For as long as I can remember, I have loved the martial arts.
I can remember being a small child and watching the TV series 'Kung Fu' starring the late David Carradine as Quai Chang Caine.
I remember the philosophy contained in the series having a huge impact on my young mind and I truly believe this incredible series shaped my thoughts and beliefs, not just in karate, but in life. I know it's a bold statement to make, but I really do believe it.
In our materialistic world, people respect power, beauty and money and this to me is very sad, but saying that, I would like a lot more of all three!
Karatedo as taught by Master Gichin Funakoshi, is not about how fast, strong or hard someone is, although they certainly play a part. His philosophy was that karate should be used to perfect the character of each and every practitioner.
I absolutely agree with the late great master, he was right!
To me, a good karate dojo should promote all the positive human attributes, respect, humility, effort, honour, kindness, determination, etc, etc. A karate dojo that teaches how to look good, fight and hit hard without touching on the philosophical side of karatedo, can, in my opinion, be very is dangerous. You may not agree with my thoughts on training and everybody is entitled to their opinion, so please share yours.
There are lots of karateka training that have very poor character traits, indeed some of these karateka are physically very gifted and I applaud them for their skills. I will help and guide all my students irrespective of character, but after a few years of training, I will definitely steer towards the students who take the full way of karate on board and the others I will nicely nudge away.
I like training with and being around people who have good, strong characters and I will go out of my way to help these people.
So, enough rambling, back to the reason for this article, ‘What does black belt mean to you?’
For me, as I have mentioned earlier in this article, the way of karate (karatedo) is a way of life and should not be treated as a mere physical activity, because if you are practicing karate for only the physical, you will grow tired of training.
For me a black belt should have great karate and an even better character!
