Perseverance is NOT for Kids

One of the things that I encourage parents to do is stay in the room when class is in session. There are several reasons for this: they can help their child practice at home, they can reinforce the message of the day, they can help their child with an assignment, and more.

What parents do not understand is that they too are being trained. I do not think, I know, that a lot of parents have never heard of my DAGPAW success concept before (some have through word of mouth, most have not).

The most profound thing about my DAGPAW concept is that it is GUARANTEED TO WORK!

That being the case, why do so many of my students do not get the things that they want out of life? The answer is that some parents’ guidance is limited to their convenience.

I know myself. I know that some of the things that I talk to kids about are higher than their comprehension levels. I also know two other things: the first is through repetition hard things become easier; the second is that everything that I talk about the adults in the room understand. That is why I encourage them to stay in the room. So that they can hear the message and reinforce it.

There is not a parent on god’s green earth that does not want their child to succeed in life. There are, however, millions of parents that do not have the tools: discipline and patience to guide their child to succeed. The operative word here is GUIDE. Success does not happen overnight, it takes years. You must stick with it.

I can not tell you how many times I ask a parent if their child is practicing at home, they respond by saying, “I can’t get him/her to practice” or “I told him to, but they won’t do it.” The result is that the parent allows their child to quit because they see that their child is not showing signs of developing and quitting takes the pressure off the parent.

Parents are like their child’s crystal ball. They know what the future holds for kids that fail. They see it every day in low-income people. If you could put your finger on the single reason low-income people are low income, it would be that they do not understand DAGPAW concepts.

Here is something that all parents agree on, “time flies.” From the time that your child is born to its fifth birthday seems like a blink of an eye to every parent. The time that you first hear about DAGPAW and your child’s ability to reap the rewards from it will also feel like a blink of an eye, but you must stick with it.

There is a multitude of reasons why your child may not want to continue karate: boredom, disenchantment, relocation, etc.

There is no reason your child should not continue using the principles of DAGPAW their entire lives. At this point, you may be saying, “that’s true, but I do not know what I am doing or how to implement it.” All problems can be solved. Here is the solution purchase my book, study it, reinforce what is said in class, and most importantly persevere. My goal is to make every child that I meet a success. Please help me help you.

DAGPAW Means Success: A Parent's Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child From Home Paperback – January 1, 2018

$14.99

May you have everything that you want and want everything that you have.

MB

Is Karate Just for Kids?

Based on all of the marketing messages that you hear about Martial Arts: Good grades, Self-esteem, Self-confidence, Leadership skills, Personal responsibility, etc. That the sport is solely for kids, but what is the value of this grand sport for Adults…

Let me tell you!

            Most people do not know that martial arts were invented as a form of exercise. In truth, it is the world’s first organized exercise program. It was invented in the Shaolin Providence of China where Buddhist Monks emulated the movements of five animals: the crane, the leopard, the snake, the dragon, and the tiger. The exercises, though not scientific, increased strength, flexibility, endurance, and stamina at the time it was called Kung Fu. Kung Fu is a term that means, disciplined actions of the mind and body and has nothing to do with fighting.

Because of their invention, the quality of the monks' lives improved, and they started to live longer and function better as they age.

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE:

            As time passed the rulers of China, Korea, and Japan recognized the inherent personal safety elements of the exercises and incorporated them into their militaries thus the term “martial art” was created. Martial art means military way and like the name insinuates and abundance of discipline was added to the exercise routines. Ever so slowly, people began taking martial arts to learn how to fight instead of taking it for exercise like it was created for.

            By the time martial arts made its way to the shores of America, it was thought of exclusively to learn how to protect oneself. Schools sprang up throughout the country promoting martial arts to stay safe from personal injury.

            Unbeknownst to the pioneers of martial arts for business and profit the market for personal safety was extremely small and studios were hard-pressed to remain solvent and open.

Nick Cokinas and Art Linkletter:

            Jhoon Rhee “The Father of American Tae Kwon Do” was looking for a way to keep his studios solvent and open. One of the businesses saving things that he did was invent safety gear (hand pads, footpads, headgear, etc.) and sold it to studios across the nation. Studios of all types began to realize an increase in revenue based on the sale of equipment.

            The other profound thing that he did was enlist the aid and assistance of a man named Nicholas Cokinas from Potomac Maryland. Cokinas owned and operated a chain of “Art Linkletter’s Rot and Tot” play studios for children. Under Cokinas’ direction and guidance, Jhoon Rhee changed the marketing strategy for martial arts from promoting fighting and violence to promoting better grades through discipline, improved confidence, and all the other “buss words” that are currently inherent to martial arts marketing.

             Though Cokinas was instrumental to the financial growth of the Jhoon Rhee Institute and was guided by a contract between Rhee and himself to not give his business advice to competing studios in the D.C. area, the contract did not extend beyond its borders. Nick began to travel the country teaching instructors of all styles how to copy the Jhoon Rhee model. Not only did he teach studio managers how to market, but he also taught them what to say when the phone rang, how to teach an introductory class, and how to sign new students up. For his service, he took twenty percent of all tuition generated which he controlled by having students sign a payment contract that was managed through his “Educational Funding Co.” in Bethesda Maryland. Within a short amount of time, virtually every martial arts studio in America had begun marketing exclusively for children.

THE MODERN ERA

            When I began training in martial arts (fifty-four years ago) training was brutal. There were busted knuckles, broken bones, black eyes, and more. Instructors would brag about how they had ten new students sign up and only two remaining after the first month. The dropout rate was huge. Nowadays a lot of martial arts instructors were not fighters and do not push their students to engage in it. Today’s martial arts instructors n that martial arts offer a variety of subject matter, other than fighting, that adult students may be interested in. they also understand that martial arts workouts offer physical and mental benefits that other sports do not. With the advent of personal instructors (a new industry and sign of the times) savvy instructors like myself have taken a class in anatomy and physiology to help us to better explain the impact that a martial arts workout has on an adult body.

During the winter session of 2022, I will be writing a series of blogs about martial arts and the adult body. I hope that I can persuade you to give martial arts workouts a try. Look for our next blog.

 May you have everything that you want and want everything that you have.

MB

Is DAGPAW NONSENSE?

If you do not know by now DAGPAW is the acronym that I use to describe the six necessary skills that one needs to acquire ANYTHING that the mind can think of. It stands for Discipline, A’s & B’s, Goal setting and accomplishment skills, Perseverance, Attitude, and Work Ethic.

I invented the word and started teaching its concepts in my classes ten years ago. There is not a class that I teach, even to preschoolers, that I do not find an opportunity to dispel its value. Yet, (I could be wrong but) I feel strongly that if left to their own devices ninety-nine percent of the parent of the children that I teach would not reinforce my teachings at home, and I am positive that children who do not continue to black belt level of the curriculum turn their back on it as soon as they leave.

Statistically speaking, ninety-five percent of all students who start class with me quit before they reach the black belt level. It seems to me that the influence of DAGPAW allow should be enough to motivate parents to see the program through, but like I said ninety-five percent drop.

So, I ask the question, is DAGPAW nonsense?

When I was eighteen and, in the Army, I found myself doing a stint at Fort Belvoir Army Base in Alexandria VA. Before then, I was a ghetto brat who went to school with cardboard in his shoes to protect my feet from the elements in rain and snow. We were so poor that there were times when the entire family shared one (1) egg for dinner. My mother used to send us to school in the summertime so that we could get breakfast and lunch (when there was no more food to be offered during the day my brothers and I would simply go back home not to class).

I joined the Army to escape that life and hopefully make something of myself (I did not know what because there were no role models that I gravitated to).

Alexandria was like another planet to me. Fort Belvoir is right at Mount Vernon and the GW parkway so I would bike down the trail toward town on my days off. As I was biking, I could not believe the land, homes, gardens, cars, boats, and general wealth that was available to people who were lucky enough to be successful, and I silently mourned to myself for being unlucky enough to be born to a woman who had no idea of how to help me acquired such things.

As time passed my natural gifts (and a lot of luck) were able to help me get to a station of life that I never could have dreamed of.

Once I “made it to the top” I committed myself to help kids like myself find a way to fulfill their dreams and get the things that they desire on of life, so I changed my style of teaching and I even wrote a book about how parents can guarantee their child’s success, but so far after a little more than ten years I can count the success stories from my labors on one hand (figuratively speaking).

Intellectually, I know that there is not a parent on the planet that does not want their child to do better than them, yet it is kind of like the “Forest for the tree” metaphor where a hunter is told that he will find his next meal in the forest, and he quips that he cannot find the forest because there are too many trees around.

In this case, the keys to a parent’s child’s success are in DAGPAW yet very few use them because they are too busy looking elsewhere or do not have the time, desire, or patients it takes to make the system work. Am I right? Is that it? Or is DAGPAW nonsense?

If it is not, it is not too late. This coming year let us commit to buckling down and making the system work. Do not do it for me, do it for your kid.

Here is my two-person recommended plan for the upcoming year:

1. I will continue working with your child with my DAGPAW program.

2. You, purchase one of my DAGPAW books to give you more insight on what is going on and reinforce what your child is learning at home. It is a double whammy! I look forward to collaborating with you.

The holiday season is close upon us, my book will make a great gift to friends of yours with children or who might be thinking about having children.

DAGPAW Means Success: A Parent's Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child From Home Paperback – January 1, 2018

$14.99

WCRB Karate - A Return to Dawson

It seems like an eternity but it’s almost over.  We will be offering a summer session beginning this July. Although there will still be some distance rules in effect we will be doing our best to provide kids with an opportunity to have fun, grow, and develop their martial arts skills.

Under normal circumstances, our primary goal is to instill in kids the six skills necessary to become a success. Although we will still be doing that, the summer session will be used to make up for lost interaction with their karate friends. Here is a short list of fun things that we will be doing in class and at the end of the session:

• Class challenge matches

• Award (badge) contests

• Fitness challenges

• End of session picking

• End of session intramural and more

Click Here to sign up directly

The session is scheduled to start after the 4th of July. Information on how to sign up can be found in the Parks and Recreation “Enjoy Arlington “ Guide.

 Click Here to sign up directly and Arlington Offered Scholarships.

              Space is limited. Don’t wait to sign up today.

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At WCRB Karate DAGPAW is the acronym we use to instill the six skills necessary to be a success, it stands for: Discipline, A's & B's, Goal Setting, Perseverance, Attitude, and Work Ethic. During this beginner session we will be concentrating on self-discipline. Here are some of the things your child will take away from the session: An understanding and use of proper classroom etiquette. How to be courteous when others around them are not. How to play safe. How to follow through on instruction unsupervised. How to use self-restrain. How to use maximum focused attention when educators are talking. How to be respectful even when no one is watching. How and when to say NO to peer pressure. How to keep defiance under control plus board breaking, weapons, sparring, and Bully proofing. Uniforms and other safety equipment are necessary for the class and can be purchased from the instructor. Please email wcrbkarate@aol.com. Having discipline is not only important for older kids, studies show that, the younger a child is exposed to it the more receptive they are to applying it. At WCRB we don't just talk about success, we produce it!

Concentration Station is the point between our Karate Beginner program kid's karate full structure format. Get introduced to discipline, structure and concentration in a fun and challenging way. The curriculum is divided into five progressive mentally challenging parts. Once a student has mastered a station, they can then move on to a more challenging station. Students must have completed Karate Jamboree before registering for this program.

Help your child stay involved in karate and continue his or her development in self-confidence, concentration, goal setting, perseverance, self-defense, self-discipline, responsibility, personal management, pride and a strong work ethic! For students wishing to advance to the next belt level, uniform and other equipment is required for an additional fee.

From Poverty to Financial Security The Story Of How Goal Setting Improved My Life

(See if you can guess what’s wrong with this real-life story.)

In 1973, I got out of the U.S. Army without a pot to pee in. I was twenty-one years old and didn’t have a marketable skill. I knocked around with a few jobs trying to find myself: maintenance man at “Kings Garden Apartments in Alexandria on route 1; mail clerk in Crystal City; laborer on a Construction site in Alexandria to name a few.

Before I got out of the Army, in Fort Belvoir, VA, I used to ride a bus from the base into D.C. twice a week to go to the “Jow Ga Kung Fu studio on sixth and H st N.W. On the bus on my way to Washington, I would pass a karate studio, (Roberts Karate in Alexandria on route one).

At the time, I was known as a “Ronin” in martial arts terms a masterless Samaria. I felt that martial arts was my destiny, but I couldn’t find the style that gave me what I was looking for. Mainly because at the time I didn’t know. I just knew that I would know when I found it, so I jumped around from style to style earning black belts as I went along.

So far, I had acquired a black belt in “Japanese Gojukai karate” under Joseph Lopez in New York, and a Black belt in “Jow Ga Kung Fu” under Sifu Dean China in Washington D.C.

As a child, I grew up fighting and had a certain addiction to it as a means of settling disputes. Both Gojukai and Kung Fu were interesting styles that had certain elements of attraction, but neither style promoted tournament participation. In fact, both systems dealt heavily with theory and hypothesis. They set up scenario after scenario of if this happens to do these routines. Which were okay but left you yearning for opportunities to satisfy your desire to wander off in the real world. How would it feel and how would I do it, much like pleasuring yourself vs experiencing sex for the very first time.

I knew, from a friend,  that Roberts Karate encouraged going to open tournaments and I wanted to do them, so I quit Kung fu and joined my first Tae Kwon Do style of martial arts. I started my Tae Kwon Do experience as a green belt, because, in those days, schools did not recognize degrees from other styles. As a green belt, I entered a Tournament competition and was on my way to earning a name for myself.

 After a few months at “Roberts Karate”, I earned my black belt. Not because it was easy but because I had a lot of transferable experience from the other styles.

 Martial arts in those days did not have any opportunities to earn a living doing it. In fact, most instructors had full-time jobs doing other things and taught karate as a “side hustle”. Even the Master Instructor, James K. Roberts, worked on a construction site during the day and taught classes at night when he got off.

In Person Classes are BACK! CLICK HERE and SIGN UP with Arlington County (Page 4 and 5)

Back then, the NEW trend was to pay cash to the grand champion winner of the tournament to maximize its participation.

In tournament competition I found myself and suddenly knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life; I wanted to become a superstar in an industry that was just getting started. An industry where  practitioners couldn’t afford to quit their day jobs and earn enough money to keep a roof over their head (Nice work 😔. Clearly, my decision-making skills needed work, but I was alone without a family and thought, “You’ll never have another chance like this in your life, GO FOR IT!”)

My First experience setting financial goals:

At twenty-one years of age, I talked Mr. Roberts into letting me live in his studio ( where he would lock me in at night). I trained all day every day, went to tournaments on the weekends, and won a few hundred dollars an event to live on. I was on my way. I purposely put myself in a “ sink or swim” situation to accomplish my goal of being able to make a living in an industry that was in its infancy. (I would grow as it grew, or go under with it.)

Here is the problem:

Martial arts had taught me goal setting and accomplishment without me knowing it. Although I was able to get what I wanted (to become a professional martial artist)out of martial arts, I did not do it consciously. There was no “action plan” or “time frame” I simply went forward on gut instinct. To this day I wonder what my life would have been like if my parents had instilled the goal-setting concept into me at an early age.

I salute all of you for taking the steps to ensure your child’s success.

MB

Spare The Rod, Kill The Child

They say, “Experience is the best teacher”;

Don’t let my experience happen to you.

 A few days before my son’s twenty-first birthday he committed suicide by jumping off the roof of an eleven-story building. Thus, becoming a casualty of an extremely unhealthy divorce and child-raising style.

 When my ex-wife and I first met we did what everyone does; we let love lead the way in a lot of our initial bonding decisions. It never dawned on us to discuss matters that would impact our lives in profound ways before they happened: marriage, religion, child-raising, etc. All we knew is that we wanted to be in each other’s arms forever, and so after about six months of passionate romance, we rush off and got married.

 (Actually, it was not exactly like that… She was a German resident who wanted to become an American citizen and asked for my help. The marriage was only supposed to last for a certain amount of time and then, if I wanted, we could revert to being just lovers and friends. The longer we stayed together, the more I liked her, and we committed solidly to the marriage.)

Not once did a discussion of disciplinary styles come up (even though it was not a matter of style that killed our son, it was something else). Eight years into the marriage we decided that it was time to have children (so all our decisions were not rash and impulsive). On September 15, 1987, we brought a boy child into the world, that is when the trouble began.

Our child disciplinary tactics stood in stark contrast to one another; she was …

It couldn’t have been my child’s fault that what happened, there must be a mistake kind of person, and I was an if the facts demonstrate that he did it, then he did it! Kind of person.

I made the mistake of allowing her to lead in most instances in deciding whether our son needed to be disciplined or not and in short, because in her mind, nothing was ever his fault for the first five years of his life there was no need for him to be disciplined.

At first, I did not see a problem with supporting a family member from the perceived, hostility of others. I even jumped on board for a brief period: Once, when my son was about six, there was a knock on our door early one evening. When I opened the door there was a man and his eight-year-old daughter standing there. The man launched into a tirade about how my son punched his daughter in the stomach and that he wanted something to be done about it. I, and my ex-wife, listened politely. When he was done, I closed the door, looked at my son, did not say a word, and continued doing what I was doing. My ex hugged him and promised not to let the bad man bother us again. That was one of several growing instances where we did not take appropriate action and hold my son accountable.

A few months after that incident, I received a call from my ex.   She wanted me to go to my son’s school and attend to an issue involving our son because she had gotten a call from the Vice Principal.

When I got to the school my son was in the Vice Principal’s office with the Vice Principal. The Vice Principal asked me to have a seat and told me how my son had hit another child in his stomach (a pattern was beginning to develop). I listened patiently took custody of my son and told him that I would take care of it.

I do not believe in corporal punishment, but I do believe in fear. When I got my son home, I took off my belt, hit it in the palm of the opposite hand that I was holding it in, and said, “If I EVER get a call like that again I was going to spank him” and sent home up to his bedroom to think about his behavior.

When my wife came home, she when upstairs to where my son was. (I could hear crying and tearful talking.) When she came downstairs, she had my son in tow, she walked right up to me and excoriated me in from of him for threatening to spank him. The next day, she stayed home from work, and the three of us went down to the school to see the Vice Principal, before he could open his mouth, she let him have it. “How dare he blame her child for the acts of another, etc.etc.” Soon after that (and because of it), we divorced, and it got worse and worse.

By the time, my son was nineteen my ex had, not just protected him but never once disciplined for brushes with the police, intimidating his sister, and violently dominating their living environment (punching holes in walls and breaking lamps and tables in an argument, that kind of thing).

He was completely out of control. Once while I was out of town, he came by my house, against my instructions, got into a fistfight with my new wife, and they both wound up in jail. In court, I attempted to get the judge to do what I was unable to do and discipline him by forcing the entire group of us into counseling.

Two days before we were all supposed to go to counseling, he threw his last tantrum and killed himself by jumping off a building. By not doing the right thing by him at an early age (hold him responsible for his actions and punish him when necessary) my wife and I killed him with our inaction.

We live in a generation that hates punishment: When I was a child I grew up in a “to spare the rod, spoil the child” environment. We received spankings for just about everything and from everybody.

At that time not only did your parents spank us, but other people did as well: schoolteacher, pastor, neighbor, everybody. We hated it so much that we swore that we would never spank our children went we grew up.

While that is an okay position to have, and I agree with, it seems that we, as a society, have swung too far to the other side and do not reprimand our kids harshly for anything. We have adopted a ONE SIZE FITS ALL mentality that is not suited for all children.

Sometimes you must put your foot down and insist that your child toes the line and does what you tell them, and if your child is the kind of child that only responds to a light spanking, so be it. It must be done “in the best interest of the child”.

In the end, I would like to say that good parenting is not following in the footsteps of someone else or doing what you FEEL is right. To get the result that you want and keep your child safe, you must do what is necessary.   Before giving me a spanking, my mother used to say, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you”. At the time I did not know what she meant, now I do. It meant that spanking me was not what she wanted to do, it was what she had to do.

Thank you for your support, referrals, and recommendations. May you have everything that you want and want everything that you have.

—- MB

The Helpless Child

              Not too long ago, after a class, I approached a parent and informed them that their child was falling behind in class. Their response was, “I can’t get him to practice. I keep asking him to and he won’t do it.”

               Two weeks ago, a parent asked me if her child could test and move to the “Intermediate / Advanced Class” because her child is getting bored. (Her child is a No-belt who has been with me for two twelve-week sessions). I said, “Your child is getting better at the basics, but he still doesn’t know the “Student Pledge”.  In front of his mother, I told the child that he could not earn ANY rank or move forward until he learned the pledge. In front of her, he promised that he would memorize it.

               Yesterday, I asked the child to start the class by reciting the “Student Pledge”. He could not because he still did not know it. In both of those instances instead of the children being made to do something, the children could choose not to do it. (Before you get “bent out of shape” about the phrase “made to do something” understand this, made does not mean brutalized, it means being sat down and told why it is important to keep the commitment they made.)

A new beginner class started at the beginning of January 2021; I had twelve children sign up. Of the twelve children that signed up, I have four still coming (a drop of two thirds).

  I wish that I could blame the drop on something other than what it is, a lack of child supervision and parental support, but the fact is currently children are placed in a “sink or swim, you’re on your own” situation more times than not by their parents.  What triggered the exodus was my insisting that everyone learns the student pledge by a certain date.

Interestingly, this is not a new phenomenon. In the eighties, when I asked a young girl why her Mather was not signing her “To Do List” on the back of her “Class Card” she responded by saying, “My mom says that she doesn’t have time for this and won’t sign it.”

This is not to say that her mother did not want the best for her, all parents do. The problem, though, is that adults are overwhelmed with other stuff and do not have additional time to help their child participate in a sport. So, most children are left to fend for themselves.

The problem is that martial arts is not a sport, it is a way of life. In other words, if a child is to do well in martial arts, he/she must take what they are learning and use it in their day-to-day lives, things like courtesy, respect, discipline etc.

 Here is a comparable example of how martial arts works and a reality check! Back in the eighties, I thought that it would be a great idea to have a dog. As luck would have it, a friend of mine’s pit bull had just had a litter.

At first, I was apprehensive about having a pit bull because of their reputation of aggressive behavior, but I was assured that that was not, really, the case with pit bulls. In fact, most pit bulls, in the right environment, grow up to be sweet, lovable, loyal dogs that will do anything for its owner. What sold me was when I was made to realize that the dog “Petey” from “The Little Rascals” kids show was a pit bull. I took ownership of one of my friend’s dog’s litter.

After a few months (when the dog was old enough) my wife and I decided to get the dog trained to make sure that the dog would grow up to be obedient. It did not take us long, once we hired a trainer, to realize that the trainer was not really training the dog, she was training my wife and me.  She would come to our house at the established time, get my wife and I together in the same room and teach us how to teach the dog.

Martial arts children training is conducted in the exact same way. In reality, parents are taught how to teach their children.

 Back then my wife and I took offense to what the dog trainer was doing because in our minds we thought that she would come by, train the dog, and after a few weeks leave us with the finished product; we had no idea of how involved we would have to be.

In the martial arts universe parents have the same unrealistic mindset and expectation.

We not only stopped the lessons, but we also stopped working with the dog. In the end, he grew up to be too aggressive, and we had to have him put down. Till this day, I am sorry for what we did to that dog; are you doing the same thing to your child?

Martial Arts is not a magic potion that you give to someone, encourage them to drink it, and get the results that you desire, you must make it work! More specifically, adults must reinforce the things that the instructor teaches a child at home.

 In my book: DAGPAW Means Success A Parent’s Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child At Home, in the discipline passage I take great pains to point out that discipline is environmental. You cannot have a child go to class and be exposed to discipline, then come home and be allowed to run amok and expect them to, somehow, be disciplined. It does not work that way. They must learn about discipline in class, then come home to a disciplined environment for it to root itself.

That means that the parent must create a disciplined environment for the child to exist in. In other words, parents must help their child get from martial arts what they want their child to get, unfortunately a lot of parents have a “here, you deal with him!” approach to seeking help from a professional.

 Question: If children are unaware of their parent’s desire for them, why are so many of them expected to obtain the benefit that their parent wants without help from their parent?

It’s a recipe for disaster!  Being a parent is hard work! It means that you must be willing to give your child, at any given moment, your most valuable commodity: time.            

Children make decisions based on whether they are having fun or not; a lot of adults make decisions about what their child can do based on convenience.

When I taught seminars at Elementary Schools in Arlington to auditoriums full of children one of the things that I would try to impress upon them was that the first twenty years of life are the most important, because those are the years that they arm themselves with the skills necessary to be a success. In reality, no amount of talking to a child will bring about the desired effect of acquiring necessary skills to get the things that they will want when they grow up. They need to be guided and supervised by a parent at home where they spend two thirds of their time or more each day.

 I would like to take a moment to thank all of you readers for your support and your loyalty. Without you, I would not have been able to survive the pandemic. May you have everything that you want and want everything that you have.

 —- MB

The Karate Pattern

Why it is a teacher’s most potent training tool.

    When I was first introduced to martial arts I was fourteen years old (53 years ago). Because of the structure of teaching (students were trained and encouraged to administer techniques to opponents with lethal consequences) children were forbidden to practice it. Because I was big for my age and lied about how old I was, I was allowed to become a student.

    The instruction was brutal. I had to spend hours on the Makiwara Board (a wooden post embedded in the floor with eight inches of bloody twine rope wrapped around the top of it (the blood came from people punching it))punching the rope to build calcium on the knuckles. The calcium buildup was to help you break through the protective barrier of an attacker wearing bamboo armor.       

    The then practitioner's mindset was to harden one's body and mind to be able to survive in the inevitability of war. Instructors back then did not concern themselves with the feelings, emotions, or pain that students underwent only that they were made mentally and physically tough. With that in mind instructors (the good ones) would brutalize their students by doing things like asking them to lie down on the floor and jump on their stomach, and then surprise hit them with a bamboo stick making a welt and bleed when they were performing patterns, have them hold another student seated on their shoulders while they did hundreds of kick and more. 

   An exasperating aspect of the class was that the instructor's English was limited so that other American-born students learned mostly by following his lead instead of articulations, which made it impossible to understand why we did things. Patterns were taught as a way to catalog useful techniques and sequences in hand-to-hand combat. 

   With time, martial arts instruction and teaching grew into what we know is a highly well-thought-out process of delivery of an application for self-defense and a one-of-a-kind exercise program. This brings me to today’s subject of the hidden benefits of the karate pattern.  

When the old masters happened upon something, they did not concern themselves with how it works; their process was more like, it works, good, keep it, and let’s move on. On the other hand, today’s instructors (at least most of us) concern ourselves with why it works so that we can better serve the needs of our students.

    As I stated earlier, initially patterns were taught as a way of cataloging sequences of moves that are useful in a self-defense situation at a student's level of proficiency. Until recently even, I did not comprehend the incredible benefits that are derived from performing a pattern. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

  Increased concentration:

Martial arts moves (though not complicated) are foreign to the body. (They are not things that we do in an average day.) Couple that with the fact that martial arts in general forces your body to operation counter-intuitively. When we walk we naturally have an opposite hand and foot stride which keeps us balanced. In martial arts when we perform lunge punches and other similar attacks we change our stride from opposite foot and hand to same foot and hand. Functioning in this way is very coordination demanding and takes a lot of concentrated effort. Additionally, students have to remember which way to turn, how many steps to take, and what technique they should be doing.

 Spatial awareness: 

Martial arts students are required to end a pattern in the same place where they started. When they end a pattern they should be within an inch (no more) of the place they began. To do this they must become acutely aware of their surroundings: doors, walls, pictures, other people, etc. Students must concentrate intently on their surroundings and know at all times where they are in relationship to those things. This is especially useful to young children who may become separated from an adult on a trip to somewhere they’ve never been.             

 Improved coordination: 

When performing patterns techniques are thrown in groups or bunches. Because of the unusual variety of techniques: punches, kicks, chops, elbows, turns, etc. it takes a lot of coordination to do a pattern. An interesting thing about the coordination that it takes to do a pattern is, because students are constantly, improving their coordination as they develop by the time that they get to advanced patterns that take more coordination they are easy for a student to do.

Here is a fun fact: Exposure to patterns to improve coordination is the number one reason that professional athletes from other sports do martial arts in their off-seasons.

 Improved mental clarity through oxygen build-up:  

   Patterns are anabolic workouts that increase your metabolism and force the performer to breathe heavily while doing it. Breathing heavily for sustained periods causes your body to take in an abundance of oxygen which is carried to the brain and promotes clarity of thought. Currently, medical specialists are looking at this aspect of doing patterns to assist the elderly to retain memory.

Improved strength through oxygen build-up:

   When working strenuously muscles demand more oxygen. Oxygen is to a muscle what gasoline is to a car, fuel. Because performing patterns make the practitioner breathe heavily for sustained periods muscles can absorb more oxygen which equates to greater strength and longer endurance.

True story: Not long ago (at age 67), I noticed that the tune and texture of my muscles were beginning to deteriorate. I decided to lift weights to retard the process. I had always been, rather, beefy and assumed that after a short period in the gym I would be able to lift the amount of weight that I did when I was younger. Unfortunately, I did not allow for the twenty-year age difference from when I last lifted heavily. I struggled along for weeks frustratingly getting to a point called a “plateau which is an exercise ceiling “and then losing ground the next workout. One day, I decided to do patterns between my sets because I knew about the oxygen build-up and wanted to test a theory. It worked! I was able to break through my ceiling and move to another level.

 Weight loss through increased metabolism:

    Martial arts pattern workouts are anabolic. Anabolic workouts increase your metabolism by something called “oxygen overflow” (that is they cause you to inhale two to three times more oxygen than you normally need).

Oxygen is fuel for your metabolism. When you absorb too much oxygen it causes your metabolism to work overtime to burn the overflow. While your metabolism is burning the oxygen it is also burning calories. A lot of information has been written about “aerobic” exercises as a way to burn fat calories and lose weight, almost nothing about anabolic workouts.

I have been an exercise instructor for forty years. In my humble opinion, anabolic workouts blow aerobic workouts out of the water for weight loss both in speed and efficiency that is why professional sports coaches choose anabolic workouts for weight loss and cardiovascular proficiency.

Improved muscle performance:

    Like your metabolism, your muscles use oxygen to fuel performance (mainly speed and endurance). As we get older our muscles' ability to absorb and process oxygen diminishes. When you perform a pattern your muscles get exercise by powerfully contracting and relaxing when punching and kicking. The overflow of oxygen developed when doing the pattern is then used by muscles to improve strength and endurance.

Brain exercise through mental imagery 

    Countless, papers have been written about the importance of reading as a means of strengthening cognitive performance. While most people acknowledge that reading is a good brain exercise most don’t understand why. Reading promotes imagery (the ability to visualize mentally). It is the creating of images that exercise the brain. When someone performs a pattern they visualize themselves being attacked by different opponents from different angles thus exercising the brain.

 Improved short burst wind performance:  

     Because patterns are performed in short bursts that cause oxygen overflow the result is a cardiovascular system that is conditioned to tolerate short demanding wind bursts such as suddenly having to run up a flight of stairs or chase after a missed bus.

 Improved balance:

     Many patterns demand that you stand on one foot and perform multiple defensive moves. When you place your foot on the floor again it must be placed in an exact spot that will allow you to continue to perform, this takes and improves balance. A pattern may also require you to leap into the air and come down ready to move to the next technique.

Prevention VS the Cure:

    I believe that the younger a person starts learning how to perform patterns the easier it will be for him/her to “make-the-cut” when trying to get on a team or secure the prized position of a team like running back, pitcher, goalie, etc.

    I encourage every parent who reads this story to help their child see the benefits of performing patterns and develop a love for them. In the long run, their sports performance and survival skills will be better for it.

Finally, The martial arts industry has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. If you know someone who may enjoy lessons, please don’t hesitate to recommend us!

May you have everything that you want, and want everything that you have.

MB