How to Test for a Black Belt

Hi, I’m Tom Callos and I’m just about as experienced in the martial arts as anyone (Oh sure, there are lots of people who started studying before me in the 1960’s and even in the 1950’s, but with 38 years of study “under my belt” and having been involved in almost all aspects of the martial arts –and considering I’m sitting here at my computer typing this, I hope you’ll give me a few minutes of your time).

When it comes to black belt testing, there are no universal standards or requirements. I mean, while there are some organizations that have set their own fine standards, there isn’t a single requirement that every school of every style in the world says, “This is required!” In fact, the truth is that any school can set their own standards and requirements for black belt testing –and they do, and those requirements can range from the ridiculously easy to the life-threatening stupid (and everywhere in-between).

Now this lack of universal standards isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I like regionalism, as in going somewhere and not seeing the same fast-food restaurants, the same giant box-stores, the same everything until every town in Wisconsin looks like every town in California looks like every town in Texas, if you get my drift. Styles of martial arts shouldn’t look the same –and the circumstances that an art like judo developed under aren’t the same as the Russion art of sambo or the Filipino art of kali or the French martial art of savate, so it’s very OK that styles should have different customs and requirements.

What I’m here to fill you in on, is HOW one should test for a black belt (or if the “black belt” isn’t used in a particular system of martial art, then whatever it is that marks the passage between knowing nothing and knowing a lot –and having from between 3 and 10 years of experience). The black belt test should be an event that causes the participant to have to “rise to the occasion.” It should be an event that is a right-of-passage, sort of the way some cultures put their young men and women through some kind of arduous test (you know, like going out on a “vision-quest” or a “walk-about” or living through one of those big debutante balls where your family has to spend more money than God to get your picture in some blue-blood newspaper or magazine).

Of course, nobody on the planet Earth has any authority to make martial arts teachers tow-the-black-belt-line, if you know what I mean; so some black belts are just handed out (“Ok, here you go, you’ve earned it. Now let’s go out for pizza.”) and some look like some kind of college frat-house hazing (Sorry, no water or food for 3-days and you’re going to sit here and meditate for 8-hours, then you’re going to fight these 10 black belts until you can’t hold your arms up --and then we’re going to start your test. Oh, and at the end of this thing, we’re all going to kick you in the stomach. Good luck.”).

With all of the above being said, let me get to the point here –and tell you how I think black belt testing should be:

A black belt test should be your Olympics. It ought to make you reach, grow, stretch, and change. It should be something you work for, in advance, 1, 2, 3, 4, and even 10 years; and I mean “work for” as in “in-training” –where every meal, every workout, every day is lived with an awareness that the test is coming. Why? Because life just doesn’t give you many of those kinds of opportunities (any more). Testing should make you eat differently (and with great awareness). It should be a reason to get in the absolute best shape of your life. It should cause you to look deeply at how you deal with stress, conflict, and anger. A black belt test is one of those rare opportunities where you can change just about anything about yourself that you want to –and that you should, and nobody would think less of you. In fact, people would say something (in each other’s ear after you walk out of the room) like, “He’s getting ready to test for his black belt.”

If everyone treated their black belt test as if it were THE MOST important and empowering day of their lives, well...shoot, people would change (and for the better), the martial arts would get more recognition and respect for some of the things that are, really, most valuable about studying, and if we were really lucky, the world might be a wee bit better for it –as it would be filled with more people who hold themselves to higher standards.

To see more on black belt testing and how it might look if it were, indeed, treated as something important; visit the experimental black belt testing project called The Ultimate Black Belt Test (www.ultimateblackbelttest.com). You’ll find some very, very serious martial arts people there (people like us, and/but living with a serious case of “I’m on a mission.”).

Oh, and see my martial arts association at www.thenewwaynetwork.com

Callos on the UFC and Martial Arts Business

Here Tom Callos talks about the UFC and the Business of the Martial Arts

My Advice to the Martial Arts School Owner

My Advice to the Martial Arts School Owner Seeking Business Success –as of the Month of January, in the Year 2009

By Tom Callos

For a few minutes, please, take a break from what you have learned and know about the business of the martial arts. Empty your cup for this short report –and let’s see if I can refill it with something that, for you, rings the bell of truth.

If I succeed, then so be it. If I fail to offer you the direction or inspiration I think you ought to feel after reading this, then –at the worst –I will have wasted only a few minutes of your time.

Education is The Way

It begins with YOUR education. What do you know, what are you learning, and how are you USING it in your life, for your school, and for your community?

Warning: Through no fault of its own, as everyone involved originally intended to offer help to the industry, the martial arts business world has fallen in a rut of “make it easy.”

We have a mass of gimmick-promotions, a plethora of poorly designed ads, VIP pass disease, 200 “consultants” in every magazine who think this is their next meal-ticket (because the school-thing didn’t work out), and 90% (or more) of promotional strategies that cater to the laziest, least skilled, dumbest school owners on the planet.

Education is the new way to inspire, lead, promote, advertise, enroll, and retain. Whatever you do, from minute to minute during your work-day, in your classes, in your community, with your staff, and with your students, if it doesn’t involve education, it probably isn’t going to help your school grow.

Teach! Teach on 10 levels, no –on 20 levels! Teach fitness, teach health, teach wisdom, teach defense, teach compassion, teach humility, teach history, teach manners, teach kindness, teach goal-setting, teach communication, teach non-violence, and teach teamwork, leadership skills, and the power of education.

Point: If fitness, health, compassion, wisdom, history, humility, manners, kindness, and all the rest aren’t a part of YOUR daily life, if you do not live the practice of these ideas, then you’re trying to sell something you don’t really own. To teach it, you would be very wise to live it.

Yes, it’s a lot to ask. I’m sorry; I wish it were easier than that.

The inexperienced and uneducated teacher has a very small range of expertise and a very small range of wisdom and experience to share. Limited education and experience equals limited VALUE.

If the education you have isn’t getting you the students you need to thrive and survive, its time to learn and/or re-learn something new. It’s time to engage a new group of teachers and friends.

The Evolution of the Education We Provide

Would you recognize the future if you saw it? Here’s a bit of “the future” for you:

In the future (read: now), half of the education you provide (and, essentially, “sell” your students), will be imparted on the mat –and the other half will be delivered on your member’s only website.

The mat will be for TRAINING. The mat is for sweating, practicing, and polishing. Your member’s only website will have all the things you don’t have the time to impart on the mat; your site will have the philosophical lessons, the lessons in etiquette, the school’s history, the detailed (on video) curriculum, the interviews with the master, and everything anyone needs to know that you don’t want to have to say 1000 times on the mat.

Your member’s only website will be where you store the information, in part, that you’re SELLING to parents. It’s where you’ll store the video-lessons on manners, on anger control, on bullying, on healthy eating, on the value of education, and on everything a parent would want to know you’re going to teach their child.

“Out of the Dojo and Into the World” is The Magic Message of the Master Teacher

There was a time when “the industry” would say to you, “It doesn’t matter how good of a martial artist you are, if you don’t know how to market and manage your business, you’re going to fail as a school owner.”

That statement, in today’s world, no longer holds the water it used to.

The truth, today, is that the better of a martial artist you are, the BETTER your business will do. The issue is not setting your martial arts aside and being a “business-person,” the issue is expanding the definition of what a great martial artist is.

Do you want to be enormously successful (and YOU get to define what that is)? If you do, then your primary objective in your teaching and living is to practice whatever style you practice diligently and with tremendous focus –and then (and this is the main point), you must take what you are practicing on the mat and put it to work in the world.

“In the world” means you have to apply it to something other than a kick, punch, or throw; something outside of the school and outside of the physical aspects of the martial arts.

If you can do this, you can teach this. If you teach this, you have just elevated yourself above the huge quantity of martial arts teachers and schools who think the arts live and die with their forms, their methods of self-defense, and their tournament victories.

If you had a device which could turn mud into diamonds, you would be one popular (and wealthy) person. Teaching people to take what you live, teach and practice on the mat and apply it to their lives, to their communities, and to the world is the martial arts equivalent of turning mud into diamonds.

Things to Avoid

Imagine trying to sell someone the thrill of surfing when you’re not a surfer! Imagine trying to sell someone the benefits of the martial arts when you’re not really a martial artist.

It must be very difficult for these consultants to the martial art industry, you know, the ones who are more comfortable in a suit than in a gi, to advice an industry they know so little about (but claim to be experts in).

It must be very difficult to teach people how to promote the values and benefits of the martial arts when they don’t practice --or have never lived them themselves.

It’s no wonder they sell strategies for overcoming sales objections, it’s no wonder they dole out lame techniques for tricking people into “upgrades.” It’ no wonder that their ideas have, quite literally, got so many of us kicked out of the public school system! It’s no wonder that State legislators are looking our businesses over and trying to determine how much regulation we need.

You see, the martial arts world should operate in an entirely different realm than the health clubs, than the tricky bank contract-buying salesmen, and the water-it-down-until-any-20-year-old-can-teach-it profiteers. The martial arts world shouldn’t give a hoot about what kind of car you have your photo taken in front of –or the brand-name of the watch you wear on your wrist.

Success in 2009 is a return to The Way. Success will come with us looking deeply at how we can help the world –and in way that reflects the ultimate aim of the martial arts (remember what Funakoshi wrote: “The ultimate aim of the art of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants").

What we need is an expansion of the definition of “martial arts” and our role in the world. Success in 2009 is in expanding our vocabulary and looking deeply at whether we are, truly, following a path that leads to mastery.

I, for one, refuse to give into the idea that our business success depends on hiding our prices, holding back our curriculum, getting people to say “Yes,” when they really aren’t sure, modeling “Wall-Mart” or “MacDonald's,” or any other giant corporate or franchise monster, selling long-term “get their money now” contracts, and/or the half-ass learning of some new curriculum that will appeal to kids or the masses so we can sign up more people.

I, for one, won’t be hanging up a Nintendo or Wi in my school trying to bribe people into bringing in their friends. I won’t be starting programs in my school just to “make money.” I won’t be selling a bunch of plastic crap at my front desk to “get my gross up.”

I’m going to stick with selling the genuine, deep-rooted, healthy practice of the martial arts –and the genuine, deep-rooted, healthy practice of applying the focus, the awareness, the self-discipline, and the courage we practice on the mat –to life, community, and the world.

Instead of spending your time listening to a bunch of business-people talking about how to maximize your profit potential, I’d like to suggest you look deeply at your habits, your practices, and your own life. Success will come with a life lived as an example of someone who is willing to be “The Teacher.”

The work we have to do to achieve any kind of worthwhile and fulfilling “success” in 2009, is to take where the old masters left off –and improve upon the ideas. We need to shape them to fit into today’s world. When someone writes or talks about the martial arts in the mainstream media, it ought to be with a voice of reverence.

We ought to be proving to the world that we do, indeed, teach people a lot more than kicks, punches, and throws. The evidence should be overwhelming (like this article).

Tom Callos Talks New Way / Martial Arts Business

A Lesson in Black Belt Testing

Team members, current and alumni; please allow me to remind/inform you of some of my beliefs/thoughts about our relationship and this “project.”

1. The black belt test is a sacred experience, but only if you treat it as such.

In my mind, when I say “black belt test” –it is a call to rise, it is to be treated with the utmost respect, it is a call to action. A black belt test is your own personal “Olympics” –and it calls you to train, to prepare, to rise to the occasion, and to evolve as an athlete and a person.

Do YOU have another event/thing in your life that asks so much of you? Perhaps you hear this call with parenting and/or with your significant other or with your career?

BUT, being that this is our life’s work, we would do well to hold the black belt test and the preparation for testing in the most sacred of places.

2. When it comes to your black belt test, require nothing. Nobody has to remind you.

Nobody has to wake you for training. No event, no obstacle, no injury, no bout of depression keeps you from preparing for the event.

You might miss a wedding, you might forget a birthday or an anniversary, but your training is who you are and how you work on yourself.

It’s your air, your survival mechanism; it is the outward manifestation of who you really are on the inside –and who you aspire to be. In your mind you hear the call to your test like an ever-present ringing in the ears.

You don’t sit at the dinner table, you don’t lift your feet into bed, you don’t breath, drink, stretch, or move without an acute awareness that you are testing for your black belt.

Very few people on this planet are bound by the code that you are. Very few people know how to apply themselves the way you are training yourself to do. Very few people treat their black belt test with the respect and reverence that you do –and this, my friends, is how you hone what it is you have given your life for.

3. You are part of a team. You may be a part of many teams, and some of them are very important to you, but in this endeavor you must cultivate an awareness of “team” in a way that warrants the most extraordinary care.

The fabric of the UBBT is woven on something intangible.

It is a recognition of our place in history –it is an understanding that collectively we stand to influence and change and improve the processes, the outcome, the culture, the direction, and the essence of “what is the martial arts.”

I am sitting at a table on my deck on The Big Island –and you are reading this in your own home or office –but we could just as easily be sitting next to each other.

This is the nature of the internet –and of a kind of connection, facilitated by our communication, that ignores distance and time differences.

Someday in the future I will be gone –and this body of work will be what I made of my life. This work will be what I did, what I worked on, and how I made my way. I might be remembered, for a time, as a very dedicated martial arts practitioner and teacher.

This is it.

This work, these messages, the call to treat our “test” and each other with a rare sort of respect, these ideas ---of peace, kindness, activism, environmentalism, anger management, leadership, purpose, intent, and mission ---this is what I/we will leave behind.

NOW is the time to recognize the opportunity we have to make change. We are not like Charles Barkley, who I heard declared he “was not a role model.” We are treating our position with the understanding that we are role models –and we are acting as if what we do –and how we go about it –will influence the quality of life in a million people who follow us.

All of this affects the solemnity of how I expect you to treat our relationship. TO treat it any other way would be far, far from “the ultimate.”

By treating our "black belt test" with this kind of respect, we make "being" a black belt something
worthwhile.

Tom Callos Talking from BJ Penn Academy in Hilo

Here I am promoting my martial arts association, The New Way Network. Training with the Penn Family in Hawaii (ooh Boy, tough --but fun!).

My Birthday Message to the Martial Arts World

At any moment, on any given day of your life, you can look in the mirror and say, “Today, I chart a new path for myself.”

You can give up smoking or give up eating foods that don’t offer the promise of good health –or you can let go of some hate, some disempowering opinion, some grudge or sour attitude about something that is, in the big picture of life, petty, meaningless, and a ball-and-chain thwarting some aspect of the happiness you seek in life.

At any given moment you can look at someone you live with or near and say, “Beginning now, I will treat you as if you were the Lord God Herself.”
At any given moment you can look at the people you have in your immediate sphere of influence and say, “Let’s do what cannot be done. Let’s live as examples. Let’s attempt something that is, in itself, the perfect example of that which is best about being human.”

You can add to your life.

One hundred push ups and sit ups for health. One hour of training for your head and the heads of those who share the space you train in. Three purposeful acts of kindness. One act of conscious non-consumption. One act of peace towards another human being and/or the planet. Ten minutes of silent and peace-focused meditation.

At any given point this “martial arts industry” could step up and say, “Beginning today, we will represent not only the best-of-the-best in the physical arts of personal self-defense, but we will step up as protectors to the serenity of that little boy and girl, to the peace of the village, to each community we live in, and to the world itself.”

As martial artists we must be able to execute precise, dynamic, and beautifully effective techniques. We must also be able to execute precise, dynamic, and beautifully effective ideas.

We must have a solution to every physical attack that might cause us or someone we love harm ---and likewise, we must have a solution to all of the non-physical attacks that might harm us or someone / something we love and cherish.

Whether it is the punch to the face or the danger of unhealthy anger; the kick in the stomach or the fear and hatred of the unknown or different; whether it is the molestation or rape of the body or the spirit or one’s confidence or the world in which we live and depend on for survival, we can look in the mirror, on any given day, and as martial artists, vow to step up and be the change we want to see in the world.

We are so much more than can be represented by a punch or kick. What takes place in our schools is so much more than the simple act of repelling the bully. What we have the potential to do is so far beyond the name of our style, what billing service we use, our petty differences of opinion, or what can be accomplished in the ring.

In 2009, we could, if we wanted to, demonstrate something about what the martial arts are –and are not –better than any year in recorded history.

We could show how we have evolved from fearful self-defense and/or revenge to holders of the torch of self-defense for the soul –and for the wisdom of co-existence and sustainable living.

I will, for as long as my legs support me, seek to learn and practice a brutally effective form of self-defense, and I will teach those who want to learn, how to defend themselves from physical harm. Likewise, for as long as my legs support me and my thoughts remain coherent, I will seek to learn, practice, and teach a kind of thinking and action that brings about peace and happiness for myself and others.

Tom Callos

Tom Callos on Connection

This film is an example of the kind of material, whether in a film or by essay, that I hope to have come out of my upcoming Ultimate Black Belt Test Directed-Writing Project.

The "I am" project asks participants in the UBBT to take words --in the form of positive affirmations --and explore their meaning (in a context relating to the martial arts and/or their life).

In the past UBBT Teams, members were required to journal once a week --but this is the first team (Team 6) that has a "directed" writing assignment. The project seeks to expand the vocabulary of the martial arts teacher / world beyond the traditional "courtesy, integrity, perseverance, etc."

This film is also an example of a philosophy and education program I'm launching in The New Way Network, my association for professional martial arts teachers and school owners.

The UBBT School, a Movement of Engaged Martial Arts

In art history there have been a number of movements or schools that defined a particular kind of art. The Hudson River school was a mid-19th century art movement comprised of landscape painters that embraced romanticism. My favorite artist of that movement is Albert Bierstadt, known for his beautiful paintings of the western United States.

The Ashcan School was a progressive group of American painters and illustrators who portrayed the realities of New York City life in a raw spontaneous unpolished style. Le Corbusier started the movement known as Purism in protest of Cubism. The German Bauhaus School was made up of architects, artists, and philosophers who had a significant influence on art and architecture before (and after) World War II.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Samuel Mockbee, and Frank Gehry, three very different kinds of architects, have each represented new schools of thought in their field.

Writers, artists, architects, scientists, fashion designers, poets, thinkers, and action-takers in almost every field can pioneer movements that end up generating new methods, ideas, and schools-of-thought.

I believe that the Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT) project represents a movement and a school of thought that is markedly different from what was the status quo prior to its inception. The UBBT was/is a protest of sorts; a movement to bring a new kind of innovation, authenticity, and intentional complexity to an “industry” that was/is suffering from a dumbing down and homogeneous commercialism of its methods, ideas, and character.

Many of the students and participants in the UBBT are practicing and implementing a new kind of methodology in their schools –much of which is a radical departure from commonly promoted methods.

The changes in curriculum content and design, promotional practices, philosophy, teaching methods, testing, and general motivation and intent pioneered and promoted by UBBT members represents what I would call an organic approach to teaching and living the martial arts.

The Buddhist monk and renowned peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn has coined his approach to spirituality as Engaged Buddhism; he advocates a kind of involvement with the world that brings the practitioner out of the meditation hall and into daily life. Being heavily influenced by Thich Nhat Hahn, I am coining the kind of martial arts being explored and practiced by UBBT members as Engaged Martial Arts.

There are two phrases embraced by students of Engaged Martial Arts that illustrate the UBBT School of thought:

“Out of the dojo and into the world,” and;

“My life is my dojo.”

The first was borrowed from Yogi Seanne Corn’s description of yoga practitioners needing to take their practice, “Off the mat and into the world.” The second is attributed to Master Gaku Homma, the last live-in student of Aikido Master Morihei Ueshiba.

Martial artists influenced by the UBBT School (school of thought) are experimenting with what I call martial arts activism –where they take what they practice on the mat and see it manifest in their communities.

This idea changes a martial arts school’s approach to curriculum, to philosophy, to promotional practices, and testing procedures. The UBBT Schools influence has spawned a variety of creative programs and practices including The National Leadership Team Project, the Diabetes Education Project, The Environmental Self-Defense Project, and the Anger Management Teacher Education Program.

Participants and members of the UBBT include influential instructors such as Dave Kovar, Fariborz Azhakh, Bill Kipp, Chris Natzke, Charles Chi, Chan Lee, Dan Rominski, Dave McNeill, Gary Engels, and Tommy Lee. For more information on the Ultimate Black Belt Test and programs its members are involved in, visit www.ultimateblackbelttest.com.

My White Belt Story (Video)

This year your life will change, for the better.

This year your life will change, for the better.

This year you will have more influence with your students –and in your community –than you have ever enjoyed before.

This year you will save someone’s life.

This year you will simplify –so that your life isn’t ruled by things, by name brands, by the desire to shop, own, acquire, and consume; this year you will, as if you died and then had a second chance to live again, begin to appreciate what is genuinely important about living.

This year you will shed the pain you have been carrying.

This year you will step-up in an extraordinary way to bring peace, compassion, empathy, and wisdom to the world. You may not change things for the better single-handedly, but you will do your part to the best of your ability.

This year you will be part of a large group of people who are seeking to make being a “black belt” and/or a “master instructor” MEAN SOMETHING important, something vital, something heavy with integrity, purpose, and mission.

This year you will transform yourself into the person you want to be –and you will do it one day at a time.

This year you will be in the here and now –as often as you can be aware of, as often as you can pinch yourself to remember, as often as is humanly possible.

This year you will stop eating abundant amounts of sugar and processed food; you will be more aware of the connection between what you consume and how you think and feel.

This year you will forgive all trespasses. You will let go of all hate, misunderstandings, and grievances. This year, you will forgive and forget.

This year you will change your school’s curriculum to reflect wisdom, vision, and your mission as a human being; this year you will begin to teach the most important mental, emotional, and spiritual ideas –transcending the standard fare of the martial arts.

This year, whether you make more money –or less, you will live with a sense of joy, with a sense of “I am here for a reason –and it is to serve others,” and each morning you will awake, take a deep breath, say your prayers of thanks, and begin your day with a sense of purpose far and beyond simply “making a profit.”

This year you will practice being a true “master.”

Every year I invite a group of martial arts teachers, school owners, and students to join me in a project called The Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT). The UBBT is about living as a martial artist –but in a new way, a way that reflects something more than the kicks and punches of the martial arts; a way that transcends the “phone call,” the “intro,” the “black belt club,” and the profit and loss statement; a way that suggests the rank of “black belt” is meant to be something more than an incentive to pay for a course, something more than a piece of cloth and a certificate.

In the UBBT we seek to come together as a team, regardless of age, rank, style or system, and do, together, what would be impossible for any one of us to do individually. We’re working on changing and improving the entire martial arts world. We’re bringing new methods, new meaning, and a sense of mission to the martial arts that expresses our potential as human beings.

While people are capable of amazing things, they all too often do nothing, nothing at all about making a difference in the world. They sit back and watch, they sit idle and do as little as possible, self-absorbed - somehow justifying their inactivity.

In the UBBT we seek to BE AND DO something that reflects the best of what we are capable of. It’s not easy, but we must begin somewhere. By BEING "that kind of black belt" --we hope to leave a trail for others to follow.

We predict the martial arts of the future will be a richer, more interesting, more meaningful activity --and that someday "being a black belt" will carry with it a sense of responsibility that reflects those things that are best about the world --and about life. Real self-defense is recognizing our connectivity -and showing a deep respect and appreciation for self and others. Someday, black belts will not only be fine examples of the physical skills taught in their various styles, they will also be roles models of the best of the best of humanity.

This year I invite you to be a black belt, to be a martial artist in an all new light.

www.ubbt.squarespace.com

Tom Callos

Notes for Master Teachers

Teaching the techniques of the martial arts is an obvious part of our profession. While technical instruction is important, it isn’t as important as the ROLE that the martial arts instructor can play in the life of his or her students.

The role is that of a person who lives life with a certain disciplined gusto, using the practice of the martial arts to reveal an understanding of life. The martial arts teacher can have a significant influence with students based on the way he or she deals with conflict, with personal motivation, with business, with management, with community involvement, with spirituality, with failure, and with any number of the other parts of the recipe that make for a high-functioning human being.

No, the martial arts teacher isn’t the ultimate deliverer of all that is wise, but he or she can definitely stand tall as a part of the village of (potentially) wise people who can make a difference in the lives of others.

With this idea in mind, I offer the following advice to all master teachers:

1. You are not The Master, you are the Servant

You’re not to stand at the front of your class commanding your troops, shouting out orders, and acting like the top dog; you’re on the mat and in the world TO SERVE.

You serve your students, humbly, and through that process you help others to be better teachers, leaders, and human beings. Whenever you start getting that superior-human-being feeling, I’d like to suggest that you have a a trusted friends whack you across the knuckles with a yardstick.

Instead of nursing an inflated ego and a warped sense of entitlement, you should be falling on your knees and thanking your students for the education and opportunities they’re giving you. In the end, you learn more from your students than they learn from you.

2. What You do Outside of your School is More Important Than What You Do In It.

You’re school is a box –and in it you are a VIP. What you do within the confines of your box dictates what you “sell” as a teacher and business owner. However, what you do outside of your box, the way you engage the world, is the difference between running a “successful business” and being a “Master.”

The truth be told, if every man and woman in the world started making a difference in his or her community, started taking some sense of responsibility for fixing problems, and developed lifestyles (including sales, marketing, and educational strategies) that affected the quality of life for others, well...the world would be very different place.

I hold the opinion that a large group of very disciplined, focused, courageous, and determined people ought to serve as role models of how people could and should engage the world.

Know any groups like that?

2. Self-Defense Has Little or Nothing to Do With Punches, Kicks, Blocks, and Grappling.

Is flour an important ingredient in a cake? Yes, of course it is, but have you ever eaten a straight cup of flour? Are kicks, punches, blocks, grappling, and all the other physical aspects of personal protection an important part of self-defense? Sure they are; they represent the flour of self-defense.

But the physical aspects of self-defense don’t make up the cake of things a person really needs to know about personal protection in today’s world.

What really hurts people, today, are things like cancer, rampant consumerism, relationship dysfunction, diabetes, and poor money management (to name a few).

For the resourceful martial arts teacher this opens up a huge window of opportunity and adventure; for the less-than-resourceful instructor this idea represents a real pain in the behind.

The Ultimate Black Belt Test 6 (UBBT 6)

The Ultimate Black Belt Test 6 (UBBT 6)

Preparing for your black belt test in a way that is sacred, extraordinary, and that brings about personal and community transformation.

The UBBT Project asks martial artists from around the world to come together, on-line, and LIVE an amazing black belt test for an entire year +.

This is a process that has the potential to challenge the participant physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially.

On one level, the UBBT is completely about the participant –as anyone who goes through the training will be transformed in one way or another.

On another level, the UBBT is about coming together as a team, as a group, a community.

The team, collectively, has the potential to do what no single person could do alone. By being on this team, a member reaches beyond his or her school, style, association, town, state, and/or nation –to find like-minded people who become friends, colleagues, classmates, and sometimes, family.

On yet another level, the UBBT is an entity that is influencing the international martial arts community. Thousands of school owners, teachers, and martial artists have visited the UBBT’s website, read articles about the program, and/or seen film and interviews with team members.

The UBBT is influencing instructors and students around the globe. The program offers dozens of previously unexplored ways to make one’s martial arts and life “journey” more fulfilling, exciting, and fruitful.

Teachers going through the UBBT Project come out of it with an experiential lesson in innovative black belt testing procedures. Every graduate knows, first hand, what the process feels like –and what it does for the candidate.

More to come (always, more to come).

Every Day, I Get to Begin Again.

Perhaps you don’t need reminding, but I do –so hang in here with me for a moment while I remind myself of the following.

Today is a BRAND NEW DAY!

A new beginning, a new start, and NOTHING is as important to the present and the future as how I apply myself from this moment on. The past is the past –the present and future, my happiness and progress, is not contingent on what has transpired, but on how I think and act from this moment on.

I am a martial artist, a life-long career martial arts teacher. I’m pursuing my DREAM not because it makes great economic sense, but because THIS is what hooked me. In the face of everything I might have done, I was drawn to the mat and the practice and the delight of being physical, of learning and teaching and practicing.

While other people practice the martial arts, but feel no pull or obligation to bring change to the martial arts world, I am a different animal. I feel a call from the handful of martial artists who have made a global impact on the martial arts –and sometimes the world, because of their ideas and actions.

Today, I begin (again) my “test” to be a 7th degree black belt in a way that sets the pace for every 7th degree black belt in the world –and of the future. I’m going to set the best example I can –so that any one of my brothers or sisters in the martial arts that follow me, in whatever part of the world they reside, might look to how I applied myself and find some sort of guidepost, inspiration, and/or ideas.

I want to be a 7th degree to the best of my ability. I want to be a 7th degree who has looked deeply at his flaws –at his strengths. I want to be a 7th degree that is, in accomplishment and contribution, equal to those people who I most admire in history. I believe that this kind of expectation is the right one to have for someone of my experience, rank, and position.

Today, I begin my “black belt test” again. My life is my test.

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.

Martial Arts Teacher, Feeling Stuck? Find Your Mission –and You’ll Find Your Profit

A sense of mission, beyond profit, beyond image, beyond “agenda,” and beyond anything but a call to duty is, I believe, THE factor to search for if you want to work in a martial arts school and feel like you’re doing something important –and for the world.

A child is not raised by occasional coaching or instruction; a child is not raised by the occasional direction and attention. A child is raised and educated daily, hourly, and by the minute. A wise parent won’t wait to give life-lessons and direction to his or her child once a month, as it’s all too important to wait, it’s too important to put off.

Work for the world, work that connects you to something more than a brand name, a corporation, some elite group of people, or the almighty dollar, shouldn’t be put off either. You don’t wait until you’re wealthy or retired or semi-retired or until the kids leave home or until the truck’s paid off to do the work that feeds your soul and the souls of those around you. It’s something you do in small, incremental, weekly, daily, and hourly pieces.

To be fueled by a purpose beyond profit motive is a kind of freedom everyone should enjoy, but it is sometimes looked down upon by people stuck in the money-mode like an infant stuck in some short, but important stage of brain development. We all know that money doesn’t buy happiness. We all know that we can’t take it with us. We all, in the end, would be better off having lived a life of service to others, a life rich in meaning and contribution, and full of love and compassion and kindness.

I am, in the end, a business consultant and I’m telling you that it’s a sense of mission, deep and meaningful, that is –in my opinion –the very thing that makes you and your business more important and valuable. If you take a partner in marriage because he or she has an inheritance that you would like to get your hands on, well...you’re destined to be in –and cause no small amount of –pain. Likewise, if you’re in your school and your primary focus is on your income and maximizing your profits, you’re headed for an empty kind of accomplishment.

Finances have their role in your life, there’s no avoiding it; but don’t lose sight of the kind of thinking and action that makes life worth living.

Find your mission and you may very well have the best money-making tool you could hope to find.

If you don’t know how to find your mission, don’t despair; a lot of us don’t know how to find our sense of mission because we haven’t been hanging out with people who “live” mission. If you’ve known somebody who has, then you already know what I’m talking about. For those who could use some “mission coaching,” look, for example, to people like the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize or the MacArthur Fellowship (called the “genius grant”).

Here’s a list of the MacArthur Fellowship’s 2007 recipients:

• Deborah Bial, education strategist
• Peter Cole, translator/poet/publisher
• Lisa Cooper, public health physician
• Ruth DeFries, environmental geographer
• Mercedes Doretti, forensic anthropologist
• Stuart Dybek, short story writer
• Marc Edwards, water quality engineer
• Michael Elowitz, molecular biologist
• Saul Griffith, inventor
• Sven Haakanson, Alutiiq curator/anthropologist/preservationist
• Corey Harris, blues musician
• Cheryl Hayashi, spider silk biologist
• My Hang V. Huynh, chemist
• Claire Kremen, conservation biologist
• Whitfield Lovell, painter/installation artist
• Yoky Matsuoka, neuroroboticist
• Lynn Nottage, playwright
• Mark Roth, biomedical scientist
• Paul Rothemund, nanotechnologist
• Jay Rubenstein, medieval historian
• Jonathan Shay, clinical psychiatrist/classicist
• Joan Snyder, painter
• Dawn Upshaw, vocalist
• Shen Wei, choreographer
  

(By the way: Why isn’t there, in the history of the MacArthur Fellowship, a grant that’s gone to a martial arts teacher?)

Go to Borders or any bookstore and you’ll find shelves of books about people who are making positive change in the world.

Be warned and be aware: Just like junk food is readily available at just about every turn, so is “junk influence.” Turn on just about any radio station, any TV channel, and go to any movie –and you might find yourself bombarded by triviality, by shallowness, by “buy this to be happy” messages, and endless discussions about the habits and behaviors of blond actresses and singers or ex-football and soccer players. It’s mind-numbing.

Spend a year of your life immersed in the study of people with a sense of heroic and purposeful mission –and you could very well come out of it transformed and empowered. Being an empowered person with a sense of mission --is, in my opinion, a fine form of “mastery,” and a very real form of “self-defense” for today’s world.

It’s also the right way to “do” our kind of business.

Intelligent Curriculum: A New Concept for Martial Arts Professionals

Intelligent Curriculum is the term I use to express a method about how to design one’s martial arts school curriculum in a way that supports the education the teacher is seeking to provide the student.

I see the curriculum in most martial arts schools as more of an outline than a complete work. Most schools have a curriculum that is like a novel yet to be “fleshed out.”

To be intelligent, a school’s curriculum should not be a list of techniques and requirements written in a handbook or on a sheet of paper; with modern technology a school’s curriculum should shine, it should sing out and inform, inspire, and direct.

Why do we do these particular techniques? Where does this come from? Why has this requirement changed? Is there anything I should know that’s not written specifically in the curriculum? Is there room for changes or adjustments in the curriculum if I have some challenge that keeps me from doing a particular technique? What is this supposed to look like?

I’m looking for a few schools who would like to develop an “Intelligent Curriculum” model. I am certain that this idea will revolutionize the entire martial arts world’s approach to testing curriculum and requirements. Contact me at tomcallos at g mail dot com.

A Little More On Curriculum

A martial arts school’s curriculum is meant to bring a student to a certain level of skill and competency. What that level is, in most cases, is entirely up to the Master Teacher of the school.

As the teacher grows, evolves, and ages as a martial artist and a human being, his or her curriculum changes. At some point in almost every teacher’s career, his or her classes are pedal-to-the-metal competitive training sessions where, for the most part, only the strong survive. Somewhere along the line, most teachers wake up to the fact that they are losing some of (or MANY of) the students that probably need martial arts training the most.

The smart teacher adjusts the training to fit the student. Master Teacher and martial arts legend Jhoon Rhee expressed the idea perfectly when he said, “It is better to change your students through a peaceful evolution –than it is to attempt it by violent revolution.”

It’s an intelligent teacher that knows how to teach students in a way that doesn’t chase them off –and instead brings about a peaceful evolution of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual transformation.