It is funny, rather than feel like I accomplished something by getting a black belt it feels more like I am just starting out. For comparison it was as much shear work and learning as obtaining a college degree. However, rather than closure or accomplishment the primary result is an increased self imposed pressure to improve my technique. Rather than “whats next?”, the feeling is more like that of the minimum acceptable quality bar being raised significantly.
I think the pressure to improve comes from having new people starting to watch and copy your technique. Seeing your own errors mirrored in someone trying to learn is horrifying. At the same time the quality bar gets raised and you start getting more fine-grained feedback from peers and seniors. The net result is this feeling of looking at your own technique and going “ick”. I don’t think it is just me feeling that way either.
The other day I was training with a friend who had just gotten his second-degree black belt, and who was nice enough to work with me to correct a bunch of mistakes in one of my kata. A little while later when I looked up from practicing what we had gone over – and I saw he was working with one of the third degree black belts on one of his kata. After noticing that I started paying attention, and it turns out all the black belts in the dojo regularly take time to come in early, or stay late, and doing extra training with each other. I mean we all do that – it’s the entire point of training – but the black belts have apparently been doing this whole extra level of training I was unaware of the entire nine years I have been at this dojo. I am embarrassed that I never really noticed before. I am still wondering what else I have missed.
The other weird thing is that I think I had been worried about quitting after getting my black belt. I had not really acknowledged that worry, but it feels a bit like exhaling after having held your breath. People don’t talk about it much, but post belt quitting happens a lot. Some people say they just lost interest, others that they had finally “mastered” enough of the art and were ready to move on to something else. Most just disappear. I have trained at a lot of different dojos, and if I had to guess I would place the drop out rate in the first year at 30+% on average. Luckily our dojo seems to retain people, but we have still lost a few over the years. So I think I feel quietly relieved that it seems like Karate is going to be one of those life long pursuits, and that I can ask “What’s next?” without first giving something up.
Thank you to all the amazing teachers I have had in my life, both on and off the mat. For anyone looking to train I can’t recommend Koei-Kan enough.