Do you train to win? I don't just mean to 'win' matches. I mean do you train to be a winner, regardless of your record?
Here's the scenario:
If someone were to observe a high school age blackbelt and a high school football player train for their respective sport, would both of be looked upon as training at equal levels for different sports, or would one look like a very casual athlete who trains just to train but does not expect to play any games any time soon?
Here's another scenario:
A student goofs off in practice an misses practices. The instructor makes him do fifty push ups and fifty laps and then bars him from competition for the next month until his attitude improves. Is it the football player or the TKD student?
Five will get you ten that its the football student. I often hear comments made about how much more serious martial arts are taken in China, Japan and Korea, usually while lamenting the state of martial arts in the US. Since beginning martial arts back in the seventies, I have seen students with black belts who cannot even perform a crisp kata or poomse, let alone spar effectively. I've been in class and watched students show up and clown around, goof off, and show week in and week out all the reasons why they should be sent home. I've seen out of shape adults come in and complain that the class was too hard before ever getting to yellow tip.
Yet, I see middle aged men go week in and week out playing softball and football without any issue or complaint about it being too hard. They train at the gym regularly or lift weights at home and run. I see middle school kids work their butts off to make the team, make it, and practice hard and play hard, never complaining that its too hard. A lot of people I know still play football seriously, even though they have day jobs and families. I don't mean that they play on teams and such, but they still practice, play with friends and train regularly. Lastly, I've seen football coaches do things with students that an MA instructor would be sued for, toot sweet.
I think that this is due to the fact that martial arts is as much a part of Asian culture as as football, baseball, and basketball are of US culture. Football coaches can get away with being hard core because football is our country's 'combat sport', not taekwondo. People sign their kids up for football hoping to see them become stars. People sign up their kids for martial arts to give them something physical to do after school before mom and dad get home from work, or perhaps to help a kid fight obesity. Nothing more.
The idea that a martial art is a fighting art and is hard must be striven for and worked hard for must be made more a part of martial arts in the US. Schools need to either qualify their customers before they sign up, or create a martial arts related program for afterschool kids and the cardio crowd that is
distinct from the real class, such as karate camp for the kids or cardio kick boxing for the cardio crowd. In this way, the school can still offer something to these groups of customers while not cheapening the actual instruction in the art. Then, lawsuits and complaints would be less of an issue; only serious and hard core students would make sign up for the real class.
I think that the quality of martial arts would be very much improved here in the states if martial arts meant
martial arts.
Tags: Training Attitude
