Martialart

That could be it, but I didn't get that impression. I can only imagine how insulting that would be if in fact they really are doing their best. I'd rather they just whopped me upside the head if they can. There are none. I mean, there's other TKD Plus schools in the area, but they all follow the same ITA curriculum. And like I said, I need the stamina training; I don't really need to learn to spar better. I don't think so, anyway. I need more flexibility and stamina so I can do more of what I want to do, but I don't really need a challenge per se. I'll spar with those guys. I don't have a problem with that. I just know now that I might have to take some care with some of them--as compared to being like a newbie who wants to do everything they can to prove something. We're green now. That's how we ended up sparring. You have to be green to spar. But I agree, we won't have a significant impact on how the school trains. We never will, actually. The ITA really sets the curicculum. Well, really, when I think about it, the school is fine. It's like I said earlier, they teach you how to spar, and we spar every class. I can't fault the school for that. And they talk tough standards, I just don't know where all these 2nd and 3rd dans came from. Maybe when they were first starting the school they had to do whatever they could to keep students coming. Acutally, they seem to nit pick me and my wife a little more than I think they should--compared to what we see around us. But maybe they're trying to change. Maybe that starts with us. In fact, that night the instructor (one of the owners/masters) was cracking the whip pretty hard--surprisingly. I just hope it continues. I would imagine a lot of those black belts don't. I guess we'll see.

Actually, now that I think on it, I have no idea. Seriously. Having explored the issue, and thought about it a great deal, I see no inherent nobility. There is a class of persons--the warrior class--that is made up of soldiers, policemen, firefighters, and I believe martial artists. But that class is not noble, not inherently. In fact, outside of monarchies where there is a formal nobility (and even that isn't much more than a spectacle in the modern world), I'm not sure there is any such thing as noble classes or castes. There are classes, but people do not typically think of a firefighter as being inherently better than they are, as people. But nobility, itself, still fascinates me, because I know it when I see it. Perhaps it comes from the Kingdom of Heaven (define that how you will). And I know that nobility is passed on, or at least its influence is often passed on. If one had a noble grandfather, or father, or grandmother or mother, they are more likely to be noble themselves. Or maybe it's always first generation only. And it seems to me that noble people are truly better people than non-noble people (ignoble? Lowly, common, trashy?). In other words, the world would truly be better if there were more noble people in it and less ignoble people in it. But what is noble? What does it mean to be noble? Can one even choose it?

I am a little shocked. But it is what it is. I feel a bit sorry for them, really. Because I wonder if they could even take care of themselves against a bully in school. And if a black belt won't get you at least that far... Nonetheless, I like what Bushido-man says. Perhaps, I can help them a bit. And they can help me, too, because I need the stamina. They seem to have that. So maybe I can give what I have, and they can give what they have to the benefit of us all. We'll see, I suppose.

I met Pete Spanton once at an event in London. He seemed like a really nice man, and he said a few words to me. I think he signed a book I bought there on Higashi forms. He was very approachable. Tough, but not a tough-guy if you know what I mean. Of course this was back in the mid 1980's. I trained in Swindon, Wiltshire. Are you connected with Higashi at all?

Funny you should mention that. I'm certain I couldn't spar with them, and why? Because I believe they are very good. But I certainly can't prove that. I mean, I have yet to see it. It's just an assumption on my part, and I'll bet to some degree they rely on those assumptions. Maybe they rely on weak black belts for the same reason. But it doesn't really matter to me, I suppose. Like I've said before, the curriculum is good. I am learning traditional Taekwondo. It would be good to have an instructor who was also an example, but maybe that's just something I don't get to have. And, maybe that's like asking an economics professor to first be rich before teaching me economics. Still, it's kind of sad.

I assume that these are rhetorical questions.

After tonight in class (see post on sparring), I've decided it's not a good idea for me to talk about my training with people at work. They wouldn't understand, and it would probably give them the wrong impression. I certainly wouldn't talk about it with patients. If they know I train, fine. If they ask, I might give minimal details, but I'm beginning to see it's not about being ashamed of martial arts, it's about not feeding people something about you they can't understand.

Yeah, that's good. That would probably work. And it could be kind of mutual, because I need to re-develop my sparring stamina. So, they're helping me with that, and maybe I can help them get a little more aggressive. I have good control, and I'm not one of these types that has to dominate an opponent, so they could benefit from sparring with me and I with them. And a friend of mine in there, one of the really flexible teens who's taller than me is just itching to kick my butt now that I have a green belt, and I've told him it would be an honor to be pummeled by him, so there's always that. Oh, and I mispoke. I can't train with the instructors (which is just as well for me at this stage of the game), because they don't spar in class.

Tonight I sparred with some of the black belts in the class. First time--in that class. I learned how to spar in England when I studied Higashi Karate (which is Wado-Ryu with only very slight modifications). But those guys sparred hard and I was whacked around quite regularly, but I never forgot what I learned. Tonight was kind of embarrassing. The students are teenagers, granted, and I'm an full-grown man, but that doesn't really matter, because I pulled everything. I didn't hit harder than mere contact. Pad against pad, but these guys are clueless. I expected if they are 1st and 2nd dans, that they would not let me get in on them so easily. I did a backfist to the helmet on one--very basic. He punched I down-blocked it and came over the top with a backfist to the head. Total control, don't get me wrong. It was fast, but my glove, merely touched his padded helmet. I didn't understand. So I asked, are we allowed to make contact to the head. Yep. No problem. Then I'm sparring another black belt and I come around with a spinning crescent kick, and I'm totally mortified as I realize his head is completely ungaurded! I had to drop my leg emergency-like or it would have made contact big time. Fortunately I was able to abort it. Fortunately I haven't lost my control. In Higashi, you had to learn control, control, control. It was way too fast and way too aggressive to have people out there actually trying to hurt one another. So, control was trained on as much as any other technique. Thank God. I mean in all the time I've been sparring, I've never actually gotten in with a spinning crescent kick. Never. I had come to believe they were just for show, and that's all I was trying to do was have fun and show off the few things I can still do. I didn't expect the guy's head to be waiting there like a train wreck about to happen. Fortunately, no train wreck. In Higashi, it was spar until a good point was made by "controlled" contact, then break and start again for a total of three points, so people just charged one another throwing everything including the kitchen sink to get that point. It was very aggressive but very controlled. In WTF, it was very agressive and fast, but no contact was ever made to the head with the hands so people just flailed about with their legs trying to score points. Very impractical. Martial arts is hand and foot. Nevertheless, in this class, my side kicks were even getting in. Everything was getting in. It was like being in some kind of dream or something. I expected to be getting pummeled in a controlled way by these flexilble adolescent males who had black belts, and I found myself having to be careful. I mean, I'm bigger than they are, granted. But this was all very light contact if any, they should have been in on me like white on rice. But they weren't. What I didn't have was stamina. I'm going to have to work on that big time. I've been a runner for 12 years, but this isn't the same kind of thing. Running is just legs. I actually don't know what's going to happen. They can put me with the instructors who will be all over me, I have no doubt, but that would look pretty bad if a green belt can't fight with the black belts. They could put me with my wife, we always have fun sparring, but they put her with the other women. She had the exact experience as me with the black belt female in the class. It was sad. We were sad for them. There are better black belts. There are, I've seen them. Two guys who I quite like, are taller than me, and really skilled, so I could spar with them. Of course, I'm not sure that's fair to me. Either way, I'm going to have to wake up and smell the coffee. Just because they are black belts doesn't mean they can fight, and I'm going to have to real-quick like get over the idea that I have to try as hard as I can against them because they're so much higher than me. They are higher belts, but somewhere along the way they never developed that aggressive fighting spirit, you know? I can't blame it on the school. They tell them the only four things they need to know: move in a circle, keep your guard up, throw combinations, and keep light and moving on your feet. But they don't keep their guard up, and they don't block effectively, and they don't counter, and they don't throw combinations. I couldn't touch the head master there, not in a million years. There's another male instructor I couldn't touch, no way. And there's some black belts who are really fast and flexible, but there's tons of black belts that aren't, and this is the first time I've encountered that. So, I'm going to have to be careful. I feel bad and good at the same time. I really like sparring, but I want to get my butt kicked at least once a night, you know? That's how you grow. That's how you get tough. You got to get tough, you know? Any advice. Sorry for writing a book about this.

I can certainly understand Blade96's frustration. One thing about the McDojo I belong to: no one seems particularly favored. In class tonight, I noticed there is absolutely no favoritism at all, and I would have thought, just by virtue of the fact that the adolescent 2nd and 3rd dans had been training there for at least three years, that some kind of relationship would have developed. I mean, just seeing the same people all the time would seem to lead to some kind of--something. And yet the head instructor, the co-owner, the master, doesn't seem to like them any more than she likes us. People show up, class is conducted, and people go home. It's kind of cold. But I know that in the long run that will be better than trying to play clique and politics.

Well, let me ask you this, then: do you think there is anything that makes one person better than another?

I talk about my Taekwondo training openly. How can anything be such a big part of one's life and yet be that which they are ashamed to display openly? Having said that, most people don't ask, so I don't go out of my way to tell them about that which they could never understand.

Well, I'm glad to see my topic has reduced people (or elevated them) to Boolean algebra. Surely that gives my point of view some validity.

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their opinion on this topic. It's an important topic to me. One day, I would like to write something on this topic, and I appreciate everyone helping me to focus my opinion on the matter. To sum up, I would say, from my perspective, that nobility is real. We know it when we see it. Noble classes or castes, on the other hand, are false and built upon the perception of others. We can choose to be noble, but we can't choose whether or not we are in a noble caste. Others put us there. To the masses, a black belt is considered to be in a warrior caste within society. It's a type of nobility. You may not think this is true, but the proof is out there whether it be a kid who idealizes the martial arts or the black belt him- or herself who would never give up their status. The social caste, which I call a warrior caste, does exist in the collective minds of society. The individual can choose to accept that and try to meet societies expectations of their noble caste by being truly noble (and in fact, most martial artists expect and hope their black belts will act nobly), or they can be anti-social and ruin socieities expectations (e.g., a bully black belt, a pedophile preist, a mean nurse, a doltish college graduate, etc.). These are the conculsions I've come to on the subject.

Well, there are the things we say, and the things we do. Try asking someone with a degree to rip up that piece of paper. Try asking someone with a black belt to surrender it and move to the back of the class with a white belt. Or for that matter, try getting anyone to even give up their identity as a black belt or an educated person. I notice you conveniently wrote, "The impression that those of us who are dan holders do not value our rank...[emphasis added by me]" I'm not criticizing this at all. All I'm pointing out is that you were going to make sure we knew you were a black belt. And that's my point. It is a caste you belong to. It may be all perception, but that's what castes are to begin with--perception. True.

I hear you. And I think there are three definitions of "noble." The first is a royal caste that one is born into. But that definition isn't a very important one these days. And it flies in the face of the second, most popular definition of the word which is that "nobility" is having a supreme character: brave, compassionate, indominable, just, righteous, courteous, well-educated, well-mannered, etc. The third definition is that nobility is a better class of persons that one belongs to. And that could be just about anything. I find it interesting that many of the people in here, all of you actually except me, think so lowly of the black belt in martial arts, and yet, I'll bet it's something so valuable to you that you would never give it up--ever. It's just like the educated class of people. You might hear them say a college degree is just something to put on a resume, but they would never, ever give it up. And anyone with a bachelors degree would immediately correct anyone who said, don't you have an associate degree? And a black belt would consider his or her honor at stake if anyone suggested they should wear a green belt to class from now on. People on the street may scoff at having a black belt, but they only do so out of jealousy. And that jealousy is the proof of the nobility of the black belt institution. Just like in the educated class: anyone without a degree who scoffs at one who has a degree is looked at as a low and pathetically jealous creature. In the end, it's not the black belt, or the person wearing it who makes the nobility. It's other people who put them on a pedestal. Later, when I'm a black belt, my argument will be something like this: Since we are put into a noble class, we should act as if we were. I.e., honor, dignity, truthfulness, bravery, indominability, compassion, wisdom, etc.

The point of the story was not to show that I was noble. I may have been unclear, but the point was that the child values the samurai class. The child values superheroes, like on the stickers.

A noble person and a noble class or caste are not the same thing. Mr. Pedoblubber belongs to the noble class of black belt level martial artists, but doesn't seem to be a particularly noble character. That's not unusual. There are princes and princesses who do not uphold a noble character, even though they belong to a noble class. Any person can act with nobility. They can be disciplined, brave, educated, honorable, kind, compassionate, just, righteous, rich, what have you, but that doesn't mean they are in a noble class of people. That class is something society invents, and it seems to me that the basic castes in the Western World, are the religious, educated, celebrity, political, wealthy/royal, and the warrior. I believe we typically put within the warrior caste the soldier, the police officer, the fire fighter, and yes, the black-belt level martial artist.

I will say this much: last night at Taekwondo certainly challenged my ideas about black belts and nobility. But only to modify it. We have this one instructor who's fiftyish, wears a nasty-looking beard and is grossly overweight. And I don't mean heavy, I mean sloppy, gut-flopping-over fat. He looks like crap when he does any technique, and when he instructs, not only does he allow the teens to talk, but engages them and joins in. It was so bad last night during warm up that the senior student actually took it upon himself to give the commands, lest we all stayed lying on our stomachs while the instructor chatted with whoever was having a verbal outburst at the time. The instructor didn't even seem to notice the class had been mercifully taken over by the senior student. And the senior student? A seventeen year-old 4th dan who's in the final stages of acceptance to the Air Force Academy. Very polite to me and my wife, very knowledgable, and apparently more disciplined than that particular instructor. As a psych nurse on an adolescent unit, believe me, I am refreshed to see teenagers like that in the world. So, I would say nobility involves discipline, for sure. And as a side note. Fiftyish fat guys with beards who get too familiar with underage people, like they want to be "in" with them always creeps me out. Call it professional experience.

Only the responsible can be blamed Only the competent are ridiculed for failure Only the righteous deserve examination Only the great are worth personal attack Therefore, continue

Well, maybe not to you. But to the outside world it is. I really think that. It may be a ruse, but the noble classes have been fooling people for all of history. Nonetheless, it's never the nobility that makes themselves noble. They don't jump up on a pedastool. Other people put them there. Case in point. I had to draw blood from a 9 year-old, patient in the mental hospital yesterday. For a lab that is. He was afriad of the needle, but when I had stuck him and was collecting the blood, I praised him for being so brave in the face of it and said to him "You must have a Samurai spirit in you." He was a pudgy kid with some serious setbacks in his life, but he was very interested in that notion. He even asked of the blood in the tube if that was Samurai blood. I told him that it was indeed. Then I gave him four stickers with superheroes on them (For some reason that escapes me, the kids in the hospital love those and will do just about anything for them--including getting better!). He loved the notion of the Samurai. He loved the superheros on the stickers. I told him, "When you get older and out of here, you should think about martial arts, being you obviously have a Samurai spirit." He seemed to like that idea quite a lot. So, you see, your black belt (I think you told us you have 45 years in martial arts and run a dojo.) does put you in a noble class, whether you like it or not. You never said you were noble, but that kid would think you are. You'd be a living superhero to him, something worthy of being on a sticker. You can't come down to him from on high (which can save him) unless you are from on high. Does that make any sense at all?

OK. But I want to pick this apart a bit, not to be argumentitive, but simply to arrive at some definition. A firefighter runs into a building to save someone. That's bravery. Brave is how noble people act, but a brave person is not necessarily noble, is this right? A selfless doctor practices for the poor. That's service. A noble person is one who serves, but not all who serve are noble. For example, a run down doctor who can't keep a job in the US due to chronic alcoholism thus goes to serve the poor in a foreign country--not noble. He would have to be a good doctor who has chosen to come down in order to be truly serving. In other words, within the context of medical practice, he would have to be noble first in order to step down to serve in underdeveloped countries. Now, both the individuals above may be noble people, and that may be why they do what they do. But it seems you have only hit on elements of what we find in noble people. So, where does the nobility come from in the first place? What makes a person noble--if there is such a thing. Unfortunately, I can't agree with those who say there's no nobility in martial arts. A person who can force their bodies through the training and end up doing techniques that normal people cannot do, who can behave with discipline, honor, integrity, and humility towards those who are less powerful, who can persevere to the point of black belt or beyond, who develop their wisdom through religious training, who supplement their martial arts with some creative artwork like poetry or painting, etc, who grow into the best of what humanity can be through the constant discipline of the martial arts, who then go on to teach it to younger students--If that's not the actions of nobility, what is? If the person described above is no better than the alcholic loser in the trailer park who fights with their neigbors, abuses their kids, won't work, accumulates petty crime on his rap sheet like a credit card bill, etc, then we live in a cynical, atheistic world where there's no chance for nobility. The kid in that same said trailer park has no way up and out. I realize not everyone deserves a black belt, not everyone who has a black belt is a noble person, but given what a black belt represents to the world, always has represented, I tend to think that perhaps the only noble class to survive into the modern world is in fact the warrior caste, the samurai, the martial artist. Note: I refer to black belts, because in most styles the black belt represents the one who has learned and can perform to the basic level the content of the martial art style.

That sucks. And I know exactly how that goes having been in the military. If I were your instructor, I'd have you keep a journal of your daily training. Then every couple of months you'd send me a video of your Kata for whatever belt (and you would have a video with how the katas should be done). And if your journal was up to date, and your kata looked right, you could be awarded a grade based on that. I did almost my entire B.Sc. through independent study. There should be some kind of true independent study for martial artists.

What about nobility? Don't you think there is any nobility in the martial arts?

Since I spent a large part of my life traveling around the world, I really don't want to go anywhere before I die. If I don't go a hundred miles from my house for the next 40 years, I'll be happy with that. But I would really like to be a well-respected Taekwondo instructor. The best teacher I ever had was in Wado-Ryu, and he was a third degree, so I would like to be a third degree Taekwondo instructor. I would like to develope a psychological approach to pattern training, and maybe write a book about the nobility of the martial artist. That's my bucket.