To be honest, “behind the curtains” is only a few words to help me make this point:  there is a time when the public is invited to watch a class and there is a time when only the students are allowed in to study. It’s that simple. What goes on in entry-level classes and what goes on in the classroom year in and year out is two distinctly different things. Like any other classroom, as the students begin to learn more technique, it becomes time to move onto the “dark arts”, the things that beginners would not understand or be able to do. By “dark arts” I mean techniques that you can use to stop an attacker dead in his tracks permentally. 

You can bet that a whole host of martial arts instruction is transmitted that never reaches the light of day, or the eyes and ears of beginning students or their family and friends.

But since that is on the horizon for the readers of this document, I will discuss instead what you can be taught now about “beginner things” that will pique your interest. Starting off, much work will take place, though slowly at first, about your self-image and what you believe about your self. Martial arts teach one golden rule after another and the first one to really absorb is: let no one harm you. However beginners are quick to learn that this rule also applies to not hurting yourself with thoughts that do not propel you forward. This is important because a woman or girl who does not think great and wonderful things about her self is very likely to allow others to put her down, to bully and berate her and beat her down. This is a big no-no in my classes. It is important that when girls or women are living their everyday life they are sometimes, if not all the time, subjected to the most awful comments or physical abuse imaginable. So as the instructor, I know that we want all of my students to have the enduring belief that:  “life just keeps getting better and better”

When my students learn from me is that humans are great at sniffing out those amongst us whose low self-esteem make them vulnerable to that systematic repression and oppression those vampire bullies seem to thrive on.

If students want to change nonsense like that in their life, they need to make one decision. What that means is that once they start on this pathway with me, they cannot have a “little of this and little of that”. Instead, they have to make one decision to change the course and direction of their life so that in time, they will end up at a completely different location. Going forward with a halfhearted decision is just a waste of your time and will not produce the results you want and need.

In due time, during this course I will talk and teach you about why each person, choosing their own personal North Star can make the most out of their training by using a technique they learn to use in martial arts called “focus”.   Focus is a big deal for martial artists and most importantly for you. Its one thing for you to recite a dictionary’s definition of what the word focus means, but it’s a different thing entirely to know what focus means from a martial artist perspective. To really understand focus, you have to live it as a martial artist fully understands what I am talking about. It is as if the word focus is living and breathing in plain sight for all to see, but few to understand the way that we do.

Ancient mariners of course, navigated their ships over vast stretches of the ocean with only the North Starr as an “anchor” for them to get and keep their bearings during a long crossing of the sea.  The way they would do it is to first locate the North Star and then turn their ship so many degrees to the East, West, North, or South to keep sailing in the right direction. My point is that too often a student who does not have anyone to teach them this, will become beaten down by life and fall into bad habits that guarantee failure.

For me, I cannot afford to loose a single one of my students to this way of thinking. Instead, I am going to tell you what is coming at you and what you must do to neutralize it’s power.

So what happens behind the curtain? Only the most wonderful things you can possibly imagine, only the things that dreams are made of and then realized. What then, does martial arts have to do with this feel good talk? Well, I can answer that! If you take a look at the Olympic athletes as they walk into the stadium, as the games are about to begin, do any one of them look depressed or downhearted? No they don’t and the reason is that years ago they made a single decision that did not include waffling back and forth and doubting themselves. They only saw the Olympics as an option they wanted to excel at. Imagine the power of a single decision in your life. Imagine day after day what you would become as a woman who was physically, mentally, and spiritually ready and able to protect her self? In the Olympics it all comes down to a few minutes of super human concentration and production of your body’s abilities, to be on the winner’s platform.  The secret to Olympic success is making one decision first and then doing the practice to be a winner.

These Olympic athletes have worked for years to get where they are and become the best of the best of their countries population.  Now the question is, do you want to have the life of a champion or the life you have right now?  It is all about making that decision to change your life. Reading this, I can imagine that it seems impossible for you to achieve those heights of success. But have you met your self? Do you know what you are capable of doing, do you know what you can achieve if you put it all on line and go for it? If you think you cannot do it, then you are right. But if you think you can, then you are right. Because it is your life and your choice to pursue what you want to have for your self.

And that kind of thinking, is just one of the wonderful things that goes on “behind the curtain” and as time goes by I will reveal more technique to you until you begin to fully realize being a student of the martial arts really is for all women and girls, a truly great thing. It will be when you know what I know, that you will find a joy that you never felt before. What happens behind the “curtains” of a martial arts class is life changing and fabulous to say the least. But you cannot have that wonderful life without making a single decision first. It just won’t happen for you any other way.