I spend time in conflict with myself. I train hard to inspire my students and yet I seem to do is elicit comments like "you are scary strong" or even "well....you're Charles." When folk comment on me being atypical, I point out that I am simply normal. It is what I do not say that people should be listening to.Today, when anyone leads by proper example, we deify them as heroes. We make them greater than ourselves so we can go through life with our comfortable misery and suffering.
When students first join, they are out of shape. Even the ones in shape, are out of shape. They struggle through reps of ten, and then twenty and so on. Students watch me occasionally due reps of 50 to 100 and wish they had my strength. Strength is earned in the first ten reps; once you get to eleven…you are working on stamina. Simple. No tricks.
Then students reach mid level (Brown belt) and they are working towards reps of 40 to 50. Yes, they are training stamina. This is necessary for upper level training. It feels pretty good to be able to keep up with the teachers.
At black belt level, students become disciples. The warm-up is over and now onto serious training. If you have kept up with the progression, the disciples should be hitting reps of 70 to 90. This sounds really cool, but the workouts take 20 to 25 minutes. And with 15 minutes of stretching, and some sparring, some two-person drills, hitting a couple of your 21+forms…well an hour goes fast. And whaddayou mean? Learn new material? OY! You are joking.
This is where the program changes. We start with Black belt conditioning, six rounds of body confusion workouts. Then we add Weight Vest conditioning. Weight vest starts at 10% of the black belt’s body weight. Does not sound like much, but it is. My weight vest is 60 pounds. No, I don’t weigh 600 pounds…it is the Gi that makes me look fat.
And still, I hear about my atypicalness. No…I’m normal.
Did you see what I did not just say? Then let me say it out loud. Today at work, I spent two and a half hours moving dirt into trenches. That is about 3600 pounds of dirt. Then add in an hour of moving concrete blocks weighing from 60 to 80 pounds. I carry them 60 feet, lift them over my head and throw them up over the eight foot tall trailer wall.
Of course, not everyday is this demanding. Some days, I just climb up and down scaffolding wearing my 15 pound work bags. Filled with every tool I need for construction and destruction.
So…Black Belt conditioning, Weight Vest conditioning and everything else I put my students through, is not so much. Not easy, but not crazy.
On the flip side, I watched my dragon warriors pick up weight that was 20 to 25% of their weight and go through a workout without complaint. My first thought was to snatch the weight away and ping them over the head with it. But, I watched to see what would happen. They made it okay and I am sure they slept well that night.
And this is the dilemma as an instructor. One hand must become heavy and reign in the charging horses before they can harm themselves and the other hand cracks the whip on the stubborn mules who wish to be dragged to greatness. And here I thought leading by example would be easy.
The next time your teacher speaks, listen to what they say and hear what they do not say.
Good training.
