“Getting your first Black Belt is basically starting over, it’s a new beginning. You are just now internalizing the fundamentals.”
Within the traditional arts that have a belt system, oftentimes we see people get their Black Belt and stop training. People tend to believe that the Black Belt is a sign of mastery and that they have learned everything they need to about the art, which is just not true. In most arts after the first Black Belt there are still plenty of forms and techniques to learn. ITF Taekwondo has 24 forms and you only really need to know about half of those to be a Black Belt. Also, arts tend to have different levels of Black Belt and for the most part, you aren’t even considered a master until you get your 4th or 5th one. Getting your first Black Belt is basically starting over, it’s a new beginning. You are just now internalizing the fundamentals. At this point you start doing techniques without really thinking about every aspect of the technique. If you are doing something like Taekwondo, Karate, or Tang Soo Do, you can kick without thinking about the pivot of your foot, it starts to happen naturally. If you are doing something similar to Judo or Jujutsu you start performing hip throws naturally, you don’t consciously think about your hip placement. After Black Belt, you begin to learn more than the fundamentals; you begin to learn how to take the fundamentals and better apply them to yourself. You start to better figure out which combination of movements work best for you, how you can compensate for your weaknesses, and how you can improve. At this stage of your training, you can start doing some self-training, and you start being able to better understand which questions to ask when requesting for help. If you are in a martial art and you want to continue improving in it, don’t stop your training at your first Black Belt, keep growing and keep going. You can always improve and learn something new. Even grandmasters, the ones who have reached the highest level of the discipline, still improve, whether they learn more efficient ways to teach those around them or they discover a technique can be changed to be more efficient or effective they still learn new things even though they are at the top.
Now, of course, I could not just end here. I would like to discuss how this also relates to our everyday lives. Just as with martial arts, a lot of people who are interested in something or want to get better at something, stop when they believe they have reached mastery. This false sense of mastery just ends up stunning their growth. Instead of continually learning and improving, they stop when they have reached a level they believe is enough. You may have worked with people like this before and realized though they are good at what they do, they can be better. The only thing that stops them from improving is their mentality, “We’ve been working like this forever, why change now”, and they make no improvements. They believe the level they are at now is enough and though it is sufficient and keeps everything in order, things never get better. They don’t take the time to want to learn something new or listen to the opinions of those around them. Though, as grandmasters in traditional arts, they can improve and get better they just choose not to and eventually the team they are a part of, especially if they are the leader, start to lag behind those teams that are trying to constantly improve, regardless if their current ways are good enough. The system they are a part of could work so much better if they realize they can and should continue to learn and change even though everything is fine now.
The interesting part is this doesn’t just apply to martial arts or working. This applies to our hobbies as well. Think about hobbies that you may have stopped because you thought there was nothing else to learn or you made it to the point where you felt like you didn’t need to continue. Think about how much better you could be or how much more enjoyment you could have received if you kept going. If you pushed yourself to continue, if you didn’t stop at “this is good enough” and decided to see “what would happen if I could get better”. Don’t stop at the first Black Belt, keep trying to grow, keep improving, become more effective and more efficient at the things you like. Keep asking yourself “how can I get better” and get better! Black Belt is just the beginning!
