May 2011
Why is Testing Mandatory?
17/05/11 20:02 Filed in: Philosophy
It’s easy to give into and allow for double standards, which temporarily provides happiness for individuals while sourcing grave consequences for others. As children, we hated many of the rules and regulations which were imposed on us by our parents. But experience and wisdom teaches us the importance of policy’s and procedures that create order.
Our Upland Studio was extremely successful for eleven years. Successful enough that my manager expressed an interest in buying the business that had an eleven year track record of success. He managed every aspect of the daily operations of running the business for nearly three years. He solicited investors and they came up with $500,000 in investment capital and purchased the studio. He almost immediately abandoned the system that was responsible for the businesses success and barely lasted 9 months.
The testing and ranking system is the heart and soul of the Martial Arts, yet it is the hardest over which to maintain control and order. Any student or students that see little or no value and are allowed to disrespect the testing system or order in our schools are like a form of cancer or deadly virus that, if allowed, infects the entire system and compromises the integrity of the structure. An unhealthy system needs to be reformed. When those in authority become corrupted then those who are faithful to its principles should make every attempt to restore the leaders before rising up against them. Every leader struggles with their own ego needs. It is this struggle which ultimately weakens leaders to entertain the idea of compromise.
If the system is upheld it will weed out the students who cannot conform. Of even more danger to our schools are those individuals who give the appearance of conformity while subtly undermining the system and those responsible for preserving its integrity. These students truly believe they are the reformers. They believe they know a better way. This level of arrogance reveals the motivations and intentions of their hearts and will ultimately lead to their demise if the system holds them responsible. However, it will lead to the demise of the system if those in authority compromise its integrity as is the case with my former manager. He later remarked to several students and friends that his mistake was listening too and trying to accommodate individual needs of students and parents.
To elude mandatory quarterly testing can be motivated by fear of failure, rebellion, misunderstandings, or perhaps the results of financial hardship. One of the very purposes of testing is to help students discover and measure growth in the qualities and characteristics which the martial arts system teaches. Without the test one student would presumptuously rank himself higher than his training would allow, while another student would perceive his achievements as failures. The test levels the playing field for both students. Both are validated by rank which is commensurate to their training. Both may eventually hold the rank of black belt or black sash and earn the same level of respect and honor, providing both are loyal to the system which molded them. Therefore, this presupposition being true, it is possible for the student with lesser skills and athleticism to be worthy of higher honor because the student is measured by their conformity to the system. They embody and propagate the system as long as they continue to be loyal to it and those who are responsible to preserve it.
Not showing up for classes a week or so before or after testing does not provide a student with an excuse. Whether the reason is fear of failure, rebellion or financial hardship, the chief instructor is the only one that can excuse a student from mandatory testing. Fulfilling the terms of your contract is an expression of the character qualities that we try to cultivate in each student. Our job is to help the student overcome either situation. Missing testing does not relieve the financial responsibility. Testing is part of the program just as learning to punch or kick is a part of the program. Testing is not determined by or left up to the discretion or individual needs of students or parents.
An exceptional freshman college student who has to take English Composition 101 must take the same final exam as the freshman who struggles to get passing grades. The test is necessary to not only document the fulfilled requirements, it validates the student’s placement, or in our case, rank.
One major reason for the high attrition rate which ultimately causes the closing of Studios is the lack of or breaking down of civil order. Students generally understand, respect and accept the ranking system which accompanies traditional Karate and Tae Kwon Do. But the new generation is unfamiliar with the purpose of testing in a Muay Thai System that, in the past, had no ranking system. Muay Thai, if it is going to survive must also provide the necessary structure with integrity that instills morals and values in a system that teaches combat techniques.
Muay Thai’s country of origin, Thailand, is fighting a battle with Tae Kwon Do. The Korean national sport is sweeping the country of Thailand because Tae Kwon Do is concentrating on teaching life-values and making the training fun. Muay Thai is taught only for fighting while life-values take a back seat to combat techniques.
If traditional Martial Artists are required to conform to a system that regulates and monitors its practitioners how important is it that the practitioners of Muay Thai are subject to the same rules and conditions? This will help insure that they are learning discipline, restraint, leadership skills and self-control in order to advance through the ranks. Ultimately this will provide safety measures for the protection of citizens who could be potential targets of Martial Arts techniques ending up in the hands of the wrong people. Aren’t we just as responsible for policing Muay Thai practitioners to insure they are taught to be responsible individuals who will be just as accountable with their potentially deadly techniques as the Karate and Tae Kwon Do practitioners? I firmly believe we instructors are responsible for the attitudes we instill in our students no matter which Martial Art we teach.
If a student is not excused from testing by the chief instructor they cannot return to class until they take a private make up test and pay a late private testing fee.
Testing dates are posted one year in advance. Even so there are always a very few legitimate extenuating circumstances that may require and provide a reason to schedule a make up test with the chief instructor.
Martial Arts
Reality or Fantasy
What is the reason for the phenomenal success of the traditional Martial Arts and today’s incredible popularity of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts schools) opening on every corner?
The traditional Martial Arts are often misunderstood by the laymen as well as even the most experienced practitioners and instructors. One of the strongest human needs next to survival is recognition. Recognition provides self-worth, confidence, and self respect. Traditional martial arts like Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, etc. are popular for their character building attributes associated with traditional training. It provides students with status, leadership skills, builds athleticism, develops confidence and leads to academic achievement by enhancing concentration and the ability to focus. Athleticism is forged thru repetitive drills and strenuous exercise. The discovery of “I can,” takes over as students achieve rank and status while learning accountability and taking responsibility for leading and setting good examples for their peer-group.
Does two years of strenuous training make deadly fighting machines out of the average student capable of single handedly wiping out a gang of Hells Angles?
Hardly! It takes the average student 2 to 3 years to achieve minimal success and any realistic ability to defend them selves.
Next we have The MMA schools opening on every corner that focus on totally functional combat. Choking out your opponent or pounding him into submission inside of a cage. But the good MMA schools also teach discipline, instill confidence and conditioning and enhance coordination and teaches focus which helps one to achieve academically. Like traditional Martial arts schools MMA schools are good for weight control and develop confidence and athleticism. But MMA schools tend to be more adult orientated with less of a focus on the character building attributes.
I don’t think Tiger Woods is any less of an athlete then John Elway or an Evander Hollyfield. Gymnasts are not better athletes then Ballerinas. Base Ball players are comparable to Football players. But they are different.
The popularity of the Martial Arts and the key to their success is in understanding why people study the various arts.
Teaching Philosophy
Bob Chaney is world renowned for turning out national, international and world Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Muay Thai, Boxing and Kickboxing champions. Grand Master Bob Chaney’s esteemed international reputation brings the credibility which attracts students from every walk of life to Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts Studio in Temecula, Ca. Although fighters have come from all over the world to train with Bob Chaney what remains more important is his unique ability to provide quality training for the novice as well as the most seasoned professional fighter. His ability to recognize each student’s individual needs and talents provides the personalized training which allows each student the opportunity to achieve their goals, be it a better level of fitness, becoming more disciplined and self-confident, learning functional self-defense techniques or launching a professional fight career. It’s all accomplished in a safe, clean, ultra modern state of the art facility.
Although the training can be very intense Bob Chaney always remembers it’s important that the training remain fun for the newest novice’s or the most experienced professional fighter. Maintaining a healthy family atmosphere and enforcing family values has become Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts trade mark.
Men, woman and children of all ages train at Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts Studio in a family environment focusing on traditional values and respect.
What is a Dojang/Dojo (training place for Martial Artists)?
Written by Grand Master Bob Chaney
Dojang is a Korean term for training place. Dojo is a Japanese term for training center. Dojang’s/Dojo’s are miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves—our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully. It is a place where we can learn a great deal in a short amount of time about who we are and how we will react in the world. The conflicts that take place inside the Dojang/Dojo help us handle conflicts that take place outside the Dojang/Dojo. The total concentration and discipline required to study martial arts carries over in to daily life. The activity in the Dojang/Dojo calls on us to constantly attempt new things, so it is also a source of learning—in Zen terminology, a source of self-enlightenment. (Joe Hyams: Zen in the Martial Arts)
We gain first hand experience working intellectually and physically thru staged conflicts and prearranged scenarios in an arena which provides a safety net while learning to confront, understand, and master our fears. Insight, knowledge and creativity are gained thru progressive problem solving and experimentation and sustained attempts at mastering new techniques. Self-confidence, and courage—necessary for coping with and overcoming life’s every day problems, is fostered free from the harsh, unforgiving mistakes we make in the outside world.
We quickly learn the consequences of our actions and deeds that prompt retaliation or acceptance from the multitude of partners and opponents we face which collectively create a life time of experiences in a short period of time. We discover the power to accept our weakness and short comings or the authority to make change. The social skills, determination, discipline, confidence and structure gained thru Martial Arts training systems forge strong minds and strong bodies that are the building blocks that produce leaders. If you have trouble working thru your Martial Arts training program you will most certainly have even more difficulty working through the trials and tribulations everyday life will throw at you.
The Dojang’s/Dojo’s are not perfect worlds, neither were they ever intended to be. But neither is the real world we spend our lives in. The Dojang’s/Dojo’s are merely intended to act as a surrogate training arena that helps prepare us for the harshness life can throw at us in the outside world.
Studios are constantly bombarded with criticisms from disgruntled parents and students on a regular basis. Successful studio owners communicate daily with other studio owners and heads of World Organizations, on a global level and collectively share industry secrets and apply like solutions. If it were possible to sit down and explain the reasons and grounds for the many policies, rules and procedures that govern any successful Martial Arts studio with each student and parent personally it might free us from criticism and condemnation but that’s neither a possibility nor a practical solution. Everything is subject to cause and effect. Students frequently make requests based on their individual needs and wants with out realizing the consequences of what they are asking. What we do for one we must do for everyone. Compromising any part of the system often sources grave consequences that can put students into direct danger, threaten the financial stability of the studio and completely undermine the integrity of the system.
Search out the studio that you think will provide the training you are looking for then make an appointment and prepare a list of questions that are important to you and your family. Don’t fall into selecting the studio closest to you by proximity or the cheapest price. You are putting your self or the most important person in your life, your child, into the hands of someone that will have a tremendous influence on the way you are your child will think and conduct yourselves.
Temecula has a lot of very good Martial Arts studios to select from just be sure they are going to supply you with the training you are looking for. Take your time and personally visit each studio before you make a final decision and then trust your instincts.
Some studios focus on training amateur and professional fighters while others focus on developing family values and still others focus on tournament competition while the next studio may focus on art form and fitness. What are you looking for? What is important is that you choose the right studio for you.
2009 by Bob Chaney, All Rights Reserved
How important is self-confidence in your child’s life?
Self-confidence is belief in ones self. Some people just seem to be born with it while others spend their lives searching for it. It is one of the most important virtues in a child’s life. Let us compare self-confidence to credit score. Credit is the lending institutions belief in your integrity and ability to pay your debts on time. If your payment record is clean the lending institutions continue to increase your credit lines. If you are delinquent it affects and lowers your credit score. If you establish a history of delinquencies the lending agencies will lose confidence in you altogether and totally eliminate your credit lines.
Who wants to start life out burdened with bad credit? Neither would you want your child to start out life saddled with low self-esteem or lacking self-confidence? Parents must realize that they are the most influence person in their child’s life and need to make decisions that are in the best interest of their children until their children are old enough and responsible enough to make important decisions on their own.
Children’s self-confidence for the most part, just as credit scores, is largely determined by their accomplishments and record of successes. Parent’s must set examples themselves and train their children to complete selected goals. Parents must generously utilize positive reinforcement while teaching and disciplining their children. From infancy children need constant praise and acknowledgments for any and all accomplishments large or small and be encouraged and taught the importance of following through with activities they get involved in and the old school importance of keeping ones word.
I was a Physical Education teacher in the mid 1970’s and early 80’s. The problem with our Physical Education programs is (I very quickly learned) the children needing it the most are the first ones to escape with notes from mommy for a bruise, a tiny cut, or a stomach ache. They are mostly the children that are un-coordinated, over weight or just plain lazy. Isn’t that the reason physical education classes were incorporated into the school curriculum in the first place? Athletes are always exuberantly lined up and waiting for class.
Students with a 4.0 average rarely drop out of school. It’s the D and C average students that drop out. The children that need and benefit the most from martial Arts training are the ones that drop out because the lack of self-discipline, athleticism, or they are just plain lazy and it’s hard for them. They generally don’t feel very good about themselves. So the parents let them out because they get tired of fighting with them about attending class. But again I reiterate; that’s the parents’ responsibility to make decisions that are in their best interest. When is the last time you heard someone complain about graduating from college or earning a Black Belt? But you do hear the regrets from the ones who didn’t.
My wife teaches a program at a near by pre-school. Last week a four year old refused to do his punching techniques because it was too hard so he wanted to quit because he didn’t like TKD. She took him aside and talked him into trying again. This time he was successful. He became very excited with his new accomplishment, and then proudly exclaimed he liked TKD now that he was doing so well.
The Martial Arts utilize belt ranking systems that rewards and allows for the measuring of success. The beginning belts are easy to achieve but then become increasingly more difficult and require harder work and more dedication as the student advances, which brings rewards of recognition and status. You can see confidence soar with each new belt promotion. We have children who achieve advanced belt rankings with many forms of developmental delays and disabilities. Parents need to realize that we as Martial Arts instructors don’t carry around magic wands that pops out little Chuck Norris’s and Jackie Chan’s at each wave of our wands.
The Martial Arts is only one of many cures for low self esteem or lack of self confidence. The home environment is where it all starts. We only have children three or four hours per week. When we and the parents are pulling the cart in the same direction we get phenomenal results, so home environments are very important.
I often hear parents complain that they can’t control things their children experience outside of the home. Parents can however minimize those experiences. Spend quality one on one time and scrutinize and maintain control over who their children hang out and socialize with. Get to know your children’s close friends and create lines of communications with and become friends with their friends’ parents. The home environments of their friends also significantly contribute to children’s out look on life.
I received full custody of my daughter Erica when she was 14 years old. She suffered low self esteem and had no self-confidence resulting from a verbally abusive relationship with her mom. Getting full custody of her changed my entire life and turned it upside down from that moment on. I was suddenly transformed into a single father raising a teenaged daughter.
I immediately made her friends my friends and they became an important part of my life. I was in constant communications with the parents of my daughter’s friends. I made friends with her friends parents and became a major part of their inner circle as well. I talked to her friends parents on a day to day basis. We communicated with respect to when my daughter was staying over at her girl friends house or her girl friends parents always conferred with me when they were staying overnight at my house we cross checked and communicated regularly. One of us always accompanied them to the movie theaters of skating rinks or out to the lake on the weekend and reported back to the rest of us.
Keep your children in activities that provide a circle of friends and role models which will be a good influence and create a healthy and positive atmosphere.
Every time a child is allowed to quit something because it’s hard, it’s boring, or because they don’t like it or it’s not what they expected they wound their confidence. If they are allowed to establish a history of quitting early or dropping out of activities they seriously sabotage their confidence and crush their self-esteem. Eventually they no longer believe in themselves. They began to select friends who also suffer low self esteem because they feel comfortable with them. I battled for 4 years to get my daughter thru high school. It was more draining then winning world titles. She finally graduated and she and I are very proud and neither of us ever regretted it.
I deal with parents, virtually every day that decided to pull their child out of my classes because the child simply doesn’t want to come any longer. Or there not paying enough attention or their not keeping up with the other kids. So they want to escape their contractual obligation because Johnny or Suzy discovered the reality that their Tae Kwon Do dreams required work, dedication and self-discipline. So they decided to try something new, that won’t require hard work and discipline?
I golfed with my father for over thirty years. Every time we arrived at the course my father produced a shinny new club that would drive the ball farther, provide more lift, putt straighter, prevent his slice or control his hook. And every time I would remind him “That’s great Dad, but some day you are going to have to learn to hit the ball properly”. Changing activities is not the answer unless they achieve a level of excellence first.
How do you convince a child that they have value when you the parents, the most important people in their life, the ones that gave them life don’t think there important enough to find a way to spend quality time with and support them?
You should never let children out of commitments they make until they complete their goal. Driving along with my father one afternoon when I was in my mid 20’s he shockingly asked me to rate him as a father on a scale from 1 to 10. After careful thought I finally answered.
“On a scale of 1 too 10 you were a number 7”. I told Dad.
“What”! My father gasped. “A number 7”.
“Yes Dad” I reminded my father.
“Why”. My father asked bewildered.
“Well Dad, mostly because you let me quit school when I was only sixteen”. I told him.
“Bob you fought with me virtually every day about quitting school. You begged and begged me remember”? Dad reminded me.
“Yea I know Dad but I was only sixteen and you were my father and you should have made me complete my schooling, instead you told me romantic stories of your cross country travels as a teenaged runaway and I wanted more than anything to be just like you. So off I went Just like you”.
“So now your holding it against me”. Dad asked bewildered.
“No Dad. I’m just answering your question. You were an excellent father in all other areas but you always covered for me because you loved me and you should have taught me to be more responsible and accountable at an earlier age and success would have came easier and sooner for me. Now I’m back in school again after all these years”. I complained to my father.
Your children look up too and trust that you will make wise choices for them. If not they may throw it back into your face some day.
Written by; Grand Master Bob Chaney
Our Upland Studio was extremely successful for eleven years. Successful enough that my manager expressed an interest in buying the business that had an eleven year track record of success. He managed every aspect of the daily operations of running the business for nearly three years. He solicited investors and they came up with $500,000 in investment capital and purchased the studio. He almost immediately abandoned the system that was responsible for the businesses success and barely lasted 9 months.
The testing and ranking system is the heart and soul of the Martial Arts, yet it is the hardest over which to maintain control and order. Any student or students that see little or no value and are allowed to disrespect the testing system or order in our schools are like a form of cancer or deadly virus that, if allowed, infects the entire system and compromises the integrity of the structure. An unhealthy system needs to be reformed. When those in authority become corrupted then those who are faithful to its principles should make every attempt to restore the leaders before rising up against them. Every leader struggles with their own ego needs. It is this struggle which ultimately weakens leaders to entertain the idea of compromise.
If the system is upheld it will weed out the students who cannot conform. Of even more danger to our schools are those individuals who give the appearance of conformity while subtly undermining the system and those responsible for preserving its integrity. These students truly believe they are the reformers. They believe they know a better way. This level of arrogance reveals the motivations and intentions of their hearts and will ultimately lead to their demise if the system holds them responsible. However, it will lead to the demise of the system if those in authority compromise its integrity as is the case with my former manager. He later remarked to several students and friends that his mistake was listening too and trying to accommodate individual needs of students and parents.
To elude mandatory quarterly testing can be motivated by fear of failure, rebellion, misunderstandings, or perhaps the results of financial hardship. One of the very purposes of testing is to help students discover and measure growth in the qualities and characteristics which the martial arts system teaches. Without the test one student would presumptuously rank himself higher than his training would allow, while another student would perceive his achievements as failures. The test levels the playing field for both students. Both are validated by rank which is commensurate to their training. Both may eventually hold the rank of black belt or black sash and earn the same level of respect and honor, providing both are loyal to the system which molded them. Therefore, this presupposition being true, it is possible for the student with lesser skills and athleticism to be worthy of higher honor because the student is measured by their conformity to the system. They embody and propagate the system as long as they continue to be loyal to it and those who are responsible to preserve it.
Not showing up for classes a week or so before or after testing does not provide a student with an excuse. Whether the reason is fear of failure, rebellion or financial hardship, the chief instructor is the only one that can excuse a student from mandatory testing. Fulfilling the terms of your contract is an expression of the character qualities that we try to cultivate in each student. Our job is to help the student overcome either situation. Missing testing does not relieve the financial responsibility. Testing is part of the program just as learning to punch or kick is a part of the program. Testing is not determined by or left up to the discretion or individual needs of students or parents.
An exceptional freshman college student who has to take English Composition 101 must take the same final exam as the freshman who struggles to get passing grades. The test is necessary to not only document the fulfilled requirements, it validates the student’s placement, or in our case, rank.
One major reason for the high attrition rate which ultimately causes the closing of Studios is the lack of or breaking down of civil order. Students generally understand, respect and accept the ranking system which accompanies traditional Karate and Tae Kwon Do. But the new generation is unfamiliar with the purpose of testing in a Muay Thai System that, in the past, had no ranking system. Muay Thai, if it is going to survive must also provide the necessary structure with integrity that instills morals and values in a system that teaches combat techniques.
Muay Thai’s country of origin, Thailand, is fighting a battle with Tae Kwon Do. The Korean national sport is sweeping the country of Thailand because Tae Kwon Do is concentrating on teaching life-values and making the training fun. Muay Thai is taught only for fighting while life-values take a back seat to combat techniques.
If traditional Martial Artists are required to conform to a system that regulates and monitors its practitioners how important is it that the practitioners of Muay Thai are subject to the same rules and conditions? This will help insure that they are learning discipline, restraint, leadership skills and self-control in order to advance through the ranks. Ultimately this will provide safety measures for the protection of citizens who could be potential targets of Martial Arts techniques ending up in the hands of the wrong people. Aren’t we just as responsible for policing Muay Thai practitioners to insure they are taught to be responsible individuals who will be just as accountable with their potentially deadly techniques as the Karate and Tae Kwon Do practitioners? I firmly believe we instructors are responsible for the attitudes we instill in our students no matter which Martial Art we teach.
If a student is not excused from testing by the chief instructor they cannot return to class until they take a private make up test and pay a late private testing fee.
Testing dates are posted one year in advance. Even so there are always a very few legitimate extenuating circumstances that may require and provide a reason to schedule a make up test with the chief instructor.
Martial Arts
Reality or Fantasy
What is the reason for the phenomenal success of the traditional Martial Arts and today’s incredible popularity of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts schools) opening on every corner?
The traditional Martial Arts are often misunderstood by the laymen as well as even the most experienced practitioners and instructors. One of the strongest human needs next to survival is recognition. Recognition provides self-worth, confidence, and self respect. Traditional martial arts like Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, etc. are popular for their character building attributes associated with traditional training. It provides students with status, leadership skills, builds athleticism, develops confidence and leads to academic achievement by enhancing concentration and the ability to focus. Athleticism is forged thru repetitive drills and strenuous exercise. The discovery of “I can,” takes over as students achieve rank and status while learning accountability and taking responsibility for leading and setting good examples for their peer-group.
Does two years of strenuous training make deadly fighting machines out of the average student capable of single handedly wiping out a gang of Hells Angles?
Hardly! It takes the average student 2 to 3 years to achieve minimal success and any realistic ability to defend them selves.
Next we have The MMA schools opening on every corner that focus on totally functional combat. Choking out your opponent or pounding him into submission inside of a cage. But the good MMA schools also teach discipline, instill confidence and conditioning and enhance coordination and teaches focus which helps one to achieve academically. Like traditional Martial arts schools MMA schools are good for weight control and develop confidence and athleticism. But MMA schools tend to be more adult orientated with less of a focus on the character building attributes.
I don’t think Tiger Woods is any less of an athlete then John Elway or an Evander Hollyfield. Gymnasts are not better athletes then Ballerinas. Base Ball players are comparable to Football players. But they are different.
The popularity of the Martial Arts and the key to their success is in understanding why people study the various arts.
Teaching Philosophy
Bob Chaney is world renowned for turning out national, international and world Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Muay Thai, Boxing and Kickboxing champions. Grand Master Bob Chaney’s esteemed international reputation brings the credibility which attracts students from every walk of life to Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts Studio in Temecula, Ca. Although fighters have come from all over the world to train with Bob Chaney what remains more important is his unique ability to provide quality training for the novice as well as the most seasoned professional fighter. His ability to recognize each student’s individual needs and talents provides the personalized training which allows each student the opportunity to achieve their goals, be it a better level of fitness, becoming more disciplined and self-confident, learning functional self-defense techniques or launching a professional fight career. It’s all accomplished in a safe, clean, ultra modern state of the art facility.
Although the training can be very intense Bob Chaney always remembers it’s important that the training remain fun for the newest novice’s or the most experienced professional fighter. Maintaining a healthy family atmosphere and enforcing family values has become Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts trade mark.
Men, woman and children of all ages train at Bob Chaney’s Family Martial Arts Studio in a family environment focusing on traditional values and respect.
What is a Dojang/Dojo (training place for Martial Artists)?
Written by Grand Master Bob Chaney
Dojang is a Korean term for training place. Dojo is a Japanese term for training center. Dojang’s/Dojo’s are miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves—our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully. It is a place where we can learn a great deal in a short amount of time about who we are and how we will react in the world. The conflicts that take place inside the Dojang/Dojo help us handle conflicts that take place outside the Dojang/Dojo. The total concentration and discipline required to study martial arts carries over in to daily life. The activity in the Dojang/Dojo calls on us to constantly attempt new things, so it is also a source of learning—in Zen terminology, a source of self-enlightenment. (Joe Hyams: Zen in the Martial Arts)
We gain first hand experience working intellectually and physically thru staged conflicts and prearranged scenarios in an arena which provides a safety net while learning to confront, understand, and master our fears. Insight, knowledge and creativity are gained thru progressive problem solving and experimentation and sustained attempts at mastering new techniques. Self-confidence, and courage—necessary for coping with and overcoming life’s every day problems, is fostered free from the harsh, unforgiving mistakes we make in the outside world.
We quickly learn the consequences of our actions and deeds that prompt retaliation or acceptance from the multitude of partners and opponents we face which collectively create a life time of experiences in a short period of time. We discover the power to accept our weakness and short comings or the authority to make change. The social skills, determination, discipline, confidence and structure gained thru Martial Arts training systems forge strong minds and strong bodies that are the building blocks that produce leaders. If you have trouble working thru your Martial Arts training program you will most certainly have even more difficulty working through the trials and tribulations everyday life will throw at you.
The Dojang’s/Dojo’s are not perfect worlds, neither were they ever intended to be. But neither is the real world we spend our lives in. The Dojang’s/Dojo’s are merely intended to act as a surrogate training arena that helps prepare us for the harshness life can throw at us in the outside world.
Studios are constantly bombarded with criticisms from disgruntled parents and students on a regular basis. Successful studio owners communicate daily with other studio owners and heads of World Organizations, on a global level and collectively share industry secrets and apply like solutions. If it were possible to sit down and explain the reasons and grounds for the many policies, rules and procedures that govern any successful Martial Arts studio with each student and parent personally it might free us from criticism and condemnation but that’s neither a possibility nor a practical solution. Everything is subject to cause and effect. Students frequently make requests based on their individual needs and wants with out realizing the consequences of what they are asking. What we do for one we must do for everyone. Compromising any part of the system often sources grave consequences that can put students into direct danger, threaten the financial stability of the studio and completely undermine the integrity of the system.
Search out the studio that you think will provide the training you are looking for then make an appointment and prepare a list of questions that are important to you and your family. Don’t fall into selecting the studio closest to you by proximity or the cheapest price. You are putting your self or the most important person in your life, your child, into the hands of someone that will have a tremendous influence on the way you are your child will think and conduct yourselves.
Temecula has a lot of very good Martial Arts studios to select from just be sure they are going to supply you with the training you are looking for. Take your time and personally visit each studio before you make a final decision and then trust your instincts.
Some studios focus on training amateur and professional fighters while others focus on developing family values and still others focus on tournament competition while the next studio may focus on art form and fitness. What are you looking for? What is important is that you choose the right studio for you.
2009 by Bob Chaney, All Rights Reserved
How important is self-confidence in your child’s life?
Self-confidence is belief in ones self. Some people just seem to be born with it while others spend their lives searching for it. It is one of the most important virtues in a child’s life. Let us compare self-confidence to credit score. Credit is the lending institutions belief in your integrity and ability to pay your debts on time. If your payment record is clean the lending institutions continue to increase your credit lines. If you are delinquent it affects and lowers your credit score. If you establish a history of delinquencies the lending agencies will lose confidence in you altogether and totally eliminate your credit lines.
Who wants to start life out burdened with bad credit? Neither would you want your child to start out life saddled with low self-esteem or lacking self-confidence? Parents must realize that they are the most influence person in their child’s life and need to make decisions that are in the best interest of their children until their children are old enough and responsible enough to make important decisions on their own.
Children’s self-confidence for the most part, just as credit scores, is largely determined by their accomplishments and record of successes. Parent’s must set examples themselves and train their children to complete selected goals. Parents must generously utilize positive reinforcement while teaching and disciplining their children. From infancy children need constant praise and acknowledgments for any and all accomplishments large or small and be encouraged and taught the importance of following through with activities they get involved in and the old school importance of keeping ones word.
I was a Physical Education teacher in the mid 1970’s and early 80’s. The problem with our Physical Education programs is (I very quickly learned) the children needing it the most are the first ones to escape with notes from mommy for a bruise, a tiny cut, or a stomach ache. They are mostly the children that are un-coordinated, over weight or just plain lazy. Isn’t that the reason physical education classes were incorporated into the school curriculum in the first place? Athletes are always exuberantly lined up and waiting for class.
Students with a 4.0 average rarely drop out of school. It’s the D and C average students that drop out. The children that need and benefit the most from martial Arts training are the ones that drop out because the lack of self-discipline, athleticism, or they are just plain lazy and it’s hard for them. They generally don’t feel very good about themselves. So the parents let them out because they get tired of fighting with them about attending class. But again I reiterate; that’s the parents’ responsibility to make decisions that are in their best interest. When is the last time you heard someone complain about graduating from college or earning a Black Belt? But you do hear the regrets from the ones who didn’t.
My wife teaches a program at a near by pre-school. Last week a four year old refused to do his punching techniques because it was too hard so he wanted to quit because he didn’t like TKD. She took him aside and talked him into trying again. This time he was successful. He became very excited with his new accomplishment, and then proudly exclaimed he liked TKD now that he was doing so well.
The Martial Arts utilize belt ranking systems that rewards and allows for the measuring of success. The beginning belts are easy to achieve but then become increasingly more difficult and require harder work and more dedication as the student advances, which brings rewards of recognition and status. You can see confidence soar with each new belt promotion. We have children who achieve advanced belt rankings with many forms of developmental delays and disabilities. Parents need to realize that we as Martial Arts instructors don’t carry around magic wands that pops out little Chuck Norris’s and Jackie Chan’s at each wave of our wands.
The Martial Arts is only one of many cures for low self esteem or lack of self confidence. The home environment is where it all starts. We only have children three or four hours per week. When we and the parents are pulling the cart in the same direction we get phenomenal results, so home environments are very important.
I often hear parents complain that they can’t control things their children experience outside of the home. Parents can however minimize those experiences. Spend quality one on one time and scrutinize and maintain control over who their children hang out and socialize with. Get to know your children’s close friends and create lines of communications with and become friends with their friends’ parents. The home environments of their friends also significantly contribute to children’s out look on life.
I received full custody of my daughter Erica when she was 14 years old. She suffered low self esteem and had no self-confidence resulting from a verbally abusive relationship with her mom. Getting full custody of her changed my entire life and turned it upside down from that moment on. I was suddenly transformed into a single father raising a teenaged daughter.
I immediately made her friends my friends and they became an important part of my life. I was in constant communications with the parents of my daughter’s friends. I made friends with her friends parents and became a major part of their inner circle as well. I talked to her friends parents on a day to day basis. We communicated with respect to when my daughter was staying over at her girl friends house or her girl friends parents always conferred with me when they were staying overnight at my house we cross checked and communicated regularly. One of us always accompanied them to the movie theaters of skating rinks or out to the lake on the weekend and reported back to the rest of us.
Keep your children in activities that provide a circle of friends and role models which will be a good influence and create a healthy and positive atmosphere.
Every time a child is allowed to quit something because it’s hard, it’s boring, or because they don’t like it or it’s not what they expected they wound their confidence. If they are allowed to establish a history of quitting early or dropping out of activities they seriously sabotage their confidence and crush their self-esteem. Eventually they no longer believe in themselves. They began to select friends who also suffer low self esteem because they feel comfortable with them. I battled for 4 years to get my daughter thru high school. It was more draining then winning world titles. She finally graduated and she and I are very proud and neither of us ever regretted it.
I deal with parents, virtually every day that decided to pull their child out of my classes because the child simply doesn’t want to come any longer. Or there not paying enough attention or their not keeping up with the other kids. So they want to escape their contractual obligation because Johnny or Suzy discovered the reality that their Tae Kwon Do dreams required work, dedication and self-discipline. So they decided to try something new, that won’t require hard work and discipline?
I golfed with my father for over thirty years. Every time we arrived at the course my father produced a shinny new club that would drive the ball farther, provide more lift, putt straighter, prevent his slice or control his hook. And every time I would remind him “That’s great Dad, but some day you are going to have to learn to hit the ball properly”. Changing activities is not the answer unless they achieve a level of excellence first.
How do you convince a child that they have value when you the parents, the most important people in their life, the ones that gave them life don’t think there important enough to find a way to spend quality time with and support them?
You should never let children out of commitments they make until they complete their goal. Driving along with my father one afternoon when I was in my mid 20’s he shockingly asked me to rate him as a father on a scale from 1 to 10. After careful thought I finally answered.
“On a scale of 1 too 10 you were a number 7”. I told Dad.
“What”! My father gasped. “A number 7”.
“Yes Dad” I reminded my father.
“Why”. My father asked bewildered.
“Well Dad, mostly because you let me quit school when I was only sixteen”. I told him.
“Bob you fought with me virtually every day about quitting school. You begged and begged me remember”? Dad reminded me.
“Yea I know Dad but I was only sixteen and you were my father and you should have made me complete my schooling, instead you told me romantic stories of your cross country travels as a teenaged runaway and I wanted more than anything to be just like you. So off I went Just like you”.
“So now your holding it against me”. Dad asked bewildered.
“No Dad. I’m just answering your question. You were an excellent father in all other areas but you always covered for me because you loved me and you should have taught me to be more responsible and accountable at an earlier age and success would have came easier and sooner for me. Now I’m back in school again after all these years”. I complained to my father.
Your children look up too and trust that you will make wise choices for them. If not they may throw it back into your face some day.
Written by; Grand Master Bob Chaney