'Lifestyle' Schedule
This is the process that our Taekwondo students take to become Black Belts. It is a well tried and tested method and it has evolved into the most efficient process to produce Black Belt since we began teaching Martial Arts in Norwich in 1980.
Basic; This level of membership allows the student to discover if he/she enjoys Martial Arts and would like to commit to developing a Black Belt Lifestyle. Basic membership is ‘no frills’ just the basic membership, no; weapons, musical Kata, XMA, sparring etc. This level of membership is help the new student to understand how to incorporate Martial Arts into their lifestyle and for them to enjoy the environment at the Academy whilst getting to know more about our positive coaching methods. The length of a basic membership is 3 months maximum, we would however, expect a student who recognizes that Martial Arts is for them, to upgrade to Lifestyle membership before their basic membership expires.
Black Belt Lifestyle Training; Once the basic member has decided that he/she will become a Black Belt. This level of membership/commitment will ensure that the journey to Black Belt is both fun and life enhancing. A student who chooses Blackbelt Lifestyle Training as their course to Black Belt Excellence will enjoy all the physical and mental benefits that learning Martial Arts within a caring, modern Academy includes.
Black Belt Training takes approximately 3 to five years.
Lifestyle students are able to take part in our ‘life skills’ training. This includes the S.T.A.R. programme for those under 12 years and other seminars/workshops/tutorials on subjects such as;
Are you Audio/visual/kinaesthetic?, How your brain works, Nutrition, Clean speaking, Brain Dojo – the mystery explained, Giving Without Receiving, Body Language & Physiology, Iridology, Making Good Choices, Nutrition Fuelling your body efficiently – food preparation, Doing What You Say You’ll Do, Financial Planning/review, Energy Healing, The six human needs, How To Explain With Words and Your Body, The Seven Habits of Highly Efficient People.
In short Lifestyle Training is the mental and spiritual training that we give to our instructors. It is the level of personal and interpersonal expertise that we expect our teaching staff to hold.
We want to create Leaders in society with this programme.
The STAR Programme for children up to 13 years
Our STAR Prograame has benn especially designed to help children of all ages understand that life skills can be developed with a little effort. This is a 12 month programme and each month the Leadership Student is given a task and a worksheet to complete.
Junior Leadership students need to complete all 12 as this is part of their assessment for Junior Black Belt.
The monthly tasks include topic area such as;
- Kindness
- Focus
- Concentration
- Taking Action
- Making good choices
If you would like your child to receive eductation and guidance in these areas please contact us.
Becoming A Black Belt
In our view becoming a Black Belt requires an awful lot more than simply learning physical techniques. To us it means living life as a Black Belt would live, facing up to and overcoming challenges as a Black Belt would. Having the confidence that a Black Belt would have when meeting people and showing the respect that Martial Arts Black Belts are renowned for. It means conducting yourself with control and respect when you are at school or in the workplace and taking responsibility for your own health and wellbeing. It means doing the things neccessary to achieve and maintain health of both body and mind. To think like a Black Belt would think, to avoid being judgemental or cynical.
We enjoy teaching these aspects of life and consider them vitally important for living life to its full potential.
Continued Pursuit of Excellence For Black Belts
There are two types of Black Belt; active or inactive.
A person who was once good enough to pass a physical examination of techniques may have been awarded a Black Belt but a person who IS a Black Belt is someone who lives life according to Black Belt Principles.
We are certainly not saying our Black Belts need to be perfect, we understand that perfection is an unatainable state. What we do ask however, is that our Black Belts continue their quest for excellence for as long as they wish to call themselves 'Black Belt.'
We have a 'continued excellence' programme called 'Chosho' (literally meaning excellence) for those students who have achieved Black Belt Status.
For a list of most of the existing Chosho subjects click here
