THE PATH TO BLACK BELT – PART 2
Knowing the Path Isn’t Walking It
Why practice, correction, and repetition matter—and how parents can use what a Michigan winter teaches us about learning.
By Dwayne L. Flees
Senior Chief Instructor, KarateBuilt Grand Rapids
In Part 1, we met a three-year-old who wanted absolutely nothing to do with martial arts.
He cried. He protested. He ran back to Mom.
Years later, he earned his Second Degree Black Belt.
What happened during all those years between his first karate lesson and earning that Black Belt?
Thousands of experiences.
Thousands of times he practiced something, struggled with it, made mistakes, received corrections, and tried again.
But something else was happening during those years.
His brain was learning, too.
And to understand how that works, I want you to imagine a Michigan winter.
The First Trip Through Deep Snow
If you’ve lived in Michigan long enough, you know what happens when we get a good snowfall.
I’m not talking about a little dusting.
I’m talking about snow over your knees, with six-foot drifts between your back door and the garage.
The kind that makes you question why you didn’t move to Florida twenty years ago.
Now imagine trying to get to that garage.
You know exactly where it is.
You can see it.
You know which direction you need to go.
You might even have a pretty good idea of the best route to take.
There’s only one problem.
You still have to get there.
So you start walking.
You’re lifting your knees, pushing through the snow, trying to keep your balance, and wondering whether whatever you need in that garage is really worth the trouble.
By the time you’ve made a few trips between the house and garage, you’re following the same tracks.
The snow is getting packed down, and you’re not fighting your way through untouched drifts every time.
Eventually, somebody gets tired of trudging through the stuff and brings out a shovel or snowblower.
Now you’ve got a cleared path.
The next morning, another four inches falls.
But clearing four inches from an established path is a whole lot easier than starting over through six-foot drifts.
You’ve already done the hard work of establishing the route.
That doesn’t mean you’ll never have to clear it again.
It means you’re no longer starting from scratch.
And that’s a useful way to understand what happens when a child learns something new.
Knowing How Isn’t the Same as Doing It
Let’s say a child comes to karate class for the first time.
I show them how to perform a front kick.
I explain where to put their feet, how to lift their knee, how to extend their leg, and how to bring it back.
They listen.
They watch.
They might even understand every word I say.
Then I ask them to do it.
And suddenly, their arms are going one direction, their legs are going another, and I’m wondering whether we’ve accidentally invented a new dance.
Why?
Because understanding what to do and being able to do it are two different things.
At KarateBuilt, one of the things we teach our instructors is:
SEE. HEAR. DO.
Some students understand an instruction when they hear it explained.
Others understand it better when they watch the instructor demonstrate.
And sometimes a student doesn’t really understand what we’re asking until they try it themselves.
That’s why we strive to use all three when teaching new material.
We explain it.
We demonstrate it.
Then we have the students do it.
Because there’s something you cannot fully understand about performing a front kick until you actually try to perform one.
You have to feel your balance shift.
You have to discover what happens when you lift your knee.
You have to coordinate movements that looked pretty simple when the instructor demonstrated them.
And you have to experience what happens when those movements don’t work quite the way you expected.
You have to feel it by doing it.
That’s where understanding begins turning into ability.
What Science Says About Learning
Scientists use the term neuroplasticity to describe the nervous system’s ability to change through learning and experience.
When we learn and practice physical skills, changes can occur in the way networks of brain cells function together.
Over time, practice can help movements become more coordinated, consistent, and efficient.
Researchers studying motor-skill learning have identified different stages of learning.
Some improvements can happen relatively quickly, even during a single practice session.
Other improvements develop through continued practice over days, weeks, or longer.
And some learning continues between practice sessions, particularly when practice is followed by appropriate rest and sleep.
Now, that doesn’t mean the brain is literally packing down snow.
But the comparison helps us understand something important.
With meaningful practice, movements that once seemed difficult can become more familiar and easier to perform.
The child who initially struggled to coordinate a front kick may eventually perform it without consciously thinking about every movement.
The movement becomes more natural.
The student becomes more capable.
And what once required enormous concentration may eventually become something they can do while paying attention to other things.
That’s learning.
And there’s a scientific explanation for why it happens.
The science behind it: Researchers Eran Dayan and Leonardo Cohen reviewed how learning physical skills involves changes in brain networks.
Read the research: Neuroplasticity Subserving Motor Skill Learning — Neuron
Practice Makes Perfect. Or Does It?
You’ve probably heard the old saying:
Practice makes perfect.
Well, not necessarily.
I’ve always preferred:
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Or at least gets you a whole lot closer.
Now, does that mean we expect children to perform every movement perfectly?
Of course not.
They’re learning!
But we want them to strive toward doing it correctly.
Because here’s the problem.
You can practice something incorrectly a thousand times.
And eventually become very good at doing it incorrectly.
Congratulations! You’ve become perfectly wrong!
Remember our path through the snow?
Suppose your first trip to the garage takes you around the picnic table, through the deepest drift in the yard, and halfway into your neighbor’s property.
Keep walking that same route, and you’ll eventually create a beautifully packed trail.
It’s still a terrible route!
That’s why instruction matters.
And that’s why corrections matter.
An instructor needs to explain the material in a way the student can understand.
Demonstrate what they’re supposed to do.
Watch them attempt it.
Then make the small corrections that will help them improve.
Sometimes that means pointing out what they’re already doing correctly.
Sometimes it means showing them exactly what needs to change.
Sometimes it’s moving a foot two inches.
And sometimes it’s simply:
“Nope. Let’s try that again!”
Small corrections.
Small improvements.
And eventually, those small improvements begin adding up.
Not always immediately.
Sometimes a student struggles with the same movement for several classes before something finally clicks.
That’s part of the growth.
The goal isn’t perfection today.
It’s getting better than yesterday.
Even the Masters Go Back to the Beginning
Years ago, I heard a story about one of the high-ranking masters at ATA headquarters who approached Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee for help with his form.
The master wanted help improving his advanced material.
EGM Lee told him to perform Songahm #1.
For those unfamiliar with our martial arts system, Songahm #1 is the first form students learn.
Eighteen movements.
The basics.
The master was puzzled.
Why was he being asked to perform a beginner’s form when he wanted help with his advanced form?
As the story was told to me, EGM Lee explained that if he could make the master’s Songahm #1 better, his advanced form would become better, too.
Think about that.
A highly accomplished martial artist asking for help with advanced techniques.
And the Grand Master takes him right back to the beginning.
Because the fundamentals matter.
They matter when you’re a White Belt.
They matter when you’re a Black Belt.
And they still matter when you’re a Master Instructor.
I also remember a saying attributed to Grand Master Soon Ho Lee, who succeeded EGM H.U. Lee:
“There is always more to learn.”
And that’s something we should never forget.
We don’t practice because we expect to reach some magical point where we can never improve again.
We practice because we know we can continue getting better.
Even when we’re already pretty good.
What Science Says About Corrections
Researchers studying motor learning have examined the role of feedback in helping people acquire physical skills.
Their findings generally support something instructors recognize from experience.
Practice matters. But how that practice is guided matters, too.
Students benefit from information that helps them understand what they’re doing and what needs to change.
Sometimes that means telling a student what they did correctly.
Sometimes it means identifying a mistake.
And sometimes the most useful thing is letting the student attempt the movement again.
The amount, timing, and type of feedback can influence learning.
Which means an instructor’s job isn’t simply to stand at the front of the class and shout instructions.
It’s to teach.
To watch.
To recognize what the student needs.
And to help them make the next improvement.
When I read research like this, I sometimes find myself thinking:
“Wait a minute. That’s what we do on the training floor!”
Not because karate invented how the brain learns.
And not because martial arts is the only way children can develop these skills.
But because good instruction, meaningful practice, and appropriate corrections are important wherever people are learning something new.
The science behind it: A systematic review examined how feedback influences students’ motor-skill learning in physical education.
Read the research: Effects of Feedback on Students’ Motor Skill Learning
Learning Something Isn’t the End of Learning
A student who can perform a front kick standing still may struggle to perform it while moving.
A student who can execute a form alone may become nervous when asked to perform it in front of other people.
A student who knows how to block a punch may discover that doing it with a partner requires a different level of timing and control.
And that’s where things become interesting.
Because we’re not simply teaching children to repeat what they already know.
We’re teaching them to become more successful as the challenges become more difficult.
Every new challenge asks them to use what they’ve already learned in a slightly different way.
And sometimes that means going back and improving something they thought they already knew.
Just like that high-ranking master performing Songahm #1.
There’s always something to improve.
What Does This Have to Do With Confidence?
Quite a bit.
But learning a physical skill and developing confidence aren’t exactly the same thing.
A child can become very good at kicking without becoming confident about speaking in front of a classroom.
They can become comfortable performing a form in front of their classmates and still feel nervous about trying out for a school play.
Confidence doesn’t automatically transfer to every situation.
But something important can happen when children repeatedly face challenges, practice, receive corrections, and improve.
They begin building a history of handling things that once seemed difficult.
And they may not even consciously recognize that it’s happening.
I saw this with my own children.
They started training when they were little.
Years passed.
They became teenagers and earned their Second and Third Degree Black Belts.
And sometimes I’d notice them handling a situation in a way that made me stop and think.
I’d ask:
“Why do you think you handled that the way you did?”
And the answer would be something like:
“I don’t know, Dad. It’s just what I do.”
And I’d think:
“Huh. That’s what you’ve been learning since you were three!”
They weren’t necessarily thinking about a lesson from karate class.
They weren’t mentally reviewing something an instructor had said years earlier.
They were simply doing what had become natural to them.
Years of instruction, practice, correction, and experience had helped shape how they approached things.
That’s something we can easily overlook when we’re watching children grow up.
The changes don’t always announce themselves.
Sometimes you don’t recognize how far they’ve come until you look back at where they started.
And sometimes they don’t recognize it themselves.
Believing You Can—and Proving It to Yourself
There’s a familiar saying often attributed to Henry Ford:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”
I’ve used that saying many times over the years.
But believing you can do something doesn’t automatically mean you have the skills to do it.
You still have to learn.
You still have to practice.
You still have to do the work.
And when you’ve faced a challenge, worked through it, and succeeded, something important happens.
Experience gives you proof that you can handle something else.
Not a guarantee that you’ll succeed at everything.
But proof that you’ve handled difficulty before.
Psychologist Albert Bandura studied something called self-efficacy, a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish a particular task.
One important influence on that belief is what researchers call mastery experiences.
In simple terms, successfully working through a challenge can strengthen what a person believes they’re capable of doing.
And that brings us back to something from Part 1.
“I’ve done hard things before. I can do this too.”
That’s a very different kind of confidence from simply telling yourself everything is going to work out.
It’s confidence built through experience.
The science behind it: Albert Bandura’s research examines how personal accomplishments, encouragement, and other experiences influence beliefs about capability.
Read the research: Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change
And Then the Path Gets Steeper
Remember that trail through the snow?
Just when you’ve made it easier to walk, another storm comes along.
Or the temperature changes.
Or the snow melts, turns into mud, and freezes again.
Now you’re facing a different challenge.
That’s not unlike growing up.
The challenges facing a three-year-old are different from those facing a seven-year-old.
And a twelve-year-old faces situations that would have been unimaginable to that same child at three.
New expectations.
New responsibilities.
New friendships.
New disappointments.
New pressures.
As children grow, the challenges they’re ready to face can become more demanding.
In our Songahm Taekwondo system, the philosophy of the Purple Belt describes a student approaching the mountain:
“Coming to the mountain. The tree is in the mid-growth and now the path becomes steep.”
I’ve always appreciated that philosophy.
Because it doesn’t promise that the path becomes easier as the student advances.
It recognizes that the student is growing.
And the challenges ahead are growing, too.
We’ll explore the mountain and the philosophy behind our belt ranks later in this series.
But for now, there’s an important lesson for parents.
We’re not trying to make the path progressively easier for children.
We’re helping children become progressively more capable of handling a difficult path.
And that takes practice.
You Can Accelerate Learning. You Can’t Accelerate Experience.
One of the things we’ve learned from years of teaching is that students can often learn new material much faster when we concentrate their training.
That’s one reason we offer Advanced Rank Camp, or ARC.
An Advanced Rank Camp is six hours of focused martial arts training.
During a regular eight-week training cycle, students learn and practice material across multiple classes.
At ARC, we bring that instruction together into one concentrated training day.
Students work on foundational material from their first three belt ranks, reinforcing the basics that support everything they learn afterward.
They also receive instruction in their current material, practice techniques, work through corrections, and prepare to demonstrate what they’ve learned.
Students who meet the requirements can complete their rank testing and promotion.
It’s an exciting day.
It’s productive.
And it’s one of the ways we help students accelerate their learning.
We even have a motto:
“Learn twice as much in half the time—and retain it twice as long.”
That motto reflects the research and ideas about accelerated learning that influenced the development of our six-hour camp.
We’ll examine those ideas more closely in Part 3.
But here’s something I’ve learned from teaching.
Learning doesn’t always have to move slowly.
With focused instruction, practice, and correction, students can sometimes accomplish a tremendous amount in a short period.
And research on motor learning supports the broader idea that meaningful improvements can occur during concentrated training.
But here’s the distinction.
A student can learn the movements of a new form in a day.
That doesn’t mean they’ve experienced performing it under pressure dozens of times.
A child can learn how to introduce themselves in front of a group.
That doesn’t mean they’ve already become comfortable speaking in every unfamiliar situation.
And a student can learn what discipline means in five minutes.
But building the habit of showing up, practicing when they don’t feel like it, accepting correction, and continuing when things become difficult?
That develops through repeated choices over time.
There’s nothing wrong with accelerating what can be accelerated.
In fact, that’s good teaching.
Why take eight weeks to learn something a student is capable of learning sooner?
But why pretend that learning a technique today gives that student all the experiences they’ll encounter over the next several years?
They’re different things.
Both matter.
You can accelerate learning.
You can’t accelerate experience.
And that’s why the path matters.
Because the path isn’t only about what children learn.
It’s about who they become along the way.
Taking the Lesson Home
So what does all this mean for parents?
Think about something as simple as teaching your child to clean their bedroom.
You tell them what needs to be done.
They say, “Okay.”
An hour later, you walk back into the room.
And it looks like a tornado went through it.
You get frustrated.
“How many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?”
But here’s a question worth asking.
Did you teach them how to do it?
Or did you simply tell them what you wanted done?
There’s a difference.
At KarateBuilt, we teach our instructors to use See, Hear, Do.
And parents can use that same approach at home.
SEE. Show your child what a clean room looks like. Demonstrate how you want things organized.
HEAR. Explain what needs to be done in language they understand. Give them clear directions instead of assuming they know what you mean.
- Have them do it. Let them try. Watch what happens.
Then make a small correction.
Maybe the clothes are put away, but the toys are still scattered across the floor.
Don’t automatically do it for them.
Show them what needs to change.
Have them try again.
And recognize what they’ve done correctly.
The first few times may take longer than doing it yourself.
That’s teaching.
Eventually, something interesting may happen.
You tell your child to clean their room.
And they know what to do.
They’ve learned the process.
They’ve practiced it.
They’ve made mistakes and corrected them.
And now they’re becoming more capable of handling the responsibility themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll always want to clean their room!
Knowing how to do something and choosing to do it are two different lessons.
But now you’ve given them something more useful than another lecture.
You’ve taught them how.
And the same approach works when teaching children to make their beds, complete household chores, learn new skills, or take on responsibilities appropriate for their age.
Explain it.
Show them.
Let them do it.
Make small corrections.
And let them keep improving.
Because knowing the path isn’t walking it.
And sometimes the most important thing a parent can do is stop explaining the path long enough to let their child start walking.
The Path Continues
You can stand at the back door, look toward the garage, and figure out exactly where you need to go.
You can plan the route.
You can explain it to somebody else.
But knowing the path isn’t the same as walking it.
And learning doesn’t happen simply because an instructor—or a parent—explains what to do.
Children need to see it, hear it, do it, make corrections, and keep improving.
Sometimes that learning can happen surprisingly quickly.
Which raises an interesting question:
How much can a student really learn in a single day of concentrated training?
In Part 3 of The Path to Black Belt, we’ll explore Advanced Rank Camp, accelerated learning, and why some of life’s most important lessons still require time and experience.
You’re going to love who they become at Black Belt.
— Dwayne L. Flees
Senior Chief Instructor
KarateBuilt Grand Rapids
CONTINUE THE PATH — READ PART 3
Read The Path to Black Belt — Part 3: Can You Really Learn More in Less Time?
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