subject: Now You Really Look Like You Know Something! Appearance Versus Reality In Your Self-defense Training [print this page] Have you ever noticed that most people focus on the wrong things when it comes to their martial arts and self defense training? Instead of concentrating on skill-development, practicing for proficiency, or learning more about what it's like inside a real self-defense situation - what they'll be up against should they find themselves being attacked - these students are paying attention to things that just don't matter.
Here's an example of what I mean.
A few years ago, I had a meeting with the instructors in my dojo and we decided that we would institute a patch system. The idea behind this system was to recognize students for their progress, above and beyond learning what they needed to know for their belt progression.
The patch system included a series of international training patches which the student could wear on his or her uniform. These particular patches were set up to identify students who attended training events, both nationally and internationally.
Anyway, long-story-short, we instructors put the appropriate patches on our uniform jackets to both provide an example and to kick off the new system.
I'll never forget something that one of my students said to me as we lined up for class that first day. Keep in mind that this student had been training with me for months and was already familiar with my skill set and level of proficiency.
As we lined up for class, his eyes lit up and he said in a very excited voice...
"Now you really look like you know something!"
To this, I jokingly replied, "If that's what it took to make people believe that I know what I'm doing, I should have done this years ago and avoided all of the time, commitment, and expense of actual training!"
The point here is that, these patches meant nothing about my abilities or skills. They only represented where in the world I had trained and with whom. As far as anyone knew, I could have just put them on my jacket and told a story about how I got them. Of course, my honesty, morals, and ethics prevent me from doing such a thing, but this story illustrates not only how easy that would be for less than honest instructors, but also the fact that...
...we can get caught up in the decorations, trappings, and insignificant things in our training. Regardless of whether we're training in a martial arts school or enrolled in a self defense program we cannot forget why we are there - especially if that reason is to learn self protection.
