma’am!” and then bow as they enter and leave the dojahng. This serves as a polite greeting to those already inside the dojahng (who should respond by saying “Pil-Seung!”) Further to this, consider the statement a public declaration, triggering your transition into an incredible Choi Kwang-Do student who strives for personal excellence. After all, you will already have your superhero outfit on!

Naturally, our pursuit of personal excellence should extend to all areas of our lives whether or not you are wearing your uniform or in the dojahng. These two checkpoints are easy to do - the key is to make a conscious effort to create the habit by remembering to do them each time you attend your classes.

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

Throw Yourself Into It!

Roughly a year ago I had our adult students working on sliding kicks.

The technical aspect of what these are isn't really that important but just to provide some context, as the name implies sliding kicks involves performing a kick whilst sliding forwards towards the target. It's a way of covering distance dynamically to reach an out of range target while simultaneously attacking. It's faster than taking a separate step forward towards the target and then kicking. Plus, it can also result in a more powerful kick as the whole body weight is being thrust forwards with the kick.

Officially, sliding kicks occur in the Choi Kwang-Do curriculum at 2nd Degree Black Belt but this wasn't a Black Belt Class. In fact, there were only three black belts in the entire class of 16 that evening...one of them being me!

So why was I getting the students to do this?

The first reason was that it was a fun challenge for many, without straying too far outside of what they would normally be working on, eg. basic kicks with the target in a comfortable range whereby a slide is not required. However, the main lesson behind the lesson (if you see what I mean) was that to perform a sliding kick you have to throw yourself into it.

Physically speaking, you really do have you launch your body weight towards the target but in a controlled manner. If you don't, you simply won't cover the distance and reach the target. If you do, your balance (and subsequent power) will be negatively affected. This is quite a radical change for most students because they would have been initially taught to kick from a stationary position without sliding.

Emotionally speaking there can be even more to learn. Once you have practised and realised the need to launch your body weight towards the target, you're less likely to hesitate when approaching similar techniques in the future.
You will have already demonstrated to yourself that to complete particular tasks, you sometimes have to overcome self-induced obstacles.

Of course, among the more junior students there was lots of hesitation at first. Perfectly natural given the circumstances, but that was that whole point; to enable the students to recognise when this is happening, when they may be deliberating over a task that has little or no damaging outcomes.

Make a decision.
Affirm commitment.
Throw yourself into it!

There are many areas of life whereby unless we make a commitment and throw ourselves into something, before starting we've already limited the experience we could potentially receive. A valuable and useful lesson for me, the students...and maybe for you too?

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

Knowing & Understanding

A few months back I recall working on kicking techniques with our children’s class. While reviewing the Rear Leg Front Kick we were breaking the kick down into two stages; shifting the body weight forwards first, then firing the kick off the back and stepping the foot down in front. Until this time, we’d simply practised the kick as a single movement.

Mid way through a very brief 'step by step' demonstration before we continued as a group, a student asked, "Why are we doing it like that? Why don’t we just kick?!"

Now, as an Instructor you never want to come across as too flippant or dismissive, but at the same time you want to keep the class momentum going. If you don’t you can open up the floor for all manner of questions ranging from favourite television programmes to how close a student is until their next birthday...in this case I managed to get away with, "We're working on making your kick even better!"

It was immediately apparent that the student in question felt that they already knew how to do the kick, ie. they knew how to perform a striking action using the foot. However, they didn't (yet) have a deeper understanding of all the finer parts of the movement that collectively make up that particular kick:

- Pushing of the rear leg to shift the body weight forwards
- Tucking the kicking leg by bending the knee
- Driving the kicking leg forwards to striking the target with the ball of the foot
- Following through the target
- Stepping down in front

To now break the technique down after practising the kick 'in full' wasn't furthering understanding - it was taking a step backwards! Therein possibly lies the difference between knowing a technique and understanding a technique...

Typically when I'm teaching a technique I'll usually follow one of two methods. I simply call them Bottom Up and Top Down. (Yes, I’m sure there are probably more eloquent names, but they do the job).

Bottom Up: Breaking the technique down into 2, 3, or 4 stages and teaching each components of the movement sequentially, building up to the full technique.

Top Down: Show the technique, explain a few defining points of the technique, show it again, then get students to copy it. On successive repetitions additional points and corrections are added or made as required.



Which method I use will depend on a number of factors such as:

- The age and abilities of the students
- The size of the group
- Teaching objective, ie. are we learning a technique for the first time, or reviewing a technique for improvement?
- Teaching time available

For example, Top Down is generally faster but assumes the student can interpret what they are seeing into movement. Whereas Bottom Up gives more detail and promotes better understanding of the technique, but takes longer to deliver.

What's your view on the difference between knowing and understanding?

(Tips on what has helped you to improve a technique are welcome too!)

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com