I may or may not decide to keep this as a public martial arts blog... we'll see. In the meantime, here is a post from my private martial arts blog:
I've noticed in popular culture martial arts movies, particularly those from the US, often a disciple studies under a master until a certain point when the master declares,"Your training is now Complete."
This is a great fallacy to martial art training — that such a state is attainable, or that there is a desire to be complete at all. Having a stated goal to attain only softens the potential that one can achieve. If we only train to be "good enough" to pass a test or win a competition, we are not maximizing our potential. We should strive to better than those that others expect of us.
Often, for many students a "black belt" is a primary goal — which is why many stop after getting it. They have reached the ceiling of their expectations, as opposed to realizing that their ceiling is limitless, and the belt is simply a marker.
Furthermore, if we train to fulfill our requirements for a rank, that is all we are capable of doing. Rank requires us to know specific rote combinations and practices — "Life" does not. If we train "for perfection" rather than "for a rank," passing a test seems like a trivial obstacle on our path of discovery. The amount needed to know for the test is miniscule compared to all that we have learned in our training.
There is no "completed" training. There is just training.
