There are many reasons why someone should get a black belt here are three of the most important.
Personal safety and Education security
We live in a time when bullies pervade our school system. Characteristically bullies are mean spirited, cruel, and larger than children that they bully. Bullies usually don’t act alone, they form “clicks” of people who are willing to follow their lead. Bullies don’t always beat other kids up sometimes they enslave them by making them do their bidding: do their homework, give them money, give them parts or all of their lunch, allow them to look good when playing team sports like basketball, and in general make the act of going to school analogous to going to a suppressed country, where they are the “Supreme Leader” and normal kids are wards of the state.
A very troubling component of bullying is that a lot of children who succumb to it don’t tell people in authority that it is happening to them for fear of repercussions from the bully when the protector is gone.
Most children who become targets of bullies allow their grades to lapse to fit in with other members of the “click”; learning is subordinated to surviving. Because of a child’s unwillingness to become a part of a “click” they could become social parishes.
Some kids who don’t become members of a “click” experience other forms of cruelty such as being humiliated, threatened, beat up, and more.
Bullies tend to avoid a conflict with a black belt because even bullies know what a black belt is and fear its wearer. And it gets better, children who are black belts tend not only to be, left alone by bullies but idolized by others, so much so that whatever they decide to do ( play an instrument, sing in the glee club, run for school President, get all A’s, etc.) becomes cool and other kids tend to want to be a part of it.
Resume
When your child comes of age he/she will invariably apply for a job and hopefully go to college. In this day and age ( not like when I went through my development ) there isn’t an employer or school administer on the planet that doesn’t know what a black belt is.
Black belts are highly sought after candidates for employment and schooling. The reason is that employees and administrators know that black belts have the skills ( discipline, perseverance, work ethic, etc.) to enhance their institution's reputation by being able to market successful model students.
Typically, when a black belt is offered a job it is in a management position because of their leadership skills.
Station in life
By the time a student earns a black belt, they have acquired all of the skills necessary to get the things out of life that they want. This is a package of skills that the average person is unaware of: mental and physical discipline, the ability to get A’s & B’s, as well as the ability to set and acquire goals, an ability to finish what they start, a positive attitude, and a healthy work ethic.
To become a success a person has to have all of these qualities, black belts do. It is for that reason that black belts tend to enjoy the better things that life has to offer when they come of age.
As a child, I did not have a person in my life to steer me on a path to success, not because they did not want to but because they did not know-how. I was fortunate, not only did I make something out of myself, I cataloged how I did it. The cataloging of how I became a world champion allowed me to write my book DAGPAW Means Success A Parent’s Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child At Home, and reconfigure my style of teaching, and consciously keep my tuition structure at an affordable rate.
I do this because I believe that every child should be able to benefit from martial arts but not every child’s parents can afford it. The learning of martial arts can be cost prohibited at an average of $150. Per month. Martial arts instructors know what they have, most are not only teach kids how to win a fight, they are teaching them to be winners in life. They know that in the long run what a child obtains from being in martial arts is life-altering and more valuable than gold.
In closing, I’d like to say that, I know that these are difficult times. It is times like these when families pull back spending on “nonessential “ sports like football, baseball, swimming, tennis, and the like. To that I say this to you, martial arts is not a sport or a game to be played where winners and losers pack up and go home after an event, it is a way of life. Asian countries: Japan, Korea, and China place high demands on academic development all have mandatory participation in martial arts programs for free in their schools. They don’t do it so that kids can have fun, they do it to ensure a child’s future success.
Given this truism, I encourage all parents to think twice before dropping their child from their martial arts endeavors. I sincerely believe that finding a way to keep your child in a professionally run martial arts program is in the best interest of the child.
May you have everything that you want, and want everything that you have.
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