Respect for the Black Belt comes from experience
Posted by Ryan G on September 24th, 2010 in Martial Arts and have No Comments »
Prior to becoming a World Class Tae Kwon Do student, martial arts had never fascinated me or appealed to me. I never recognized what it took to be a martial arts master, and the martial arts movies with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and everybody never interested me. I did enjoy Karate Kid but not because of the martial arts, rather the story in general. Within a few months of starting my training here at World Class Tae Kwon Do however, this began to change.
Today, about 20 months later, my attitude is different and I have the utmost respect for anyone with a Black Belt because I know what it required of them to earn it. I am highly motivated to obtain my own Black Belt because I know what I have put in to being where I am today as a Red Belt.
When you first begin Taekwondo at World Class Tae Kwon Do and you see all the belts up on the wall and the chart that shows the curriculum requirements for each belt and their paces, you see Red Belt as one only step away from Black Belt. But this is deceiving because it’s not that way at all.
Think of a mountain where starting from the base you go up a little while and it sort of levels off, but then the mountain peak begins and it is much steeper and in some instances even higher than from the base to the that point. You may have reached this point within a few hours but then to scale the peak you would need to be at it for more than a day or two, if it’s even scalable. This to me is like going from Red Belt to Black Belt which in between actually consists of two more belts, Black Stripe and Double Black Stripe, so you actually have three more phases to accomplish to go from Red to Black.
By the time you reach Red Belt you begin to feel comfortable and confident with everything and with learning new curriculum. You know what to look for when executing your moves and you know how to make adjustments. But as a Red Belt you also begin to consider what it is going to take to reach Black Belt. You might be only two more belts away from Black, but realistically you are may be just more than half way to Black. This is humbling, to say the least.
You know that you have to work out those subtle imbalances and those minute details such as how you angle your foot on a side kick, or how you time your hands and feet on a take down, or how you must include that final pop with your foot in a spin kick as you hit the target. These are the details that the untrained I won’t notice consciously but that will be apparent to them if not delivered by you correctly. There is a lot more riding on your shoulders at this point.
Needless to say, my respect for the Black Belt only continues to grow the closer I get to it. At this stage, it’s like having a tool belt on your waist with all the tools and you have been trained how to use them all, but now you actually have to put them to use and build something. What you build, I am learning, is your style, your voice, your expression. Without respect, which comes from experience, you will have a difficult time doing this I imagine.
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