Cuong Nhu Black Belt Candidate Paper

by Stephen J. Jenkins, Komokuten Dojo

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved playing video games. Many of my favorite memories growing up in Portland, Oregon were due to that state’s “bottle bill:” all carbonated beverage containers require a five cent deposit at purchase, which is then refunded when the empties are returned to any store for recycling. There was plenty of litter in my neighborhood, and a Minute Mart right around the corner from my house. I’d search the streets for a few minutes, pick up five cans, redeem them for a quarter at the Minute Mart, and then promptly deposit the quarter into whatever arcade cabinet happened to be occupying the space just inside the Minute Mart’s door. To this day, I still hate litter, and I still love video games.

I grew up playing PONG and Pitfall on an Atari 2600, graduated to Donkey Kong and Defender on a Commodore 64, and continued to own every major video game system ever produced, including the current Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii. For a very long time, video games were my life. Now, they’re my career. And although I’ve never quite been able to figure out how to pay my bills playing video games, I’ve spent the last ten years of my career helping others play video games – by publishing hints, tips, cheat codes, and strategy guides for every video game ever made on every major video game system. Every day, my company helps millions of people from all over the world get higher scores, unlock new levels, and defeat new enemies.

My prolonged exposure to video games has led me to conclude that most of them are formulaic. Generally, you play as an individual, responsible for your own individual score, and focused on your own individual objectives. Some games may provide artificially intelligent allies to help you accomplish your goals, but your influence over them is limited, and the responsibility to use their help wisely is yours alone. Most games are based on “levels,” and once you’ve mastered a lower level you can move on to a higher one, with greater challenges, requiring greater mastery of the skills you learned in the lower levels. And at the end of nearly every video game I’ve ever played, you face a final challenge, featuring an ultimate opponent referred to in gamer parlance as a “boss.” The final boss is usually far stronger than any of the other opponents the player has faced up to that point of a game, and defeating him generally requires the use of all of the moves, weapons, reflexes, and instincts you’ve practiced throughout the lower levels. Beat the final boss, and you’ve beaten the game.

As I compare my experiences with both video games and martial arts, it’s not difficult to find correlation. Many of the most popular video games throughout the industry’s history fall into the “fighting game” genre, such as Tekken, Karateka, Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, and Kung Fu Master. But even the most basic and beloved games, such as Nintendo’s 1985 classic Super Mario Bros., follow a formula that parallels the natural progression of the martial arts.

Press START, and Mario, an immigrant plumber, finds himself in a strange and unfamiliar world. This is how we all start in karate. Initially, the dojo is an unfamiliar place to us, filled with foreign objects, strange sights, and new sounds. It may take a while for new students to get comfortable in this strange new world.

When he starts the first level, Mario’s abilities are somewhat limited. He can only stand, walk, run, or jump, and even early attempts with those skills can be awkward. He can easily stumble, fall, or bump into things. His prior skills as a plumber are of little use in his new environment. Similarly, the skills we learn as beginning karate students are also simple, but they serve as the foundation for all future techniques. Forward stance, lower block, punch, and reverse punch are essentially all we need for our first kata, but like Mario, our early attempts with those skills are usually awkward. And just like Mario’s plumbing experience, being an airline pilot, accountant, stay-at-home mom, doctor, or a even plumber won’t help us in our new environment. Inside the dojo, what we are in the outside world (along with how much money we make, or what kind of car we drive, or how we appear to those around us) isn’t important. Once inside, we all dress the same, work toward the same goals, learn the same techniques, and seek the same path.

Mario’s initial challenges are straightforward: stand right there, walk over here, run over there, jump over that. However, as he practices his limited skills with basic challenges in this first level, he gradually faces new and more difficult challenges. In the same manner, as we practice beginning karate techniques at the white belt level, our teachers will trust us with new techniques and more difficult challenges. Once we learn how to properly stand, walk, run, and jump, we can eventually apply those basic principles to a wide array of martial techniques.

Early in the first level, Mario receives the first tangible reward for the new skills he’s acquired: a Mushroom. Eating the Mushroom causes Mario to grow, and doubles his ability to take damage from enemies before dying. Of course, we should be careful not to take this analogy too far… I certainly don’t condone the use of mushrooms to give one the illusion of great power and size. :) Mario’s Mushroom is merely a metaphor of merit. When we work hard in karate, we are also rewarded with growth: in body, mind, and spirit. We are better able to face enemies without getting hurt. Our increased capacity opens the door to increased challenges, and we receive our first tangible reward of a single green stripe on our belt.

Eventually, near the end of the level, Mario jumps as high as he can, lands on a flag pole, then slides down the pole, claiming his flag. This ends the level, and Mario receives the reward of more points. Most importantly, he earns the right to move on to the next level. This pattern repeats itself throughout the game: Mario faces new and greater challenges by demonstrating greater mastery of new skills based on the same basic principles, and then moves on to the next level. With each new level, his margin for error decreases, and Mario must be more precise in his movements, more deliberate in dealing with enemies, and more dedicated to reach the flagpole that marks the end of the level. It’s no different as we reach new levels in karate. With each rank, we must demonstrate greater mastery of new skills based on the same basic principles, with lesser margin for error and greater precision and focus. Near the end of each level, we are tested, and we respond to that test by putting forth our greatest effort and reaching as high as we can. If we are successful, we earn the right to pull down a new “flag” and tie it around our waist as a symbol of our current level.

As Mario reaches more advanced levels, the game gets more serious. If he maintains the growth granted earlier by the Mushroom, he can unlock the even greater reward of the Flower, which not only further boosts his resilience against enemies, but also allows him to wield Super Mario Bros’ ultimate weapon: the Fireball. This weapon gives Mario greater ability to disarm and defeat his enemies, thereby making it possible to navigate greater challenges and reach even higher levels. In karate, if we persist in our training long enough to reach more advanced ranks, we can also begin to train with weapons, which give us greater ability to protect ourselves from attack, and better disarm and defeat our enemies.

Eventually, if Mario endures long enough, he’ll complete all the lower levels and voyage to a large castle in a far-away land, wherein waits his greatest challenge to date: the “final boss,” named Bowser. Bowser guards Mario’s most desired reward: the alluring Princess Peach. To prevail, Mario must face Bowser, avoid his attacks, smash the wooden planks that supports him, and watch him fall to defeat. If he is successful, Mario can claim his prize, win the game, and end his epic journey.

My castle is the Carmichael Gymnasium, located on the NCSU campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. On May 28, 2010, at the Cuong Nhu International Annual Training Camp, I will mount my assault. Inside waits my greatest karate challenge to date, my “final boss,” a three-day challenge in which I must demonstrate my understanding and mastery of a wide array of skills and techniques, based on a handful of unchanging principles of how to properly stand, walk, run, jump, and move. I will show that I have grown in body, mind, and spirit and that I can perform any of the techniques required from any of the levels I’ve completed. I will prove that I can wield a variety of weapons to increase my resistance to attack and allow me to disarm and defeat my enemies. I will defeat any “enemies” that confront me, and I will smash no fewer than 12 wooden planks that stand between me and my ultimate goal.

And finally, when I am successful, I will be called forward to kneel and receive a new “flag” of black cloth to tie around my waist as a token of my victory. I will stand, claim my prize, and end my epic journey!

Or will I?

Unfortunately for Mario, Super Mario Bros. wasn’t exactly the end of his journey… it was only the beginning. Between Donkey Kong in 1981 and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games in 2010, Mario has appeared in more than 200 video games, and shows no signs of slowing down. Perhaps there’s something still for us to learn from this persistent protagonist plumber.

Just as movies are in Hollywood, successful video games are destined to turn into sequels, and successful sequels are stretched into series. No matter how “final” the ending cut scene of a video game may appear, it’s always possible to find a new challenge for the main character. And while I still do plan to mount an epic assault on Carmichael Castle this May, there will be nothing ultimate about my goal, nor final about my journey.

Just as anyone who has mastered Super Mario Bros. will tell you, if you put down the controller for a month, a year, or a decade, picking it back up and immediately being able to still play at the same skill level is an almost impossibility. Timing, reflexes, intuition, stamina, and focus will fade quickly. You’ll likely get the hang of it more quickly than starting back at zero, but it will still take a great amount of effort and practice to regain your former level of performance and match your previous high score. Karate is no different. As with any skill, maintaining is far easier than regaining. Too many black belts achieve that goal and treat it like the end of an epic journey. I have no plans to let mine end. I will turn this success into a sequel, and then I’ll turn that sequel into a series.

Just like Mario, I have no plans to slow down any time soon.

Related posts:

1. Two-Black Stripe Paper
2. Brown Belt Paper
3. 179 days to go

Almost There

On Saturday, August 8, 2009, I’ll be taking my two-black stripe karate test. For anyone reading this that may be unfamiliar with the intricacies of rank advancement in my chosen style of Cuong-Nhu karate, I’ll put it in simpler terms: this is the last test I’ll take before my black belt test. In a sense, you might say I’m “almost there.”

I’ve noticed a general rule over the course of my life that the hardest part of many activities is the last few steps. The most challenging part of reaching a major mountain peak is usually those last hundred feet before the summit. The toughest part of most multiple game sporting championships is usually the last couple hours (think Game 7 of the World Series or NBA Finals). The most dangerous and trying round of a boxing match is the final one. And the most frustrating stage of a major business negotiation is just before the deal closes, when even a seemingly insignificant detail can cause the whole deal to fall apart.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but this pattern emerges consistently enough, and across such a broad variety of situations, that I can’t help but believe that there must be some larger, overarching truth that helps explain why some things get exponentially more difficult when you’re “almost there.” Why are people statistically more likely to crash their car within the final 1.4 miles of their final destination? Why are the last five pounds of weight loss 9 times harder to take off than the first five? And why do so many students at our dojo quit karate at the brown belt rank (so often, in fact, that we’ve even coined the term “Brown Belt Heaven” to describe where they go) when they seem closer than ever to their goal of black belt?

I submit that there are three specific factors that help explain “Almost There Phenomenon,” which is my completely made-up term to explain the marked increase in difficulty and/or danger of an endeavor as you approach its termination. Identifying these factors is the first, and therefore easiest, step in overcoming them.

ATP Factor 1: Changes in Your Environment

The first factor in explaining ATP is perhaps the most obvious: as you approach a goal, the environment, conditions, or situation surrounding that goal becomes dramatically different than it was at the outset.

In the obvious example of mountain climbing, climbers encounter lower temperatures and air density as elevation rises, creating an increasingly difficult environment for breathing, walking, and surviving the higher the climber goes. In SCUBA diving, the inverse is true. At every 33 feet of depth underwater, divers experience an environmental change of 1 additional atmosphere of pressure compared to sea level, so that by 132 feet underwater, it requires 5 times the amount of air volume per breath to achieve the same air density intake as on the surface. Divers literally “feel the pressure” during the initial phases of a descent, as all air spaces (lungs, sinuses, ear canals, the air in their mask, intestines, and even pockets of air trapped in their teeth) are compressed to half of their sea-level size by 33 feet. As divers go beyond 100 feet, they face the risks of nitrogen narcosis and eventual oxygen toxicity as their blood chemistry changes. Still, the most dangerous part of any dive is the final stage of the ascent to the surface, when air trapped throughout the diver’s body can expand too rapidly in response to the changing environment as they approach the surface, causing decompression illness or death.

In both these examples, there are obvious changes in the environment as the climber or diver approaches his goal. Being near the top of a mountain, or the bottom of an ocean, is more difficult than remaining at sea level because the very nature of the new environment demands increased precision and exertion. This is also true in karate. The push-up requirements for brown belts and black belts are more physically demanding than those of white or green belts. At each successive rank, students are not only responsible for knowing all techniques, katas, and applications at their new rank level, but of all previous levels as well, thereby making the mental environment more challenging. The risk for injury also increases as board breaking, weapons use, and sparring are introduced at higher ranks. Teachers expect more from higher ranked students, and so they change the environment during classes and tests to make it more difficult for these students. And as with climbing and diving, the very nature of this new environment demands increased precision and exertion on the part of the student. As succinctly stated by Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us” (or send us to Brown Belt Heaven) “makes us stronger.”

ATP Factor 2: The Elimination of Easier Alternatives

The second factor in explaining Almost There Phenomenon is purely mathematical: as you approach a goal, the number of alternative options, methods, and routes for reaching that goal is forcibly decreased, until only the final (and usually most difficult) step remains.

While travelling to my vacation home near Wenatchee, Washington, I drive by thousands of apple trees, which produce millions of apples each year (half of the apples grown in the United States come from Washington State). In the fall, every single one of those apples is picked by hand. Apple pickers go about their task exactly as you would expect. Their job demands that they remove every apple from the tree, so theoretically, they could start with the highest apple on the tree and then move down – but they never do. They pick the “low hanging fruit” first, which is exactly why that term is a widely-used metaphor for things that are easy to accomplish. At the beginning of the task, the mathematical possibilities for the order in which to pick apples off a tree seem almost limitless. The picker can casually walk around the tree, removing easy-to-reach apples and placing them in a crate. It doesn’t matter if they grab this apple first, or that one over there, because so many are easy-to-reach options available to him. But as each piece of low hanging fruit is removed, fewer and fewer easy options remain, until the picker is forced to use a ladder to reach the higher fruit. Once the moderately difficult fruit is removed, only a few apples remain near the top, at which point the largest ladder must be used, and the choices of what order to removing the last few apples are drastically reduced. In the end, there is only one option remaining: the last apple. The picker can ignore the last apple for most of the task, choosing a number of easier alternatives. But eventually, even though the last apple will occupy no more space in the crate than the lowest of the low hanging fruit, the picker must exert the greatest amount of effort to complete the last step of his overall goal.

In baseball and basketball championship series, players universally agree that it’s easier to win at home. But in order to win a best-of-seven series, a team usually has to win at least one away game, and if they lose any of their home games, they have no choice but to win on the road. The easier alternatives are eliminated as the series progresses. From the base of a mountain, a climber has numerous options for gaining altitude, but as the summit approaches, the alternative routes are quickly eliminated, until only the most difficult remain.

The final steps required to complete a goal are almost always the most difficult, because it’s human nature to eliminate the easiest tasks first.  At the dojo, some students choose to focus on only their favorite techniques, weapons, or activities, while ignoring or postponing the more challenging ones. But, like the last apple, they must eventually focus on the hardest tasks in order to reach their overall goal. In some cases, the easiest tasks are a prerequisite for the more difficult, and must be mastered before attempting the higher-difficulty steps. Students must be able to perform a crescent kick, a spinning reverse crescent kick, and a flying crescent kick before attempting to combine those elements into a tornado kick.

Perhaps some of the students who quit do so because, after picking the low-hanging fruit, they are unwilling to take the challenge of reaching higher. Perhaps they’ve eliminated the easy routes up the mountain, and are too scared to face the remaining alternatives which they consider too treacherous, too scary, or too arduous. But building upon the foundation of the baby steps behind you and pushing through the difficult steps ahead is an inherent part of any lofty goal. If all the alternatives were easy, there would be no sense of accomplishment upon its completion.

ATP Factor 3: The Human Condition (Physical and Emotional Fatigue, Injury, and Age)

The third factor that helps explain why some tasks increase in difficulty and/or danger as you approach their termination is something that affects each of us to varying degrees:  the fact that we’re human, and that we are all affected by physical and emotional fatigue, injury, and age. Certainly, the aforementioned factors 1 and 2 can play a role in the rate at which the human condition sets in, but eventually it affects us all.

Physical fatigue is bound to set in more rapidly with any intense physical activity. Hiking, skiing, diving, karate, driving a car – each of these activities sees both a decreased level of performance, as well as an increased risk of injury, as a result of physical fatigue. The longer we work at something difficult, the more tired we get. With proper conditioning, we can increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of difficult activities while keeping physical fatigue at bay, but eventually we all succumb to the human condition. Almost any physical activity could be used as an example, but long-distance runners and boxers know this factor especially well. In the early stages of a marathon, the runner paces himself in the early miles so that he has sufficient energy to complete the later ones. In many cases, there may be no difference in the environment – in fact, if he is running laps on a track, the environment would be completely unchanged. Therefore, the only thing that makes the last mile of a marathon more difficult than the first mile is that the last mile follows 25 others. Boxers also experience this factor in later rounds. While crowds generally hope to see boxers land devastating knock-out blows to the head, it’s the body shots landed in early rounds that consistently pay dividends as the fight progresses. Later rounds are always considered the most risky for both fighters, because physical fatigue makes the activity more difficult in the final stages.

As we near the completion of a major goal, it’s impossible to avoid some amount of physical fatigue as a result of the steps we’ve already completed. This makes the “sprint to the finish” considerably more difficult than the “run from the gun.”

Emotional fatigue can spring from a variety of sources. Expressed as boredom, lack of focus or concentration, or complacency, such fatigue can demonstrably increase the difficultly and danger of the final stages of most major tasks. More climbers are injured on the way down a mountain than on the way up. It’s been my experience that racetrack-based auto accidents happen when a driver wants to go out for “one last lap.” The longer we remain in a risk-filled environment, our human condition naturally makes us feel acclimated to the risk, which is when we face the bigger risk of letting our guard down.

The risk (or reality) of injury and the irreversible process of aging can also contribute to the increased level of difficulty at the end-stage of major goals. The average age for athletes in most major sports is constantly inching downward, to the point where some athletes in their 30s are considered “old.” It’s been said that “youth is wasted in the young,” and to some extent, I agree. Youth and enthusiasm are eventually replaced by age and experience, but most would agree that as we age, strenuous physical activity becomes more difficult. Injuries can also affect the difficulty of competing major tasks, and the longer we perform any activity involving a risk of injury, the higher the probability that we will eventually have to face one. This risk is also contributor to the “almost there” phenomenon.

Methods of Dealing with ATP

Methods for dealing with the increased difficulty and/or danger of the “almost there” phase of a major goal are as varied as the people who pursue those goals. In my personal experience, I’ve faced each of these factors throughout my last eight years at Fairwood Martial Arts. As I gained more experience, more was expected of me by my teachers as they changed the environment to challenge me further. Because our martial art has a published curriculum, I can easily open our manual to see all of the techniques required for any rank level. As I’ve turned more of the pages, the number of unlearned techniques that I am responsible to demonstrate has decreased, like the apples on the trees, until I have no choice but to reach for higher levels. Finally, injury and aging have played a significant factor in my development through karate. Over the past eight years, I’ve had hernia and knee surgery, and have dealt with rotator cuff injuries in both my shoulders. I’ve seen my stamina and conditioning levels fluctuate in correlation with my efforts, and have begun to notice that some techniques aren’t quite as easy to do as they were eight years ago.

In the final analysis, the techniques to facing these factors may be complex, but the overall strategy is simple, and protected by a trademark belonging to the Nike Corporation: “Just do it.” When Master John Kay is teaching how to break boards, he always says “just step up there and break them.” When Master Ricki Kay is teaching Aikido holds and joint locks, she always says “just grab here and twist.” Any of us who wishes to fight through the “almost there” phenomenon just has to deal with the increased difficulty and danger.

Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to visualize the “almost there” stage of a difficult task as if it were the departure. If I imagine the final steps to the summit as if I were merely leaving the trailhead, my feet won’t feel so heavy. If I imagine the last mile of the marathon as if it were the first, my lungs won’t burn as much. And if I imagine that the bell of the closing round is merely the opening bell, I can come out, touch gloves, and fight refreshed.

The successful completion of my two black stripe will represent the beginning of my “almost there” stage in my quest for a black belt. And while I’ll be forced to deal with an increasingly changing environment, the elimination of easier alternatives, and face the conditions of my humanity, I’ll come to the dojo with the enthusiasm, focus, and thirst for knowledge of a white belt, while I work to build the stamina of a teenager.

So please don’t tell me that I’m “almost there.” I’d rather think that I’m just getting started.

Related posts:

1. Black Belt Candidate Paper
2. Brown Belt Paper