Introduction Welcome to the seventh entry in our series of guest posts titled “Doing Research.” If you missed the first essay by D. S. Farrer (which provides a global overview of the subject), the second by Daniel Mroz (how to select a school or teacher for research purposes), the third by Jared Miracle […]

via Doing Research (7): Dale C. Spencer on Observant Participation and Becoming a Mixed Martial Artist — Kung Fu Tea

Discipline is one of the most difficult words that I know. No, it isn’t a spelling thing! The difficulty comes from all the aspects that it encompasses. All of the little things that are required to truly have discipline.

The importance of goals will not be included here beyond the point that you NEED goals for your life in order to accomplish anything. How big your goals are will dictate how much discipline you need to develop.

U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McCraven in his speech to the University of Texas 2014 graduating class listed 10 Life Lessons from Basic SEAL Training

1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

It is amazing how something so small and trivial can start you out the right way. It isn’t about being rewarded by your parents for doing your chores. It is about taking responsibility to get things done. As Aristotle said…

There are dozens of everyday things that help develop discipline. These range from following a bedtime and a wake-up time to regular oil changes in your car. Discipline allows you to build on successful and failed activities. It helps in remembering the lessons from everything that you do.

A common example comes from learning any subject. Once you set a goal (earn the next martial arts rank), you must spend the time and effort to learn and perform properly. It is common that students “think” they know their material but fail horribly when tested on it. This is usually from the lack of applying discipline to their training. I use pretests to show students that they aren’t as ready as they think. Once they’ve completed the pretest., I ask them if it was their best performance. Usually, they admit not. My next question becomes “why wasn’t it?” It may take several ranks of repeating this cycle before it sinks in but most eventually recognize that it is discipline that keeps “good enough” from ruining “excellent.”

It is important to utilize discipline in everything you do daily. The benefits of a little discipline changes your whole day just because you know where your car keys are. People also greatly enjoy when you apply discipline to getting things done that you said you would. This is also part of your career. Not completing tasks can lead to unemployment. In your private life, it builds trust and shows respect.

How can you tell if your discipline is lacking? I’ve asked students (in front of their parents) the question “How many times should you be told to do something??” The answer from students is “Once!” How many times did you need to be told to get the last project/chore done?

Take a peek at Jesse Encamp’s video about the 2020 Olympic Karate inclusion.

Now, it has been quite a while since Taekwondo was changed from a demonstration sport to a full medal winning event. This was good for Taekwondo in the same way. I think that the inclusion of Karate will benefit Taekwondo schools again, too.

There are still a great many people who don’t recognize there are differences between Taekwondo and Karate. This will bring people into schools of both arts possibly looking for the other. I hope that our industry takes the opportunity here to promote each other!

I have long taken the stance that the different arts and the different schools are not actually competitors for students. Each art appeals to a personality. Those who like to grapple may not like a striking art. They won’t attend striking schools and vice versa. By “playing nice” with other arts, we can make sure that we all have students who are achieving their goals. This goes for schools within the same art that teach different material or aspects of an art. I am not an Olympic Taekwondo person. I don’t care for the sparring and sport aspect. My school could even be labeled more as Korean Karate, than Taekwondo. Now, this doesn’t stop me from referring students to schools, who play nice and have been respectful, when they ask for that version.

Since the new TMNT movie has come out, we may even see an influx from there. All the parents trying to find places for their ninja younglings. It will be common to get calls asking about programs and age requirements. After chatting with the parents and having an idea what they think they want, I won’t hesitate to direct them to schools where I think it’ll match.

A big point here, for those school owners who happen to read my posts, is that I hope that we truly develop our martial arts community more than we do the martial arts industry.

I think that I’ve got a company that has motivated people who have found inspiration in the challenges of my curriculum – official and unofficial. In fact, they can’t get hired into my company without a very long audition that demonstrates their motivation. Their inspiration feeds their motivation to make a wonderful cycle of personal growth. Another quote is to “Hire character. Train skill.” (Peter Schutz) as skill can be taught but character can’t be. I only want people of character to join me in working on these skills.

Yes, I will use this analogy of working for me because my whole brand and success is based upon how my students present themselves in life. The skills that they develop in my martial arts classes are not so much about learning personal protection as they are about learning about themselves.

This is an important distinction. Until recently, the past two years, I hadn’t been presenting my teaching well. The martial arts classes teach a system that has developed over time that focuses on specific techniques taught for a specific purpose (use) with acknowledgement being given to the lineage that created it.

This is not the same as a personal protection program. These focus on violence and how to survive it. They teach things that can keep you safe in an ugly world. My martial arts classes can teach the concepts and, even, some strategies for violence but it isn’t the same thing. The benefit of a martial arts class does come from being able to apply the martial arts principles, strategies and concepts into daily life.

The daily life applications help show these motivated people that there are things bigger than their job to believe in. The students as a group find ways to serve each other and the school, which then leads them to seeing how they can serve within their community (including other special groups that they belong to). I truly believe this as very few people decide to just “quit” our classes. They have life issues that get in the way. Many find their way back but it isn’t as important as them taking these applications with them.

Last year around this time, I received a graduation announcement from a student who hadn’t been in class to five years. It had an extra little handwritten note from both him and his mother asking me to stop during the party. I went without expecting much and learned that he had left class at 13 years old to focus on music and academics. He used the principles and concepts from Taekwondo, which are really the same in all martial arts just with different words, to reach his academic goals. His success had lead him to starting an engineering program.

I also have a student who is gone during the school year as he works on his Bachelor’s degree in physics, which is changed from his original idea of engineering, and returns for the summers. The chaos of life settles for a bit when he gets to train in Taekwondo again. I just don’t think I want to be around when he and my 2nd Dan Haidong Gumdo PhD candidate in Astrophysics have a conversation.

I have students from a wide range of skills and careers. They all come back and continue training because they see how much it helps their world beyond the physical fitness. I greatly enjoy investing in students. They don’t always see it but their effort and development is also their investment in me.

That look I get when I ask students to work on a drill that moves differently than the other drill. Yeah, the one you just gave me…a bit of confusion.

Part of the Haidong Gumdo curriculum are fighting combinations that we do mostly as a movement drill to develop footwork and cut lines. These combination come from a set of gumbub (patterns) that are also required. They are a lot of fun to work on and provide insights into some strategy.

The real fun comes when we add a partner to play the opponent (i.e. Bad guy). The designed response for the partner can throw off the movement of the combination. Movement angles change, techniques don’t seem to be on target any longer. Students can have a hard time “seeing” what they’re trying to accomplish. That’s when I get the “what are you talking about?” look or the “there’s no way this will make sense” look.

Once I start discussing the bunhae (application) of the movement, things usually start to brighten up. You can see the lightbulbs turning on. This is one of the faults in martial arts training. There are so many drills done, without the variables included, that the actual techniques and combination become ineffective. Students need to keep reminding themselves that they aren’t just learning physical techniques but, rather, parts of a fight. The dynamics of movement will change the whole drill. Yet, I only have given them one possible outcome variation. There are nearly limitless variations for that encounter due to the number of variables within the encounter. It is the student’s job to start looking for these applications while practicing the required version.

But, to get back to the look I get, it makes me wonder why the thoughts and hesitations come up when given an assignment. It seems to contradict that they came to me in the first place to learn the martial arts. The look from senior students is even more entertaining. After years of training with me, they still aren’t seeing the pattern or progression that is used to get them to the endpoint? That look of doubt (“You are goofy thinking that I can do it that way!”) on their faces always gives me a little smile.

All too often, it is forgotten that there is a progression toward learning new techniques and applications. Some are obvious but many are hidden within the drill. If you get too focused on doing only the original drill, then the insights from the different version will be a struggle to find. This is the same for any subject matter. The physical techniques of personal protection and martial arts are easily recognized but there are others. An everyday example is driving. How many people only know two applications for the car – gas or brake? It takes time to see another option – coast. It takes time because it involves more knowledge and developed skill at reading traffic flow and timing for distances.

There is MUCH more in everything that we do. The level of success in any skill or activity is directly related to the development of knowledge and understanding in the subject matter. If you don’t get pushed outside of your comfort zone and knowledge limits, then you will not develop greater understanding. So, the next time your teacher presents something that doesn’t quite make sense, look deeper into the applications and purpose.

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