What a brown belt has learnt
Due to my training partner doing evening bar work to help pay for his mortgage I have found that I haven’t had anyone to train with which meant I have had to help teach.
Now I have helped teach when many of my training partners have been sick/busy/on holiday etc before but that was actually quite rare but more often or not I have been the guy my sensei has used to demonstrate techniques. However, this time I have been teaching properly
Before the beginning of the First World War Great Britain wasn’t a hugely democratic country. Until the 1867 Reform Act most men didn’t have the vote. The Reform Act changed this but women still most certainly weren’t allowed to vote.
We have all been in a situation where no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get a technique right. Even if your instructor or training partner is being very compliant and helpful.
Ok you have been doing martial arts for a while now and gone through the belt system a bit and you are now doing very some very technical techniques which have a some danger to them so you are definitely not a newbie anymore. This means you can handle yourself in a real fight, right?
Netflix recently released the documentary Age of Samurai telling the story of the end of the Sengoku period or Warring States period from 1467 to 1615. The documentary dramatises the story, with commentary from historians, of the rise to power of Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and their eventual unification and control of the whole of Japan.
Most martial arts have a some kind of belt system where you start with either a red or white belt and work your way up possibly following a curriculum and when your instructor thinks you are ready you take a grading exam and you get a different coloured belt until you get to black belt and then you get various degrees of black belt. However, is it needed?
Defence techniques from an attacker carrying a knife is a big thing in martial arts and I have learnt a few of them. However, the reality is that most of them will not help you in a real life situation.
Chi in Chinese or Ki in Japanese is something that you will hear about on social media when it comes to martial arts. But is it real? The answer to that is an annoying absolutely not but well yes.
For me the most important thing in a dojo is respect. Respect for the dojo where you train, respect, for your teacher, the teacher having respect for their students. respect for your training partners, respect for other club members. Showing respect for all these is why we bow at the beginning and end of each training session.
I spend probably too much time on YouTube watching various martial art videos some are good, some are very good and most are terrible. Here is a list of 5 of my favourite martial YouTube channels.
Not Quite A Black Belt