THE PATH TO BLACK BELT – PART 3
Can You Really Learn More in Less Time?
Why concentrated training can accelerate learning—and why experience still takes time.
By Dwayne L. Flees
Senior Chief Instructor
KarateBuilt Grand Rapids
A Fair Question From a Parent
Several years ago, a parent asked me a question about our five-hour Advanced Rank Camp.
“What are they really going to learn in five hours?”
That’s a fair question.
In fact, after thinking about it, I began asking myself the same thing.
What ARE students really learning in five hours? Why are we doing it this way? And could we make it better?
Advanced Rank Camp wasn’t my invention. Chief Master Moody originally developed it, and we had already been conducting five-hour camps at KarateBuilt.
But that parent’s question got me thinking.
So I began researching accelerated learning, how people develop physical skills, the importance of repetition and correction, and how concentrated instruction might help students improve more efficiently.
What I discovered led me to make some changes.
And it reinforced something I’ve believed throughout my years of teaching martial arts.
There is always more to learn.
Where Did Six Hours Come From?
Our regular training semester lasts eight weeks.
A student attending two 45-minute classes each week completes sixteen classes during that semester.
Two classes per week, multiplied by 45 minutes, multiplied by eight weeks, equals 720 minutes.
That’s twelve hours of scheduled training.
As I researched accelerated learning, I became interested in the idea that more concentrated, focused instruction could help students improve specific skills in less time.
What if we could accomplish some of those learning objectives in approximately half the scheduled training time?
Half of twelve hours is six.
That’s how I arrived at the six-hour Advanced Rank Camp.
We expanded our existing five-hour format by one hour and continued refining how we used that training time.
Now, that doesn’t mean six hours of concentrated instruction is scientifically guaranteed to equal twelve hours of regular classes.
It means we looked at how we were teaching, what we wanted students to accomplish, and how we could make that training more effective.
Why Do We Call It Advanced Rank Camp?
First, let’s clear up something about the name.
We don’t call it Advanced Rank Camp because we’re teaching advanced techniques.
We call it Advanced Rank Camp because students who meet the requirements can earn their next belt rank or midterm tag that very day.
But earning a new belt or midterm tag isn’t the only reason to attend.
The real value is in the training itself.
And that brings us back to the parent’s original question.
What do students actually practice during those six hours?
What Do Students Actually Practice During Those Six Hours?
We go back to the fundamentals.
Our Advanced Rank Camps concentrate on the foundational techniques found in the first three Songahm forms.
But that doesn’t mean students spend six hours simply repeating those forms.
We take the basic techniques and work on improving them. Then we put those skills to use in sparring, board breaking, and self-defense combinations.
We also introduce special combative combinations that students don’t practice in their regular classes. Outside of Advanced Rank Camp, those combinations are reserved for our instructor trainees.
That makes camp different, challenging, and fun.
And there’s a reason we spend so much time on the basics.
Moving Forward by Going Backward
Think about a student learning a more advanced form.
That form might include front stances, back stances, middle stances, punches, high blocks, and other techniques they’ve practiced since their earliest belt ranks.
The movements may appear in different places or combinations, but the underlying techniques are still there.
If a student improves their front stance, that improvement can help every time they perform a front stance.
If they improve their high block, that improvement can carry into the forms and other training they’re working on today.
We may never practice the student’s current form during Advanced Rank Camp.
But we’re improving the individual techniques they use to perform that form.
We’re not necessarily teaching more advanced material.
We’re helping students become more skilled at the material they’ve already learned.
In Part 2, I shared the story of a high-ranking instructor who asked Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee for help improving his advanced form.
Grand Master Lee had him perform Songahm #1—the very first form students learn.
There’s a lesson in that story that applies to every rank.
The higher you advance, the more important your foundation becomes.
And that brings us to what makes concentrated training different from a regular class.
What Happens When We Concentrate the Training?
During a regular training semester, students attend classes while learning their current material and participating in the different activities that make up their training.
Advanced Rank Camp has a different purpose.
For six hours, we concentrate on improving foundational skills.
Students practice a movement.
They receive instruction and corrections.
Then they practice it again.
Sometimes we isolate a technique to improve how it’s performed. Other times we put that same technique to work in sparring, a board break, or a self-defense combination.
Students discover that the fundamentals aren’t just movements they memorize for a belt test. They’re skills they can use in different situations.
And sometimes they discover that something they thought they were doing correctly needs a little more attention.
That’s when the corrections—and the next repetitions—become especially valuable.
Here’s something I’ve learned after decades of teaching martial arts.
Doing something over and over doesn’t automatically make you better at it.
If you’re practicing something incorrectly, you can become very good at doing it incorrectly.
As I mentioned in Part 2, you can become perfectly wrong!
That’s why repetitions and corrections belong together.
We want students practicing the right movements, improving their technique, and learning to recognize the difference.
And when students begin seeing those improvements, something else can happen.
They become more motivated to keep trying.
What Does Science Say?
There’s research that helps explain why the way we structure practice matters.
In 2016, researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported findings from a study examining how changes in practice affected the learning of a motor skill.
Participants learned a computer-based physical task. In a later practice session, some participants practiced a slightly modified version of that task.
Those participants showed substantially greater improvement than people who simply repeated the identical task.
The researchers were studying a process involving the strengthening and updating of motor memories.
The important point for our discussion isn’t that the researchers discovered a magic number of hours.
They didn’t.
And the study doesn’t prove that six hours of karate training replaces twelve hours of regular classes.
What it does suggest is that how we practice a physical skill can matter—not merely how much time we spend practicing it.
That’s a distinction worth understanding.
Johns Hopkins University: To Master Skills Faster, Tweak Your Practice Routine
Original research: Motor Skills Are Strengthened Through Reconsolidation
There is also research showing that spreading practice across time can improve long-term retention.
So concentrating training into one day isn’t automatically better for every kind of learning.
And that’s why our Advanced Rank Camps don’t exist in isolation.
Students bring skills they’ve already developed through regular training into camp, work to improve those skills, and then continue training afterward.
Camp is part of the path. It isn’t the entire path.
The Instructor Trainees Are Learning, Too
There’s another benefit to Advanced Rank Camp that parents may never consider.
It helps our instructor trainees working toward certification.
The first three Songahm forms contain material they’ll need to know and demonstrate as they advance through their instructor collar testing.
During Advanced Rank Camp, our instructor trainees return to those foundational forms.
They practice the techniques, demonstrate movements, explain how they’re performed, recognize mistakes, and help students make corrections.
And in the process, they strengthen their own knowledge and proficiency.
There’s an old saying I particularly appreciate:
“If you want to learn something better, teach it.”
Teaching requires more than being able to perform a movement yourself.
You have to understand it well enough to explain it to someone else.
And when a student doesn’t understand your first explanation, you have to find another way to help them learn.
Sometimes the instructor trainee discovers something about their own technique in the process.
That’s a good thing.
Because learning doesn’t stop when you begin teaching.
Grand Master Soon Ho Lee taught a philosophy I’ve always appreciated:
“There is always more to learn.”
That applies to the White Belt, the Black Belt, and the instructor teaching them both.
Six Hours With Mr. Flees
Now, I personally teach our Advanced Rank Camps.
And I sometimes joke with the students that their reward for letting Mr. Flees yell at them for six hours is getting their next belt.
They laugh.
Usually.
But here’s something I find interesting.
Students who have already attended camp often want to come back again.
They know what they’re getting into.
They know the training will be demanding.
They know I’ll expect them to pay attention, make corrections, and keep working even when they’re tired.
And they still want to return.
Some parents even enroll their children when they aren’t eligible to earn their next rank or midterm recognition that day.
Why?
Because they understand the value of the training itself.
They’ve seen what concentrated instruction and repeated practice can do for their child’s skills and confidence.
Of course, I suspect some parents also appreciate having six hours without the kids!
But that’s an arrangement I can live with.
The parents get a break, and I get six hours to help their children become better martial artists.
The belt is the recognition. The improvement is what matters.
Learning Faster Isn’t the Same as Growing Up Faster
Now we come to the distinction I want parents to understand.
A student may improve a front stance in a single class.
They may learn a new form over several weeks.
They may make significant improvements in their foundational techniques during a six-hour camp.
But can we accelerate the development of discipline, courtesy, respect, and good judgment in exactly the same way?
Not necessarily.
Those qualities involve more than learning how to perform a movement.
A child may know what discipline means.
They may be able to explain why they should do something even when they don’t feel like doing it.
But knowing the definition of discipline isn’t the same as consistently demonstrating it.
That takes practice.
It takes making choices when nobody is standing beside them giving instructions.
It takes dealing with disappointment, frustration, mistakes, and the temptation to quit.
And it takes doing those things again and again as they grow.
That’s where the difference between learning and experience becomes so important.
You can accelerate learning. You can’t accelerate experience.
We can help students learn a technique more efficiently.
We can improve the way we teach.
We can give them focused instruction, meaningful corrections, and plenty of practice.
But we cannot give a seven-year-old the life experience of a seventeen-year-old simply by putting them through more training hours.
Some lessons require time.
Some require growing older.
And some require encountering challenges we couldn’t possibly recreate in a martial arts class.
What About Developing Habits?
When I first researched accelerated learning, I also looked into habit formation.
You’ve probably heard someone say it takes 21 days to form a habit.
Or 90 days to make something part of your lifestyle.
Those are convenient numbers, but human behavior doesn’t work according to one universal timetable.
Research on habit formation suggests that developing an automatic behavior takes different amounts of time for different people.
In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, researchers found considerable variation in how long everyday behaviors took to become automatic.
That doesn’t tell us how many days it takes a child to develop discipline or respect.
But it does reinforce something I’ve observed through years of teaching:
Consistent practice matters, and lasting habits aren’t built according to a calendar.
Research: How Are Habits Formed? Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World
That’s one reason I believe so strongly in the habit of showing up for training.
A child who keeps coming to class has repeated chances to practice paying attention, following instructions, making corrections, and working through challenges.
Not every class will be their favorite.
Not every day will be easy.
Sometimes they’ll be excited to come.
Sometimes they’d rather stay home.
But each time they show up and participate, they have another chance to practice the behaviors we’re trying to develop.
And over months and years, those experiences can begin to influence how they approach challenges outside the martial arts school.
That’s something no six-hour camp can guarantee.
It’s also something no colored belt can guarantee.
It comes from what students learn, what they practice, and what they eventually choose to do for themselves.
Getting to Black Belt Sooner Isn’t the End of the Journey
There’s another benefit to helping students advance through their ranks more efficiently.
They can reach Black Belt sooner.
And when they continue training, that means they can spend more of their martial arts journey actually training as Black Belts.
Think about that for a moment.
Earning a Black Belt doesn’t mean you’ve learned everything.
It means you’ve developed the foundation for what comes next.
There are higher ranks, greater responsibilities, more demanding techniques, and new challenges waiting for students who continue training.
So if we can help students reach Black Belt sooner without sacrificing the quality of their training, we’re not simply shortening their journey.
We’re giving them more time to grow as Black Belts.
And that brings us back to the path we’ve been discussing throughout this series.
The Next Mountain
Earning a Black Belt is a tremendous accomplishment.
Students have spent years learning, practicing, making mistakes, receiving corrections, and overcoming challenges.
There have been frustrations.
There have been tears.
There have been bumps, bruises, and the occasional drop of blood.
Although, after examining some of those injuries, I’ve discovered that what a five-year-old considers a life-threatening wound sometimes turns out to be a tiny red spot on the end of a finger.
But to that five-year-old, it’s a big deal.
And learning to handle those little moments is part of growing up, too.
Eventually, after years of training, the student reaches a summit they once could only see in the distance.
They’ve earned their Black Belt.
But something interesting happens when you reach the top of a mountain.
You can see farther.
And what do you see?
Another mountain.
You’ve reached the peak of one mountain only to discover the path leading up the next.
That’s the journey of a martial artist.
And it’s the journey of life.
As Grand Master Soon Ho Lee taught us:
“There is always more to learn.”
Taking the Lesson Home
Parents can use the same distinction between learning and experience at home.
Suppose your child is learning to ride a bicycle.
You can explain how to balance.
You can demonstrate how to pedal.
You can help them practice starting, stopping, and steering.
And with focused practice, they may learn those skills more quickly than they would through trial and error alone.
But learning to ride a bicycle doesn’t mean they’ve experienced every situation they’ll encounter while riding.
They still need practice.
They need to learn how to handle turns, uneven surfaces, unexpected obstacles, and changing conditions.
The same principle applies to other responsibilities.
You can teach your child how to complete a chore.
You can demonstrate what a finished job looks like.
You can correct mistakes and help them improve.
But choosing to do that chore consistently, even when they’d rather do something else, is a different lesson.
That’s where discipline begins to matter.
So when your child learns something new, don’t assume the lesson is finished because they can demonstrate it once.
Give them chances to use what they’ve learned.
Let them make manageable mistakes.
Help them correct those mistakes.
And as they become more capable, allow them to take on greater responsibility.
Don’t confuse knowing what to do with having the experience to do it consistently.
The Path Continues
A parent’s question about what students could really learn in five hours led me to examine how we taught our Advanced Rank Camps.
That research helped us expand our training to six hours and concentrate on improving the foundational skills students use throughout their martial arts journey.
But the most important lesson isn’t about five hours, six hours, or twelve hours.
It’s about understanding what training can accomplish—and what only experience can teach.
We can help students learn more efficiently.
We can help them improve their skills and advance through the ranks.
We can help them reach Black Belt sooner and spend more years developing as Black Belts.
But we cannot replace the experiences that shape who they become.
You can accelerate learning. You can’t accelerate experience.
Because the path isn’t only about what children learn.
It’s about who they become along the way.
You’re going to love who they become at Black Belt.
— Dwayne L. Flees
Senior Chief Instructor
KarateBuilt Grand Rapids
MISSED PART 2?
Read The Path to Black Belt — Part 2: Knowing the Path Isn’t Walking It.
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