Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, Indomitable spirit. These are the Tenets of Taekwondo, and for the most part, tenets for most any martial artist to strive for. There seems to be something missing though. What about loyalty? It’s something talked about and shown and sometimes demanded in all martial arts. So why not have it listed? In my opinion, the tenets listed above are all things that the student must work on with the guidance of the instructor. Loyalty, on the other hand, is not something that only pertains to the student. Loyalty isn’t, and shouldn’t, be given to someone just because they are in a certain position of authority. It’s something that must be earned, not given. It is something that the student and the instructor must work on equally and not just the student. Once loyalty is earned, it must then be maintained and built upon. So do I believe it should be a part of the tenets of Taekwondo? No. Do I think students should be quick to lose it for seemingly greener pastures? No.

I’ve noticed something in recent years that’s been bothering me. While I believe loyalty is something that is earned and not simply given, I’ve seen far too many instructors, myself included, bend over backwards for students to earn the students loyalty, only to have that student leave for perceived greener pastures. I know I speak on behalf of many of my instructor friends when I say, we all but kill ourselves for our students. Or at least have in the past. For many of us, we’ve watched so many students leave at the drop of a hat, that it makes it tough to want to put forth the extra effort for a student until they’ve proven they are worth it anymore. It’s quite heartbreaking to lose those students that we’ve put so much effort into. Not just in their training, but on a personal level. Treating a student like family, only to watch them leave without so much of a, “good bye”, let alone a, “thank you”. We continue on though. We eventually learn that the few that are loyal, are worth every heartbreak and every ounce of pain. I have a corkboard full of thank you cards, letters and drawings from these unforgettable students.

When I first opened my studio it was only part-time as I had another full time job. Because of that I only taught adults, knowing that teaching children was considerably more difficult. However, when I went full time with the studio I decided it was best to open up to more ages knowing that youth students tend to be the largest base of students for most schools, and I needed to find ways to keep the doors open financially. Two of my first youth students were brothers that I put a lot of effort into. Most days, it was just me teaching these two students. Getting to know the parents and the kids while training and traveling to tournaments, they became friends that I truly cared about, as with most of my students. The kids trained hard and built a strong base, strength and skill over the numerous months I had been teaching them. They loved class and thanked me every day for teaching them. The parents sung my praises, stating how much they have improved and how their new found skills and training have improved other elements of their lives. I took them to their first tournament one day, a few hours away.

I had planned on staying with them and just coaching them and watching them experience their first tournament. Unfortunately, as the tournament was beginning, some of the black belts had not shown up and they were short on judges. All black belts in the building are to make themselves known when entering, as usual with these tournaments. So when they were short on judges, they needed my help judging. Being a black belt comes with many responsibilities, and helping judge when a fellow instructor is in need is one of those responsibilities, even if it’s not what you want to do. So I had to take on judging duties rather than sit with the parents and watch and cheer on my students as planned. Needless to say, the parents weren’t happy with me judging, pointing out that another instructor friend of mine was not judging and was able to watch and coach his students.

Even though it wouldn’t have changed anything as far as how well they did, they were upset I couldn’t be there to watch all of their competitions. We talked it through though, and we moved passed it, so I thought. Over the next year I took them to a handful of tournaments in which they did exceedingly well. About a year and a half into their training I took them to a tournament one weekend shortly after they had received their new rank. Because of this, they had only known about half of their new form and had gotten a little rusty on their previous form as well as taking a step up in their division going into the intermediate color belt ranks. I knew they wouldn’t do overly well, but they enjoyed attending tournaments, had usually done well due to their athletic ability, and I felt it was important for them to compete for the learning experience.

As expected, they didn’t do so well at that tournament. The following week though, they didn’t show up to class and hadn’t informed me. That was rare as they came to all classes and would call if they couldn’t make it. Then the next class…the same, no students, no call. At this point I decided to call as I was worried. Worried that maybe they were in an accident on their way back from the tournament, among other worries that crossed my mind. I called a few days in a row to no avail. I grew very worried. Then about a week later, I finally got a call back. I was relieved! Until the explanation… “We decided to take our kids out of your program and enroll at another school across town.” Note that the school they took them to was my friend who was at that first tournament and it was I who introduced them. I was devastated and confused. I couldn’t understand why. They explained further that they felt, due to the results of the last tournament, that their training had suddenly stalled out or even regressed. This is not what happened as they were right on track with the goals I was setting for them. However, the parents didn’t see it that way, they assumed that since they didn’t win the last tournament, that it was my fault. I was shocked in disbelief. I couldn’t understand why someone who constantly told me how great my training methods and results were, would suddenly leave without talking to me first. I knew exactly what was going on with their training and fully expected them to struggle at that tournament, and it was needed. They had won most every tournament they attended and I felt it was a necessary for them to struggle for a change and gain some humility and have to deal with failure.

My fault laid in the fact that I didn’t explain my process and expectations to them, though I didn’t feel it was necessary since I had felt I had proven my training methods. I wasn’t training them for sport and tournaments, I was using tournaments to help develop them as martial artists while I taught them self-defense, self-control, courtesy, respect, humility, etc., and not sport fighting. For those that aren’t familiar, sport martial arts and self-defense are considerably different, both in technique and in the training process. I ran over my process in my head numerous times after they left trying to figure out where I went wrong and how I could have avoided it. I felt I should have been clearer at explaining my process, or maybe I shouldn’t have sent them to tournaments. I had numerous thoughts on how I could have avoided this issue. In the end, however, what I realized is that there was nothing I could have done. They would have left no matter what. Their reasoning (whether it be the students or the parents reasoning) for training, didn’t line up with my reasoning for teaching on the very first day. They didn’t want what I was teaching. I just didn’t know it at the time, nor did they.

This event was one of the first major devastating and depressing moments of my teaching career, but sadly not the last. I’ve learned from it, but the biggest thing I’ve learned from it is that it can’t always be avoided. Every martial arts instructor has felt that heartbreak numerous times over. Supposedly less than 3% of people that train in martial arts will stick with it to black belt. That means 97% of students will quit training from their instructor (or be forced to quit). I don’t care what people say, or how long someone has been teaching, it hurts every time. Every. Single. Time. However, I’ve learned to not only except the results of what happened back then, but to appreciate it. It helped me understand where I went wrong, how to avoid it to an extent, and how to deal with it when it happens. Most importantly, it helped me narrow in on my focus as an instructor and be straight forward with my training process. Looking back today, it was probably all for the best as it was teaching moment for myself as an instructor and they kids fit in very well at my friend’s studio. I even stopped by to watch one of them test for his black belt a couple years later and hold no ill feelings towards anyone anymore as I believe we all became better for it.

Why be loyal at all? If you feel you’re not improving with your current instructor, what’s the harm in leaving to train elsewhere? This is fairly common unfortunately. At first glance, martial arts training may seem like a solo attempt at personal improvement and experience, however, it is far from it. We must rely on other students to improve. Some arts more than others, but all arts depend on other participants in order to help you train. Whether it’s a partner to grapple with, or spar with, or simply give you support during a tough training day, someone else is always needed. And not just one. It’s important to practice your techniques on all different body types and experience/skill levels. Not to mention, sometimes people mesh well with some and not so well with others when training.

If someone is reliant on you for their training, but you decide you want to train elsewhere, then you are affecting another person’s development and training negatively. When we train, we train together as a team. Even if you don’t like everyone in your class, you must learn to trust and respect them. Those who aren’t trusted, respected or liked, rarely make it far in martial arts. They get weeded out pretty quickly. Another aspect that people tend to not understand, is the process in which the body develops and refines skills. We have a saying in class, “your only goal in class is to be better today than you were yesterday”. However, there is an issue with this. We don’t noticeably improve each and every day. There are ups and downs in developing new skills. You may see a big improvement when you first start your training, then you may notice a bit of a plateau, then another boost, then maybe even what seems to be a step backwards, then another boost forward.

This up and down is normal and over time the downslides become less and less noticeable. I see students hit this plateau or downslide and that’s when so many jump ship. They assume this is the best time to leave or train somewhere else to get past the flat line. Unfortunately, it does the complete opposite. Students who jump around too often will just be avoiding the issue and will be starting over each time, never progressing or truly learning. This is where loyalty is needed. We must trust our instructor’s guidance through these times. I’ve mentioned it in previous articles and mention it in class numerous times, you must fail and go backwards at times in order to move forward. It’s inevitable.

Want a slightly complicated explanation of why we go up and down in our training? Let me put on my geek glasses for a moment and delve into the world of neuroscience. If you don’t want to geek out, feel free to move on to the next paragraph. Everything essentially comes down to two things, “Closed-Loop Motor Control” and “Open-Loop Motor Control”. When you first learn a new technique, you’re going through a closed-loop program in which your brain essentially goes through trial and error to accomplish the task (the new technique). It sends a vast amount of signals to all of the muscles it believes should be involved in the technique, then uses sensory feedback to make corrections and tries it again. These sensory feedbacks could be the way it feels, the way it looks, or even outside guidance from an instructor.

This process is essentially what separates a natural athlete from someone less coordinated. High level “gifted” athletes fly through this trial and error process exceedingly fast, while the average Joe may take 100x longer. If this trial and error stops receiving sensory feedback for adjustments, it then assumes the movement is correct and turns it into an open-loop program. This open-loop program is essentially just one signal to the muscle groups involved in the technique to perform the action. When this is created, the action is essentially the same every time the signal is sent, assuming the outside forces remain the same (such as balance or forces being applied to the technique).

To help visualize this process, think of a highly detailed painting you have created that took weeks to paint. Now that you have exactly what you want in your art piece, you want all of your friends and family to have it, but instead of repainting the entire art piece every time you want to give it to someone, you simply take it to a copy machine and print off a copy to give. The process of painting the art piece would be the closed-loop program and using the copy machine would be the open-looped program. Now, let’s say you’ve developed this open-looped program for a front kick. Your instructor accepted the front kick as a beginner, but now that you are now an intermediate rank, your instructor needs you to improve it and gives you some pointers to correct it. Maybe as a beginner you were up on your toes of your base foot and slouching over as you threw your front kick in order to get height to it. You felt it was a great kick as you were hitting targets higher than everyone else of similar rank, you feel it’s your best technique! Then your instructor pointed these mistakes out that you didn’t notice. You start making the adjustments of keeping your heel down and your back straight, but notice your kick got lower, slower and lost control suddenly. The student may see this as a step backward and get frustrated that they aren’t seeing improvements as, in their mind, the improvement for your kick involved kicking even higher, faster and with more accuracy. However, that isn’t happening right away.

It’s easy to see why a student would feel like they aren’t improving and want to seek out another instructor. As the instructor, we see the improvement or at least know the improvement is around the corner when the adjustments are made, but the student can’t always see that. To make it worse, since you now have to adjust the kick, the body removes that open-loop program and goes back to the closed-loop program, which slows down the process and can further frustrate the student. However, if you trust your instructor and are loyal, you will overcome the back slide in technique and improve. This is why loyalty is so important. On a related note, this trial and error is crucial. I’ve seen many students think through a technique for an hour and try it once in hopes they do it correctly the first time. In other fields of study, maybe this is the best approach, but not martial arts. The movement must be done numerous times over in order to perform it correctly, even if you know exactly what the techniques entails and how to do it, but it still won’t work that first time…or first 100 times. Trial and error, it’s the only way!

On the other end of loyalty is blind loyalty in which a student stands by their instructor no matter what, even when all logic suggests this is a bad idea. I briefly trained with an association years ago that will go unnamed. I had known this association and knew it was geared towards the money more than the training, but I knew what I wanted from training there and accepted that and knew how to navigate the “we need more money from you” statement at every turn. I got what I wanted from my training there and have no regrets over it. However, being on the inside was unsettling. The blind loyalty I saw from the students and the cult-like atmosphere was bone chilling. This was by no accident, mind you. The way things were set up were to isolate the students from the rest of the martial arts world. I was blatantly lied to on numerous occasions. The effort made to keep their students from experiencing outside martial arts was only surpassed by their skills of taking money from their students. It really was a cult in my mind, but I avoided drinking the cool-aide, thankfully.

But I digress. I had gone to a major tournament one day with this organization and was astonished by what was going on. Before the tournament officially started, they lined up the 1000 plus competitors in an effort to organize everyone. They then split the competitors in half to create an isle down the center of the very large room. They then had us chanting in order to, and I quote, “summon the spirits of the masters”. The “masters” were introduced one by one as they walked down the aisle like a politician or celebrity, shaking babies and kissing hands…err, or maybe the other way around, my memory isn’t the best. They would eventually walk towards and sit at a head table that was raised up above everything else where they were waited on hand and foot while eating meals and doing nothing all tournament long, except to sign an occasional autograph.

To kick off the tournament the host (I believe he was a 7 th or 8 th degree black belt) was to do a demonstration. He was going to do a form for his rank and a handful of board breaks. I don’t recall all of the board breaks announced, but one station was a double kick and a punch. That involves jumping and doing two kicks (one with each leg) and a punch, all while in the air. And another station was a huge contraption set up to hold 10 stacked boards horizontally, with NO spacers! That’s 10” thick of solid wood! I thought to myself, if he pulls this off, I may be a convert to this cult. Not only have I never seen anyone break 10 stacked boards with no spacers before, the jump kick/punch in the air is something even elite 20 year old demo team members would find daunting…and this “master” looked to be in his 50’s and didn’t quite look like an elite athlete… The form he performed was forgettable.

All I remember is that it was unnecessarily long and simple. But I was here to see those super human board breaks! Up first, the jump double kick with a punch! His first attempt…barely left the ground, let alone get a single kick off…Second attempt, mildly better as he got one kick off that barely touched the board. He quickly turned around to the massive crowd and mentioned he was fighting through an injury and hoped it wasn’t going to affect him, but it was holding him back and needed to change the board breaks. So now he was going to do a standing round kick on one board, a side kick on another, then a punch on the third…all standing, and one board…the same thing I make my 8 year old color belts do… But there was still hope as my mind would still be blown if he could break those 10 stacked boards with a side kick! He broke the second station that I don’t even recall what it was as it was that mundane. Then on to the 10 stacked boards!!! Here he goes!!! Thud. None broke. Second attempt…thud, the back 1 broke. Third attempt…thud, another 1 or 2 in the back broke. This went on and on about 5 or 6 more times until he broke them all…1 or 2 at a time…I was dumbfounded. Impressed by his insanely high and unreasonable confidence in doing these board breaks in front of well over 1000 people…but dumbfounded.

Then I realized I was the only one laughing. That’s when the shock, sadness and worry set in. As I looked around the room, everyone was cheering as if he just “nailed it” with all of these board breaks and made no mistakes. This blind, unyielding loyalty, was disturbing. How would this not lead students to rethinking their training with this organization? Sadly, this happens every day in every kind of organization across the globe, not just martial arts. Once someone connects with a group, they will convince themselves that they are the “good ones” and will change everything they believe in, if needed, to align their beliefs with the group. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump was absolutely correct when he stated, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”, while on his presidential campaign in regards to the loyalty of his followers. It’s bone chilling to know just how true that statement is in all walks of life.

So is the only way to show loyalty, to just keep training? Nope. For some it’s just not an option to keep training anymore, but I have a laundry list of black belts and past students that continue to show their loyalty to the school even without being able to continue their training. Some have helped offer free photo shoots for class photos and advertisements, some have helped volunteer at fundraisers, some simply keep in contact or stop by to say hello from time to time, even this newsletter and website in which it’s posted and sent out from are being brought to you by one of my black belts and former students who runs all of my websites and everything associated with them. These are all examples of loyalty. I know I can call up 25 current or former students right now and ask them to help me with something tomorrow morning and no less than 23 will be there without question. I know this because I’ve made this phone call before when I needed to move into my current studio a few years back and needed help moving all of the equipment over in one day. I had an army show up and moved the entire studio across town in just hours. You can’t ask for better loyalty than that.

Should you be loyal no matter what? The stories above suggests loyalty is something that needs to be addressed and reassessed from time to time. There are plenty of times where it’s in your best interest to cut your ties and let go of the loyalty, even when loyalty has been built up. If it’s clear the instruction you are receiving is not what you thought it was and if your goals and your instructor’s goals don’t line up, then it’s time to move on. Ideally, this is something that should be discussed before training even begins.

As mentioned in my first story about the two students leaving, the students and their parents where interested in competition being their goal, and not self-defense. If this is the case, then it must be addressed. In some cases, the instructor can adjust for the students new goals, in other cases, they may not be able to do so, and it’s best to part ways or at the very least, seek their major training elsewhere. Another time, is if you feel training with your current instructor can have a negative effect on your life. That could mean a lot of things. It could mean that you don’t feel safe training with your current instructor and need to find something safer. It could be more socially negative, such as if your instructor is involved with illegal activity or something that could affect you just by association.

With that said, if you truly believe in your instructor and their actions or believe they are wrongly accused, there is a decision to be made. Point being, loyalty isn’t an easy thing. It’s something that needs to be worked on by everyone involved. That is the point of this article. I find far too many people train selfishly. I can’t tell you that is the wrong way to do it, I may disagree with it, but that doesn’t mean I’m correct. A student needs to recognize it, however. For me, I take a lot in consideration when promoting a student, especially at black belt. Black belts need to give back. Give back to the school, give back to their fellow students, give back to the instructor, and give back to the community. All of these have helped them obtain their black belt. It was not a lone journey. The school I grew up training in back in Nebraska was heavily run by the black belts just as much as the owners. That’s because the owners, my instructors, were fantastic and built loyalty from their students. The black belts taught many of the classes, set up testings, set up tournaments, helped get the word out about the school, helped clean, helped run intros, and on and on. Most successful schools are this way, the black belts take on a large role in making sure daily school functions are being done. Also keep in mind, training at another school or attending an outside seminar doesn’t necessarily mean you are disloyal. I’ve encouraged my students to do so when they feel it can benefit them. All I’ve ever asked is for them to bring back what they learned and help make our program even better!

In conclusion, I suggest taking the time to stop and think about loyalty if you haven’t already. One important element in your training should be your communication with your instructor(s). I’ve had students ask about their progress or bring up concerns in their training in the past and some that have changed their goals while training and needed to let me know. That never bothers me, it helps me. More times than not I can adjust things or at the very least explain the process better if there is confusion, and in rare cases, even help them get into a different school that caters better to their goals and needs if I don’t feel I can meet those needs. So take the time to build that loyalty, or take the time to think through or discuss any issues that are keeping you from it. It’s an important element that most instructors are looking for when it comes to promoting and being more open to their students.