 It is not the physical belt that we wear around our waist that makes a difference in the martial arts. It really comes down to the hard work, the dedication, and education that you put into your training. Now, we've all heard, or most of us have heard, and even advocated the expression, getting your black belt is not the end of your journey, but rather the beginning. Well, that's all well and good, but what does that mean exactly? You worked hard for years, you got your black belt? Now what? Today's topic comes from a question from one of our Patreon viewers. And I wanted to bring this up and present it to you guys for feedback and see what kind of point of discussion that we can start from here. Matthew Hemker asked me about the correlation between getting your black belt and then the obligation slash requirement that comes with it. Now, sometimes teaching is assumed just because you got your black belt or senior rank, depending on what art you're training. He asks, do you think that there is a place for the black belt that doesn't want to teach or perhaps shouldn't be teaching? And I think the quick answer I can give right off the bat is, my opinion? Yes, I do believe there is a path for those who don't want to teach. There is a popular misconception out there that just because you achieved your black belt means you were automatically certified and qualified to teach. Honestly, in my opinion, that couldn't be further from the truth. There's no definitive relationship between rank and teaching abilities. In a nutshell, achieving your black belt means or should mean that you have finished your curriculum and that you have at least an understanding and the ability to implement all the basics of your art. But that doesn't mean you're automatically qualified and ready to teach. Teaching another person is a skill in and of itself. It's not just knowing the knowledge of the material, but it is having the ability to communicate that knowledge to another person. And vice versa, the ability to teach well isn't always dependent on your rank either. And once again, I just have to reiterate that the belt itself physically means nothing. It is a piece of fabric. It holds your uniform closed and it's just used as a marker as to where you are in the system. And I think they're fine in that regard. You know, belts are great for keeping track of where you are in the curriculum and they're great in the classroom setting. But they are not the end-all answer to what you know or what you can do. Just like in school, a 12th grader is not automatically smarter and better than all the 9th graders. You know, all it means is that you have certain expectations based on the curriculum that you've completed thus far. So when we say that the black belt is just the beginning of your training, that means that at this point you've learned all the individual pieces and how they work together as a cohesive unit. What comes after that? Well, that's where things get interesting. So we can talk about advancing beyond the black belt. And of course, this is going to vary greatly depending on what art you train and especially if you're in a Chinese martial art or Brazilian art or karate, they're all different and there's all different requirements. But most of the time, once you achieve your black belt, like I said, you're beginning that there's room to grow after that. It's not the end of the curriculum. And in many, many cases, there's still more curriculum to learn so that you can still keep testing for further degrees or down levels. This is also the opportunity to take a deep dive look into your system. All those basics that you've learned, well, now's the time to start playing with them, analyze them, break apart techniques, put them back together, look at them from different perspectives. Sometimes you'll be very surprised what you can learn from material where you thought you already knew. So there's always a new nugget of information you can pull out. And here's where you're going to see a big divide. This is going to vary greatly across different schools and different systems. Every martial art works different. They all have different ways to lay out the curriculum. So just because one study topic works well for one art doesn't mean it's going to work for another. And that's actually honestly part of your quest to become a senior rank and become an expert in your art is to learn how that system works, learn where you can find the information and break it apart. You know, allow the burden is on your shoulders to get your own education off the ground. But when it comes to teaching, teaching is often a big part of achieving your black belt because it's kind of assumed to be a natural part of the progression. You know, you sign up as a white belt, you train for years, you test, you learn to become efficient on all your basics, and you become a black belt, and now what's the next course? Oh, and then you eventually become a teacher. Okay, well, that is true in many cases. And sometimes some schools, like even my earlier school, when I first started was, in order to test for your black belt, you had to have some time put in as an assistant instructor. That just meant helping out in a few classes. You had to have the hands-on work. You had to look at the material from an educational point of view, not just as a student. Now, if teaching is something you truly don't want to do, then this is something you need to really have a serious discussion about with your instructor. And if you're in an art where teaching is absolutely required to advance, then you may have come at the end of your own. You know, you might have to start exploring options, if that's not the direction you want to go. But in many cases, there's still a lot you can do, and there's still paths that are offered that you can follow that don't involve teaching. Now, when Matthew asked me the question, he actually used, as an example, American Kempo, because he knew that was my background. American Kempo, we don't use titles for our black belt ranks that are typical karate titles. We don't use to show it on, need on. It's typically more teaching titles. So for example, we use instructor, professor, and master. So the first four belt ranks are instructor levels. The next three belt ranks are professor levels, and the last three belt ranks are master levels. And they're called that because there is an expectation that you should at least have the ability to explain something. You know, once you reach a professor rank, you should know enough about your system to answer questions and really analyze and have a pretty good academic view. You're not expected to know everything yet, but you should have a really good grasp of the overall system and be able to teach it to somebody else. Now, the funny thing about that that was using Kempo as an example, you know, Matthew asked me about, because of the Kempo titles, but funnily enough, in Kempo, at least in my experience, I know a lot of people who chose not to teach that are still ranking up on black belts. They're still doing their training, but they chose not to teach. Teaching is not a requirement. You don't have to go open up your own school. You don't have to become an instructor if you don't want to. It's available and it helps rank you up. You know, if you want to advance, teaching is one way to do it. And also with Kempo, depending on what curriculum you went through, you've seen all the material. By the time you get to third, fourth, or fifth degree, and on which curriculum you follow. But by then, you've achieved and you've tested and you've learned all the curriculum, all the book work. And at that point on to rank, if you want to get sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth degree, it's time, commitment, teaching, contribution back into the art. You can't just sit there idle and just kick a pad all day. You actually have to bring something to the table, whether it be a new discussion or thesis or you teach. This is where you start to infuse your knowledge into the art and take it further. So a lot of us are like that. Yes, it's you giving back into the system. You giving to someone else or you giving new knowledge out there. That's how you rank up in many cases. So let's break that misconception right now that just because you got your blackmail automatically means you can teach. Teaching is a skill. It is a separate skill. It doesn't mean you accomplish book work, but it means that you have the ability to communicate ideas in such a way that you can break them down, make them easy to understand, and convey knowledge to a person and help that person on their quest to digest that information and learn it. It's not bound to the fact that because you have a piece of black fabric around your waist, it's not an automatic skill. It's something that you learn or some people can have a natural ability at it because the reverse is true. Just because you don't have a black belt doesn't mean you can't teach. My previous instructor, by the time he closed the school and moved out of the state about five years ago, he was a seventh degree black belt. But when I first met him, he was a green belt and he was just an assistant instructor in the class, but he was really good. He understood the material. He was very charismatic. He knew how to break it down for us to understand it. And as he ranked and has he got better, he got more and more teaching abilities. But he was one of the primary instructors at Brown Belt just because he was that good. And honestly, he was one of the best instructors I've ever met because he really knew how to open your eyes in a new way. He didn't just tell you to do this. He didn't just teach you the moves. He taught us how the moves worked, what they meant, how to take it apart because it was not just about memorization. It was about understanding. And I think that's really, really important when it comes to teaching. And unless you know how to do that or want to do that, just because you have your black belt doesn't mean you can do that. Again, black belt was just the beginning. And that's even if you're just in the traditional martial art. Even if you're in other arts that don't use belts such as MMA or maybe you're a boxer, there's always more you could learn. So just because you're really good at something or efficient and it could be considered an expert or enough to learn. Maybe you want to improve that footwork or maybe you want to learn how to dodge faster or do try out different combinations or break down a kata. There's always more you can peel back so it doesn't matter what art you're in. There's always something new to learn. You're always going to be able to drive forward to become a better fighter if you want to. But you have to take that initiative to do it. This is extremely true of American Kempo as well. You could spend a lifetime trying to find all the information embedded within the art. I know a lot of people out there are all about the fighting aspect and self-defense and that's one aspect but there's also something to be said about understanding motion and the science of motion and that's something else you could look at and learn if you want to. But the information is there. Whatever you're trying to learn it's in there and even now after 27 years of American Kempo I still go back to my wipeout material and I find new nuggets of information I never knew were there before. So there's always these layers you can peel back. And anyone who studies Kempo knows what I'm talking about because every one of our techniques has an idea or a concept. Whatever one technique does somewhere in the system there's another technique that has the opposite and reverse of it. Many times it's obvious, many times it's not. You have to find it a lot of times and it's kind of exciting when you do. Even just recently I was reviewing some old material and I came across two different techniques and I did one and I did the other and I went oh, wow. The second technique but it was upside down. Meaning that it was the same ideas, same principles of emotions that applied to the lower body versus the upper body. It was in reverse. So I was like, you know, as little things like that can pop out sometimes. For me that's exciting because that makes me look at it differently and understand that the concept cannot only be applied here it could also be applied there. And I think that's the important part of once you achieve your black belt is going back and looking for things like that. Look for patterns. What kind of hidden knowledge can you pull out? You can do the same thing with your combinations in MMA. You know, just because maybe a combination, a punching combination worked. Well, can you apply it to kicks and vice versa? What can you play with? What can you discover? Discovery is half the fun at least in my opinion. So to answer the question, yes, I do feel there is a path for those who are black belts that don't want to teach. There's plenty you can learn. There's plenty of knowledge to seek after there's a thousand different ways you can make yourself a better fighter. But I do recommend teaching for those who are willing to try it. At least understand how to do it because it offers you new perspective and I can't tell you how many times I've been teaching in class or I've been working with kids. I'm explaining the topic and through the process of my explanation to get them to understand it something clicks and I make a connection. I'm like oh, oh, yeah. And it just makes more sense to me. So to be able to explain something in detail to that person only helps you understand it even more. And for the record teaching children and teaching adults are two completely different experiences and both valuable in their own way. Teaching children is you have to take this complicated knowledge and break it down into small pieces so that they can understand it. You can't sit down with a ten year old and give them a two hour thesis on the economy of motion or maybe you could for some kids. But for the most part you got to break it down into smaller chunks and let them absorb it. Whereas with an adult, a person is going to expect more of a thorough explanation that they're going to want to know why. They're going to know how and they're trusting you to give them effective knowledge. So teaching children and teaching adults are two very different experiences but I do recommend at least giving it a try just because you can only sharpen your own skills by teaching somebody else something new. So if you're at a point where you're concerned with your future, you're not quite sure where they go next honestly talk about it with your teacher sit down with your instructor lay out a clear path to your training because you always want to have goals regardless of what you train in. So I can only speak for myself my own experiences. I would love to hear from all of you. What does your school do? When you achieve black belt or senior rank do you have to teach? Is that required? Or what other paths do you have in front of you that you could follow? I'm looking forward to all your feedback please be sure to leave it down below in the comment section and perhaps we can circle back around and continue the discussion in the future. So thank you all for watching and we'll see you next week.