The Surprising Reward When You Do What You Set Out To Do

I tried to research for you how many students, globally, continue training in the martial arts until they earn their black belt. It turns out, there are far too many variables to find a true percentage.
One thing is for sure though; the percentage is "small". Some guesses were as low as 1%, but many others were in the 3% to 5% range. A few reports believed the number was a bit higher.
Whatever the actual percentage, reaching such a promontory in martial arts resembles the journey in other aspects of life. The more personal commitment required to get there, the fewer who will have the determination and stamina to go all the way.

Are We Here For The Belt?

So do you train for the black belt itself? Or do you train for what it represents?
There are many personal reasons why people sign up for their first martial arts class. For many kids, it began with a nudge from a parent. For other kids, it truly was their idea after they fell in love with a movie or comic book or video game hero.
You'll hear a variety of reasons from adult students too.
"It looks like a fun way to get into shape." 
"I wanted to learn some self-defense skills."
"I started so I could meet new people."
So there are many reasons why we walk through the door for the first time. I'm fascinated by why we stay.

That reason, why we stay, shapes who we are as a person. That's why I started my hunt for a percentage of people who stay with it, to black belt and beyond.
Do you stay for the black belt? There's no shortage of people in the world who would argue how important it is for you to set clear goals. A clear goal, well-defined, well-visualized, goes a long way toward helping you achieve it. 
And proving that you've set a goal, and achieved it, helps high schoolers get into the university of their choice, and it helps adults ace the interview and land that job.
But those accomplishments, as great as they are, are just more rungs on your ladder, (yes, even when you tie the black belt on for the first time), if you only look at it as a conquest. By that I mean, something to have.

But what if, instead, it was something to be? 

Our Surprising Reward From The Martial Arts

Consider the martial artist who trained for years and earned her black belt. And then stopped.
Goal achieved, right? Isn't it time to move on?
For two reasons, I say, "No."
Reason # 1: Henry David Thoreau believed there's more richness we can draw from our accomplishments than what we get.
"When you achieve your dream, it's not what you get, it's who you've become."- Henry David Thoreau
Why should you care what one of the most prominent philosophers of the modern age thinks? Well, I care because Thoreau spent a lot more time contemplating life than I do. He had no cell phone, no rat race job, no television, no internet, and no Hollywood. He lived, he thought, and he wrote.
He had time to see and experience life on this planet without the insane distractions we have today. I don't gamble, but I would bet on him and bet that he got it right.
Reason # 2 is that trump card we all have, and love to play. Personal experience. What's more convincing to us than that?
I can't count how many times I've told my friends and family that I will practice martial arts until my last breath. I simply get too much out of it. Let me list only a fraction of the rewards I experience anew each day:
  • self-defense skills
  • more confidence
  • new friends, supportive of my development
  • fitness, and better physical health
  • the reminder that I am able to learn new things
This list, and other things, is who I've become. And I know that if I put my martial arts practice aside one day, even with the satisfaction of checking off my list of accomplishments "black belt," I will have lost a part of who I am, simply because I stopped.
Don't stop. Don't lose a part of who you are. That, and the fact that you'll find friendly, familiar faces right there alongside you for the long haul, will be the most rewarding part of your martial arts journey.

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