Introduction to Blackbelt

I’ve been posted with these questions a lot of times from different people who don’t know about karate.

1.      Is black belt highest in Karate?

2.      How many people you can fight?

3.      Can you break bricks, wood etc..?

4.      Will you able to teach people?

People who practiced karate have different sets of questions or opinions.

1.      How many push-ups/sit ups you can do?

2.      How many forms or katas you know?

3.      How many competitions you participated etc...

This small write-up is to clear those questions with my understanding and experience. There is always mystery about martial arts. Very few masters and grand masters tasted the essence of it. Others got stuck with either their physical strength or ego. Ego is like virus and it is never acceptable for black belt. Typically in almost all styles of karate, new students will start with white belt. They have to practice consistently, sincerely for 4-5 years before reaching a black belt level. The class gives very nice structure to follow and discipline to their character. In that process, their growth will be measured on different belt levels. Students will go through 7-8 levels of growth stages before getting black belt. Each level is denoted by a color belt which signifies the understanding, experience of techniques, overall balance of oneself and responsibility to maintain that knowledge and experience. An instructor or master will measure the growth of the students at different levels and give them the necessary inputs, training to make them to grow to next level. In this process, the emotions, behaviors, physical and mental stamina of the students will be thoroughly tested and refined to make them overall balanced human beings. This is the art of man-making or character building which helps the students to meet the real life challenges with courage and clarity.

It’s such a beautiful system where the student will know each step of his/her growth. Typically, in our normal educational system we train our intellect to understand/dissect things. Most of the time, we neglect our body and emotions. Hence, it leads to imbalanced way of living. We remain handicapped if our emotions shoot up. We take pills if our body aches. If we give proper awareness to our mind, body and spirit, we can eliminate most of these complications in our life. It will help us to understand who we are, rather than spending all our energy to prove to the society about how we are perceived. The profound sense of self worthiness will flourish and we can develop a deeper appreciation for life.

In our day-to-day life, most of the time we operate out of memory, our minds are busy with something and we don’t pay attention to what we do. This greatly affects the quality of our living. The art helps us to break this pattern and keep us real. Being real and paying attention to life lessons will help us to gain the wisdom in life. This wisdom is more precious like a diamond which will greatly enhances our quality of our living.

Being a black belt and wearing a black belt are two different things. Being black belt will reflect in all walks of our life. It’s a different caliber or high class in character.  Here are some of the composites of that character.

1.      He is very structured and disciplined.

2.      He stand up for himself and for others.

3.      He always maintain high level of respect for himself and others.

4.      He loves and cares for everybody. His love is his choice and not bound by other’s behaviors.

5.      He is pretty committed to himself and his people.

6.      He sees people beyond their emotions and look for the best in them and will try to bring that out.

7.      He will see the real life situations as it is without any emotions and dissect them.

8.      He is strong and humble.

9.      He is truthful, honest and straightforward.

10.   He is very patient and tolerant.

11.   He carries himself very well with high level of balance between mind, body and spirit.

12.   He is very attentive in all his actions and conversations.

13.   He choose not live in fear or anger.

14.   He is aware of his emotions and lead his life with logical mind or consciousness.

15.   He is unselfish and always look for everybody to win in a situation.

16.   He keeps himself in better place and lift his people to a better place if they wish to.

17.   He values integrity over money, status, posts etc.

18.   He believes in himself and the existence.

19.   He always look forward to learn from people and life.

20.   He remain strong, clear and positive in dealing with life challenges.

21.   He shares his best and wishes the best to everybody.

22.   His strength, his presence will comfort his people.

23.   He is unmoved within himself but can move at his will.

24.   He is calm, serene and peaceful but if the situation demands, he will step up and deal with whatever it takes.

25.   He will not allow anybody to do any foolishness with his life. But he understands, accept people for who they are and respect their choices for their life.

26.   He is highly dependable and trustworthy.

27.   If he makes mistake, he will apologize and correct it as quickly as possible. He will not beat himself. Once he learns better, he will do better.

28.   He values his time, his energy and his life. He doesn’t indulge in any foolish or negative conversations.

29.   He doesn’t give excuses. He gets things done.

30.   He will not worry about the future. He stay disciplined, clear and let the life unfold.

31.   He will not allow anybody to question his existence in this world. He believes his existence is more meaningful here.

32.   He will always appreciate what he got in his life.

33.   He always look at the big picture in life and act accordingly.