Focus, Discipline and Respect

I want to talk a little bit about what is probably the most important difference in martial arts as your activity as compared to almost any other activity you can possibly think of on the planet. The one thing that separates traditional martial arts from all other sports, all other self-defense programs, all other activities is that we focus on the core concept of being better today than we were yesterday. That doesn't mean physically. That means physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. We want to be better every day than the day before and there's only one way to do that. We have to build into our program from day one the core concepts of focus, discipline and respect.

Martial arts all over the world talk about all the things you can learn in martial arts and they usually start with focus, discipline and respect and they put out other ones - self-confidence, integrity, honesty. All of that comes from focus, discipline and respect and I'll explain that to you right now.

In our system, we have a definition for all three of those words and they're very simple and they're scalable. If you're working with a young child, focus means Pay Attention. Very simple. Most children have heard pay attention. They know what that means. Focus means pay attention. For older students, focus means paying attention to what is important because it's easy to pay attention to your thumbnail. It's easy to pay attention to your video game. It's easy to pay attention to that shiny - Squirrel! but that's not focus. Focus is paying attention to what's important. When we get to adults, focus is the ability to pay attention to what's important at the time it's important so that you maximize your time. You get the most out of your time through focus. That is essential for success in today's world.

Discipline we say is the ability to do only what you are supposed to do Now. Discipline has two distinct definitions and a lot of people understand discipline as You're Getting Disciplined as in a negative consequence for bad behavior. Don't fall into that trap. Discipline is also the ability to make yourself do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it and get it done properly. Discipline is what makes you get a black belt. Motivation, inspiration gets you to sign up for this program. Very soon it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be difficult. You're not going to go as fast as you thought you would and you're not going to want to train on Wednesday and so you'll take Wednesday off. And then that's gonna be a little harder to train on Friday because you took off Wednesday and so it's easy to skip Friday. All of that happens because we're not exercising our discipline. Discipline is what gets you across the finish line. You must be able to do what you're supposed to do, only what you're supposed to do, when you're supposed to do it. That's discipline and if you put focus and discipline together you have the most powerful tool for success in today's modern world, period, bar none, stop there.

The other thing we need to add is a health aspect. Respect. Respect is not just treating other people the way you want to be treated. That's a great start. The golden rule is a beautiful way to introduce the concept of respect, treating others the way you want to be treated. But Our definition in this school is respect is treating people and things the right way including yourself. So we have to add things because with young children especially they tend to throw things around. They tend to break things. They tend to play with things that aren't play-toys. So we want to teach that respect is using things and treating things the way they were designed to be treated, and the way we treat people says everything about who we are. Everything. As I tell my students constantly, Behavior is Truth. I don't care what you say. I care what you do and that comes from respect. Respect: treating people and things the right way including yourself.

You cannot be giving other people respect if you do not have self-respect and so you have to treat yourself every bit as good as you treat other people. And then you have the right to Demand they treat you the way you treat them and that self-respect enables you to stand up to people who are not treating you with the same respect you are giving them because respect is a two-way street. I do not demand respect from my students. I give you respect first and then all I ask is that you treat me exactly how I treat you and we believe that's the way to build respect in this world.

So the core concepts we teach here in One World Martial Arts Academy - focus, discipline and respect ensures your future success.