Leadership 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 becoming a Black Belt Leader. Basic membership is ‘no frills’ just the basic membership, no; weapons, musical Kata, XMA, sparring etc. This level of membership is to teach the student what it means to become a Martial Artist 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 Leadership or BBT before the basic membership expires.
Black Belt Training (BBT); 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 BBT 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.
Leadership Training (and JUNIOR leadership); as the name suggests the people who upgrade to this level of membership have identified themselves as potential LEADERS at the Academy and in life. This means that the senior instructors have been informed of their level of commitment, their attitude/approach, their interactions with other students and have decided to offer to train them to become LEADERS. Leadership students have committed to going beyond Black Belt to at least 2nd Degree.
Leadership training includes all of the BBT syllabus, to ensure your technical ability reaches its full potential.
Leadership students are able to take part in ‘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.
Leadership students pay a lower price for all Academy activities as they are already investing more time and money in their development. We actively encourage Leadership students to fastrak through the Kyu grades to reflect their high level of intensity.
In short Leadership 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. In fact it is Martial Arts Career Training without the business side. Leadership students are also able to attend ‘Leadership’ only physical training Martial Arts sessions. In these sessions students will receive extra tuition from our instructor team, this may include some extras such as weapons training, advanced sparring techniques, tactical advice and XMA. This will depend upon the area of personal speciality of their instructor. These ‘extras’ are not the main purpose of having separate ‘leadership’ martial arts classes however. The main purpose is to bring together those students who have committed themselves to excellence beyond First Degree Black Belt, beyond the attainment of physical skills and beyond the ordinary into the extra-ordinary. Our goal is to have these groups of high achievers stimulate each other to even higher levels of physical skill.
We want to create Leaders in society with this programme.
If you have any thought that you would like to have Martial Arts (with the Black Belt Academy) as a career then choose Leadership Training as your path to Black Belt.
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
