Practicing Mastery and YOUR School

Getting a Grasp on How to Practice Mastery is One of the Best Things you Can Do for Your Martial Arts School

Call me old fashioned, but I still believe the best thing a martial arts teacher can do for his or her business is to BE the best darned martial artist he or she can be.

And note: I'm not talking about "best in your school or town good," "tournament champion good," "ring good," or get nominated to the "Universal Black Belt Grand Canyon Hall of Fame good." I'm talking about "transcend the martial arts good." I'm talking about the kind of martial artist that Rosa Parks would give up her bus seat for; the kind of martial artist that garners grants from groups that give money to people doing amazing work in the world.

I'm talking about the kind of martial artist that doesn't let anger and hatred or other destructive kinds of thinking invade and/or infect his or her life; the kind of black belt who truly understands the -real -enemy.

Call me unrealistic, but I think all of this damned torturous training is supposed to be for something that's more important than getting fit, earning belts, and winning medals. Oh, and it's not to learn how to upgrade my students to the Grand Vital World-Famous Master's Leadrship Club, either. I haven't studied this long and hard to see it boiled down to some sales pitch for a long term course, franchise, new Corvette payment, or Rolex. Please!

I think that, if properly taught and/or directed, the serious practitioner of the martial arts ought to start making a connection between state of mind and outcome, between fear and action, between clarity and confusion, and between compassion and happiness.

It's like the Ring, Only BIGGER.

For those of you who were competitors, do you remember the clarity that a 3-minute performance provided you with?

Whether it was a fight or a form, you trained HARD for that 3 minutes (and maybe a few others). You focused on that little bit of time and space and you fired it up!

Man, if life were only that small, only that simple, only that easy.

The ring gives you this small place to focus on; the rules provide you with clear boundaries and objectives. But the POINT of the game was not just to win -it was to show you, in a very practical way, how focus, concentration, goal-setting, effort, and clarity could give you power and purpose. You were supposed to learn how to plan, engage, and execute.

The BIG LESSON should have been about taking that learning experience and making the "ring" bigger -like as big as your family, as big as your career, as big as your circle of influence, as big as your community, as big as the world, as big as your ability to make a difference.

In the ring you focus on the task at hand. The audience doesn't distract you. The advertisements hanging on the bleacher's railings don't call to you; the negative energy from your opponent and his or her helpers don't detour you.

So what's the connection between the ring and mastery?

It's in defining what you want. What do you want to accomplish? What is your personal definition of mastery? How does it translate to your "daily training?" And are you smart enough, resourceful enough, creative enough, focused enough, compassionate enough, and disciplined enough to expand the ring to represent the remainder of your finite period of time left here on the planet?

The pursuit of mastery, relevant to your potential, is -I believe -the root system of the tree that bears the fruit that sustains your school and -very likely --your life.

If you don't focus on mastery -then you ignore the roots and spend an inordinate about of time on that which is visible, yes? If a tree doesn't have deep roots, what happens to it in the first big storm?

Mastery is about controlling anger, practicing detachment from illusion, expanding one's empathy and compassion for others. It's about making contribution (adding to, not taking away from); it's about awareness; it's about self-control and respect and courage to be different when you must -and the same when it's time to be the same. I also believe mastery is connected to simplicity.

I really don't know everything -if much - about mastery -but I recognize the power that the study and practice of things that bring about clarity and awareness and global consciousness brings to me. I can HEAR the words of masters -and I believe they are talking about a kind of thinking and clarity that I have, on more than one occasion, experienced as a practitioner of the martial arts. And everything in my life keeps pointing to the idea of mastery -the way everything used to, when I was younger, point to the mat and the competitive arena.

Getting a grasp on what mastery is, to you -and to masters -and the idea of beginning to PRACTICE mastery, on a day-to-day basis, is I believe, one of the best things you can do for your school, for your students, and for yourself.

My work with The Ultimate Black Belt Test -and the association, The New Way Network-is dedicated to exploring the idea of mastery for the individual and as a collective force for good, for clarity, and more contribution and meaning.

Intelligent Curriculum® SEE IT HERE!

Hi, Tom Callos here, I'm team coach for the Ultimate Black Belt Test -and I'm the head of the martial arts association known as The 100.

My new venture, as you see it here, is called Intelligent Curriculum® --partly because the internet allows us, as martial arts teachers, to design and display our school's curriculum and everything that has to do with communicating to students, parents, and potential members, in a new, dynamic, and intelligent way.

Just take a look at how attractive the simple blog is that I've designed as an example -and see how I've made two entries as examples of how your own students could be seeing YOUR curriculum.

The other reason I call this work "Intelligent" is that looking at your school's curriculum in a new way, laying it out in a more complete and educational fashion, and doing it all in a format that gives you SO MUCH control over the what and why ----well, it's very intelligent, very "today," and let me tell you, it's going to be very good for your school/business.

5 Reasons to Change the Way You Belt Test, NOW

Professional martial arts teachers: When it comes to belt testing, whether it’s a green belt test or a black belt test, it is a mistake to get tied into a tradition of testing. What we want to get attached to is THE RESULTS that our testing process produces.

Some of the things we want to affect through the process are:

• We want our students to be technically proficient (stances, kicks, and other maneuvers).

• We want a student to have an attitude that is congruent with his or her belt rank.

And in a perfect world:

• We want our students to have a sense of TEAM, with fellow classmates.

• We want them to have a set of experiences, from their training, that have had an impact on their life outside of your school.

At a test we’d like to hear:

“I’m a better, more patient father, because of this training.”

“Because of my test, I have healed some old relationships that needed healing. This training gave me the incentive and the courage to do it.”

“I’m more fit now than I was in college.”

“I could never get myself to eat like I knew that I should, but this training changed that. Now I apply the same discipline to my diet as I do to my workouts.”

“The training has touched me deeply, in ways I never would have expected.”

The bottom line? We want our testing to be positive, to be powerful, to be indicative of our BEST work. So, with that in mind, here are my 10 reasons, no, make that WAYS, to change the way you belt test, now.

Reason 1: More Time to Affect Change

Make your test last longer. Like a month or two or three or in the case of high ranking students, a year (like the Ultimate Black Belt Test). Why? What’s the hurry? Aren’t 100 push-ups or three reps of a form a day for a year WAY better than 1 rep of a form on test day? Which is better for you as a teacher, challenging and helping a student to develop daily discipline, or having them kick-it on one day? In the long run, teaching a student to shape his or her day in a way that affects the future is better than teaching them how to shine on a single day.

Furthermore, a really good black belt test is a chance for the general public and your other students to see what you have created. They get to see a master craftsman and his or her
”products.” Well, what’s better, to have a day of your work on the showroom floor, or to take 100 days or more, and show your skills that way? A test that lasts a month, 6 months, or a year gives you that long to talk about the process, to show the process, and to enjoy the process.

Reason 2: More Time to Share

Everyone on your test should be writing and/or filming the PROCESS. Each member should be keeping an on-line journal documenting the effort and learning experience he or she is going through. Those public journal entries will make your candidates better writers and communicators; they will open the process to people who might never have been able to see, hear, or experience the journey of martial arts testing; and the record of the time your students test will ultimately become cherished memories that anchor the student to your school and the process with vivid intensity.

On line journals even have a way of guiding those students who come later; they serve as examples of effort, growth, and expectations.

Reason 3: More Time To Change

I can’t get nearly as much done in a day, no matter how hard I work or how organized I am, compared to what I can get done with just a hour’s worth of effort, every day for an extended period of time. In a perfect world, when a student comes up in front of you to test, they would bring with them this overwhelming body of evidence that shows you how hard they are working, how seriously they take the process, and how committed they are to your ideas. You can’t get someone to stop everything they are doing and commit themselves like an Olympian to your testing process, but you can get them to commit some time, each day to it. To elicit real, authentic, live-changing change, you have to give a student more time –and not just “time,” but QUALITY time.

Reason 4: It’s HARDER This Way, Without Being STUPID

Torturing student on the day of their test, trying to break them down –or being afraid that you might break them down or injure them, is not the way to go about testing. Torture them for a month or two or three or even a year! But push them in small digestible, non-injurious ways. Bring them to their black belt test having coached them through 1000 hard reps of their form over 6 months or a year, instead of driving them to exhaustion, like some kind of college frat-house hazing on the day of their exam. Make the 1000 reps over a period of time their “test” –instead of asking them to show you a form on one day. It is immensely more difficult to apply consistent, daily discipline to one’s life, versus doing something really good on one day.

What you really teach students through requiring them to SEE THEIR TEST as a daily thing, versus a one day or one week event, is that giant accomplishments, massive transformation, is achieve with DAILY activity, not cramming.

Reason 5: You Can Teach More Skills, More Stuff, if You Have More Time

You can’t get a student to read a book in your classes, but they could do it at home, if you give them enough time. What if all of your black belt candidates had to take an on-line anger management training program –and they could do it in 10 minute increments, at home, over a month or two?

Well, what you could do is talk about it to prospective members, to the media, to all sorts of people –and what more did you have to do? Did it change your classes? Did you have to invest more time?

You see, stretching out the testing process lets you coach your students with ideas and practices you wouldn’t have been able to implement any other way. And can you see, in your mind’s eye, the LIST of things you require? IMPRESSIVE, yet because of the time frame, not impossible –and in fact, quite do-able! If you REALLY want to have a life-changing, lasting experience with your students, WHY NOT?

Reason 6: IMPRESS (for a purpose)

Which of these two mini-tests are more impressive:

Test 1

Forms 1 to 12

10 rounds of sparring

Self defense drills 1 to 10

Running 5 miles

250 push-ups and 250 crunches

Break 10 boards (I’m not a board-breaking advocate, I think it’s a waste of natural resources, but I’ll use this example t make a point).

Test 2

500 recorded repetitions of all forms.

500 rounds of sparring.

1000 self-defense techniques, practiced at full speed.

A 500 mile run.

10,000 push-ups and sit-ups.

Breaking 500 boards

Reason 7: You Need to Change Your Test in a Way That Gives You a Unique Selling Proposition.

Tests are, for the most part, all the same; and the results we’ve been getting, well...it’s OK. But I ask you: Can’t we do better? Can’t we at least TRY some new methods to see what happens? Do you know any other school that is doing it? Do you want to distinguish the QUALITY of education you provide –from your competitors? Of course you do!

There are a LOT of reasons to change your testing process I haven’t mentioned here; but I have one final and grand suggestion for you.

START THIS PROCESS of reinvigorating testing, of making it vital, relevant, authentic, and more powerful by DOING it yourself, FIRST. Show what can be done; LIVE the process. You will benefit (are you currently in the best shape of your life? Why not?), your students will benefit, your school will benefit.

Come live the Ultimate Black Belt Test and learn more this year than you have in the last 10. That, my friend, is an invitation!

Tom Callos

Interview with Tom Callos for Martialinfo.com about the Ultimate Black Belt Test, The100., and a New Vision for Martial Arts Teachers

Conducted by phone, April 22, 2008 by Fariborz Azhakh of www.martialinfo.com

Martialinfo: Would you provide us with a little of your background?

Tom Callos: Martial arts wise, I was 6-years old when I saw the first episode of The Green Hornet (1966) featuring Bruce Lee as Kato, 9-years-old when I watched my first judo class (the instructor would invite me on the mat after the adults-only classes and show me how to roll and fall), and 11-years old when I first joined a school. That was 1971.

I received my black belt in taekwondo in 1979, and moved to San Jose, CA to join Master Ernie Reyes’ school in 1980. I opened my first school in 1981 and in 1991 I was overseeing two schools, 10 miles apart with a total active enrollment (at their peak) of about 800 students. Due to my success at the schools, I was invited to join Educational Funding Company’s Board of Directors, which is when I started becoming a teacher and consultant to the martial arts industry. Since then I have worked with most of the key companies in the martial arts industry. In 2003 I created the Ultimate Black Belt Test and in the following year I started working on my own martial arts association, The 100.

Martialinfo: Explain the Ultimate Black Belt Test.

Tom Callos: The UBBT is a complete redesign of the testing process. It expands the purpose of a test, it expands the nature of training for a test, and it investigates and redefines the objectives for all rank testing in the first place. The UBBT is designed to be the most challenging and authentic black belt test in the world, but it was also designed to improve the martial arts industry.

Martialinfo: How does the UBBT improve the industry?

Tom Callos: A friend of mine, John Bielenberg, is a well known teacher and innovator in the graphic design world. One of his primary slogans is Think Wrong, which spells out his viewpoint about conventional approaches to design, creativity, and problem solving.

The UBBT helps the industry by thinking wrong about what activities make the martial artist smarter, better equipped to cope with self-defense issues beyond the obvious physical ones, about the best ways to show and tell the general public the benefits of the martial arts, and about what role a martial arts teacher is supposed to play in the world.

You see, I believe in the power of the individual to make a difference in the world. My heroes are people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Ali, and just about any person who has taken action for others, for a cause, on the side of right. I believe that a martial arts teacher is supposed to teach, educate, and empower his or her students to fight the big battles, to tackle issues that might scare others, issues that relate to personal protection, protection of family and community, and even of the planet.

The problem is most martial arts schools don’t know how to integrate these ideas into their curriculum. They don’t understand, yet, how to take their martial arts out of their schools –and put it to work in the world. There will be a giant shift in the industry, a huge upgrade in the perceived value of martial arts training, and a monumental change in what a martial arts teacher does in the world when school owners and teachers finally get the scope and intent of this new kind of martial arts educational mission.

Martialinfo: Does the UBBT’s curriculum contain the ingredients for this new mission you describe?

Tom Callos: It does, in part. There are requirements in the UBBT’s curriculum that might force a teacher to step out of his or her comfort zone. The curriculum requires the participant to get off the mat and into the community. It asks people to learn meditation, to get outdoors, to help others, to mend relationships, and to learn new things.

But there is something the curriculum doesn’t contain that is a vital part of the work. That missing ingredient is my belief that martial arts teachers should be extraordinary people –and I mean extraordinary in the image of people like Mandela, Armstrong, Julia Butterfly Hill, Gore, Dita Sari, and Wangari Mattai.

I mean, if a martial arts teacher and/or veteran practitioner doesn’t have the courage, the perseverance, the self-discipline, and the fortitude to tackle issues relevant to people’s health and well being, then who does? If a martial arts master teacher doesn’t know how to make his or her work more meaningful, more effective, more relevant to the world today, then what’s all this training for?

Do kicking, punching, and throwing contain all the value of the martial arts? Or is there something beyond the physical? And if there is something else, then is it meant only for individual benefit, or can it be applied to the world?

My job is to do for the role of martial arts teacher what Ernie Reyes and the West Coast Demo Team did for the martial arts competition world, what Dana White and his colleagues did for mixed martial arts fighting. I think martial arts teachers are in the perfect position to be leaders in a new global view of self-defense, a view that looks at the big picture, and a view that transcends the current definition of ‘what are the martial arts for.’

The UBBT and the 100. are both parts of a community that nurtures and encourages instructors to expand their curriculum, to step out of their schools, and to embrace a kind of thinking that may be new to the martial arts, but that is common among the most self-actualized, cognizant, proactive citizens of the world.

Martialinfo: What is The 100.?

Tom Callos: The 100. is my martial arts association and it was inspired by Rosa Parks. Rosa was a 43 year old African-American seamstress who took action at the right time and place and as a result, helped make history. I started The 100. with the idea that 100 martial arts teachers, I mean people who have spent their entire lives forging themselves to be warriors and teachers, ought to be able to equal the power of one Rosa Parks. Couldn’t we create the right time and place? Couldn’t we see injustice and do something about it? The 100. is an association about martial arts business for people who believe it is our business to make a difference beyond the ring and outside of the dojo.

Martialinfo: So the UBBT is about testing and The 100. is a about activism?

Tom Callos: All my work points to the same place. It’s all about walking the talk of the potential of martial arts training. It’s all about a kind of martial arts teacher that is a hero to others, a living example of martial arts principals put into action.

Martialinfo: Do you have members who are examples of your ideas?

Tom Callos: Mike and Karen Valentine of San Rafael, CA have the first officially Green Certified school in the nation and they have the first ever ocean-based cleanup requirements for black belt testing. What this tells the general public is ‘See, we’re not just fighters, we’re warriors for a better, healthier world too.’ Tim Rosenelli of Pennsylvania is now using his degree in environmental engineering in his martial arts school and it’s bringing him students he would never have met otherwise. Dan and Kim Rominski, Alicia Kastner, Bryan Klein, and Charles Chi, all of New Jersey, are running acts of kindness programs that are making community leaders stop, look, and listen to the martial art in a way that had never happened before. Brian Williams of Nevada has started the One Million Acts foundation where he’s working on getting people all around the nation involved in performing one million acts of kindness. UBBT member Andy Mandell is on the last 1000 miles of a 10,000 mile walk around the perimeter of the U.S. for diabetes education.

What’s happening is that the UBBT and The 100.are expanding the role of the martial arts teacher in the world. We’re practicing a new kind of martial arts that isn’t just physical, but that transcends the subject matter.

Martialinfo: So, someone we know recently called you a “Tree-hugger.” Are you?

Tom Callos: (laughs) No, I’m much more than that, there’s just not a name for it yet. I’m a martial arts teacher that believes in the power of the martial arts to make change. I believe that the fear I faced and defeated on the mat and in the ring was meant to be applied to other things. I believe in martial arts mastery –and I think it’s my job to carry on the work my martial arts teachers, people like GM Jhoon Rhee and Master Ernie Reyes, Sr., have been doing. I think I’m supposed to add to the martial arts world, not just exist in it.

Master Reyes was always fearless in the way he attacked competition and our demo team performances. I think he was showing us what could be done if you focused. I think he meant to empower his students with a belief that we should ‘go for the WOW.’ With the examples of my teachers and heroes, how could I shoot for anything other than something powerful, meaningful, and important?

Martialinfo.com: Are you still accepting people in the UBBT and the 100?

Tom Callos: Any time, any place. My only requirement is courage and the understanding that we are here to do something unbelievable, something most people can’t even get their head around. I’m looking for people who are tired of the status quo and who are willing to try new things to see what happens.

Martialinfo.com: Thank you for taking the time to talk.

Tom Callos: It is my honor to be here and to have an audience for these concepts.

Tom Callos may be reached at tomcallos@gmail.com. The UBBT’s address is www.ultimateblackbelttest.com, The 100’s is www.theonehundred.org.

Watch for a recorded interview with Tom Callos to be aired soon on the NPR radio program Speaking of Faith at www.speakingoffaith.org.

Let’s Help Usher In a New Era of Martial Arts Education

Funakoshi, Kano, Ueyshiba, Choi, Lee, and the Gracie family (among many others) have, each in their own time and way, contributed to new movements and shifts of awareness in the martial arts community.

In my 37 years of martial arts study, I have been witness to some of these --and other --historical shifts in thinking and methods.

I remember the first time a Bruce Lee movie aired in my town. I remember watching Joe Lewis, Jeff Smith, Bill Wallace, Byong Yu, and Al Dacascos in 1974 on Mike Anderson’s spectacular debut of full contact karate and creative demonstrations on national TV. I remember the first episode of Kung Fu. I remember watching Royce Gracie defeating people twice his size, using methods I had never seen before. All of these events, for me, created a shift in thinking, expectations, and goals –and I think a lot of martial artists were influenced by them as well.

It’s Happening, Again, Right Now
The martial arts community is, again, in the middle of a huge transition in methods, focus, and thinking. It’s being ushered in by the media, by TV and films; It’s being supported by a new generation of athletes –and fans of the martial arts. Ang Lee’s films, the UFC, too many Brazilians to mention by name, and You-Tube are all doing their part to create change –and opportunity –for all of us.

I would like to suggest that we (professional martial arts teachers) take this opportunity, this time and place, to step into and embrace our own changes. I think it’s time to take a leap forward in thinking, in teaching methods, and, most of all, in our expectations, our “desired outcome” from the work we put into our students.

Specifically, I am referring to what we teach our students, why we teach them, and what we expect them to know and be able to do when they “graduate” from our programs. Borrowing from Stephen Covey’s second “habit” of highly effective people (Begin with the End in Mind), I’m thinking about what we can do now to positively affect the future of the martial arts, untold numbers of martial artists, and perhaps, if we’re lucky, the world.

I don’t think that we should teach the martial arts only from a place of tradition, or for sport, but from a reevaluated position based on the needs of our society, today. New attitudes about self-defense and fitness stand to make the martial arts more “now”, more useful and relevant to the world as it is –and as it will be in the future. For teachers, more relevancy translates into more “value”, and we are all trying to increase the value (real and perceived) of what we do in –and for –the world.

From a business standpoint, what we offer to our students, in the way of education and services, has a direct effect on how we market and promote our schools. The more we expand and refine our subject matter, the more things we have to talk about with the media, with schoolteachers, with parents, and with prospective students.

Where to Begin the Transformation
Expand the Ring
There is a powerful vintage video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) that shows a three-minute piece of a documentary film featuring the great judo man, Kimura (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkDBflFtPIw). In the film, Canadian judoka Doug Rogers talks about Kimura and his training. He says that the university team, under Kimura’s supervision, does 600 pushups a day, and sometimes as many as 1000. Rogers says, “This is unreasonable, we know that. But it pushes us beyond a physical limit, to another place, way outside --or way inside, I don’t know where exactly, but I’ve been there.”

When you watch the film you can see how hard this team trained --and how focused both Kimura and his students were on winning and playing “great judo.” It’s beautiful: the commitment to that game, to the sport, to the mat and the training. It is exactly what you think judo is, what it was, and what it should be.

In judo competition, the ring is 33-feet by 33-feet; in boxing, a ring usually measures 24-feet square; in life, the ring is 24-7. Learning how to be a champion on the mat or in the ring is like writing one beautiful and poetic sentence –out of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The sentence is an integral part of the work, it is, in its structure, a vital component of the work, but it is not the novel. If only life could be narrowed down into a 33-foot square ring; Oh how easy it would be!

To expand the ring, to teach students how to take the lessons learned there and apply them to their lives, this is the new martial arts education –to be the Kimura of life-lessons! The teacher seeks to make champions in the ring, of course, but also (and more importantly) in life, the 24-7 variety. Fighting in the ring can be an art, but life? Winning in life is the real victory. Finding ways to teach these lessons, effective ways, measurable ways, this is the new challenge --and opportunity. This is the shift.

Fighting in the ring is so manageable; you win or you lose, sometimes you draw, and it’s oh-so contained. Life is a big, big ring –and as martial arts educators we need to teach those skills, so that our students go forward in their lives armed with what they need for an arena where defeat and victory really make a difference.

Make Self-Defense Global

MSN Encarta Definition for "Self Defense":

1. legal right to defend self: the use of reasonable force to defend yourself, your family, and your property against physical attack, or the right to do this
2. fighting techniques: fighting techniques used to defend yourself against physical attack, especially unarmed combat techniques such as any of the martial arts

The narrow definition of self-defense above, taken from the Internet, doesn’t begin to describe what we teach in the martial arts, nor does it give any hint whatsoever about the potential of what self-defense instruction could be.

In America, 7% of the population has diabetes, which is 20.8 million people. It’s estimated that another 14.6 million have the disease, but are currently undiagnosed. More than half-a-million people in America will die of cancer this year. The leading cause of death among children here, ages 5 to 14, is unintentional accidents, mostly auto related. A Cornell University analysis estimates that 40 percent of world deaths can now be attributed to various environmental factors, especially organic and chemical pollutants.
The estimates both in America and worldwide for the number of people killed or injured by side-kicks is unavailable, but my guess is that it’s only slightly more than are killed by back-fist attacks.

And forget about death, what about things that hurt us? Like financial issues, relationship issues (Ouch!), conspicuous consumption! Oh, and the worst of the worst: negative internal dialogue! How about diet? Racial bias and other unhealthy prejudices? How about that crippling un-awareness we have as our children grow up around us while we are absorbed in some business that someday we will come to realize didn’t mean 1/1000 as much as our loved ones?

Self-defense is so much more than we currently deal with, the opportunity to view it as something holistic, to look at it from a global perspective, is the martial arts shift-in-thinking of the century.

Out of the Dojo and Into the World: Project Based Leadership Training
Trophies in the windows of martial arts schools; how many have you seen? There have been schools that were mistaken for trophy shops, where people walked in to order their bowling awards. It may be true that trophies are a measure of some kind of success, a sign perhaps that “we are skilled,” and so an indication of quality instruction. However, the new “trophy in the window” in the martial arts world, the most evolved measure of an instructor’s skills is not forged in metal or plastic, it is the record of how students take what they are taught and practice on the mat –and apply to the real world.

It is in how they take their martial arts out of the dojo and into the world.

It is a major shift in thinking to visualize that, in the future, teachers will instruct their students on how to apply their hard-earned skills to “projects” –and that the recording and documenting of those projects will be how a teacher will not only prove that he or she is effective and skilled, but that the projects will be all of the advertising –the best advertising –a school will ever need.

Leadership training is a buzzword in the martial arts industry. The idea that leadership will be taught experientially, through community-based projects, and that the instructor’s “job” will be to help his or her students choose projects, gather resources, and then execute and record them, is a radical departure from the status quo in the martial arts industry. But what a thing! Actually teaching people to achieve by using the philosophy of the martial arts. Revolutionary!

Just the Beginning
These ideas are just part of way we could transform the martial arts industry. The most important ingredient of the transformation is our own. Elevating our thinking, increasing our action-in-the-world, and actually applying our winning “ring strategies” to a larger arena (read: life), will bring about an all-new respect for the martial arts. We could increase our value ten-fold, sort of the way Bruce Lee kicked the martial arts into millions of households --and the way The UFC has garnered millions of fans.

My work, projects like The Ultimate Black Belt Test and The 100. are exercises in transformation-thinking. The people involved in them are combining forces to make radical and much needed changes in the martial arts industry. They are working on themselves while working on the martial arts, our image, and our purpose. I think there projects represent a part of this new shift in thinking, this opportunity in the world for making the martial arts a bigger and more valuable part of everyday life.
Come join us in our dialogue about a new kind of martial arts education. Contact me at 530-903-0286 or by e-mail at
tom@tomcallos.com.

About the Author
Tom Callos is a “martial arts activist” committed to making a difference in the world by applying martial concepts in the world. He is team coach for the Ultimate Black Belt Test and the founder of The 100. Visit http://www.ultimateblackbelttest.com/ and http://www.theonehundred.org/.