Dojo – Right Place, Right Time

If you're old enough you might remember the days of the black and white TV.  If you saw one in a museum you may be forgiven to think it is just as amazing the first day it came out.  The question is why would such a useless, outdated and worthless piece of junk would still intrigue some people today?  If it was on the side of the road you wouldn’t even give it a second look but in a museum, it would probably catch your eye and maybe think how incredible it was that such a primitive piece actually worked.  If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be sitting today in front of our LEDs wearing 3D glasses.  It’s all thanks to the inventors and developers of that black and white TV. 

In comparison during the same era, martial arts was a black and white TV but having said that, the martial arts began developing over a thousand years ago.  That’s how long it has taken the martial arts to reach its heights today.  We take all things for granted when we jump on our mobile phones and laptops but if it wasn’t for our pioneering inventors and achievers we would still be rubbing sticks together to get the kettle going.  The martial arts are where they are today because of the do-ers and we should not take for granted what is being taught out there.  Good Instructors will go out of their way to show as much as they can to their students. 

Many people take up the martial arts as a hobby whilst others take it more seriously.  If martial arts have ever helped anyone out of a situation, then all that training must be worthwhile.  Just hearing from others how it helped them was enough for me to take up Karate as a young man.  Thirty five years later I’m still at it.  I get strange calls every so often from ex-students to tell me how a little voice in their head said 'why did you stop training', the moment they got themselves into the wrong place at the wrong time!  That sends one message – the dojo is the right place at the right time.
GA