Martial Arts is very demanding on your mind and body. Training can be very long and grueling. Constant punching, kicking, throwing, yelling and endurance go with the territory. Receiving a Blackbelt can take six or more years of training to attain depending on the school. Hundreds of push ups, jumping and preparation daily develops students in preparation for negative surprise encounters. Confidence is first built in the dojo(school) through practice, practice, practice. Great schools give outstanding mental preparation so that fighting becomes less likely than one may think. Training the mind becomes much more important as one moves up in rank. Mistakes can be costly in a dojo but it is among comrades so "sweet pain" becomes the silent acceptance.
The big question is can someone be given enough training in two hours to ward offer an unsavory attacker or scary attempts at threats to ones life and others. Sam Rosenberg a Blackbelt instructor from Pittsburg thinks training school teachers gives confidence. Speaking about the Columbine incident he believes if school personnel were trained enough they could deter attention getters and reduce the chances of these type of things happening. "The hands on training has to be basic, I love all martial arts but not all of it is practical enough to work for the average school teacher, who may have a gun pointed at them." He advocates adopting the "Bruce Lee Approach", use what works and discard the rest". He feels that a few hours of training may help teachers return to their classrooms with heightened awareness helping to keep them from feeling helpless.
What do you think?
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