Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.

P.S. The Transcript – Why Earn a Black Belt?:

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Thanks a lot for being here, everybody, in another edition of Success Training. I’m Dr. Greg Moody, chief master instructor. I’m here with Sr. Master Laura Sanborn and Mr. Dwayne Flees, a 4th degree black belt, and we’re happy to have you guys here today. What we’re going to be talking about is, our topic today is Why Set… Well, let’s see. I got my topics here a little mixed up. Why Earn a Black Belt and Beyond? So why get your black belt? And it’s a question for parents, and our answer is it’s more than martial arts. Mr. Flees brought this to us, to our attention. Sometimes parents ask why should they set their goal to black belt, and, “For what it will make of the student that achieves it,” answered the master. Mr. Flees, Master Sanborn, did you guys have anything you wanted to say to get started here today?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No, but this is a question that comes up a lot, especially when we’re talking to parents of small children. And it seems such a long goal to get to. So it’s an important one for anybody who’s doing martial arts, is what is the black belt and why do I want it?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Right. It’s usually one of the first questions we get when they come in, when we talk about earning a black belt.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

And I think sometimes they think, “Well, a black belt is this.” Either they haven’t gotten the idea of that because martial arts is brand new to them, or they think a black belt is something that you only get when you’ve been doing this for 100 years. That might be something you get when you’re very old, or you’ve been doing it for a long period of time, or maybe that it’s something that you get when you’re, I don’t know, a really accomplished fighter and you’ve had to fight a bunch of people, or you’re breaking bricks with your head or something. And instead really, in the framework of what we think about in martial arts, it means that you’re a serious student. It means that you’ve trained long enough in our view to be a serious student, but also that you’ve accomplished something significant.

So let’s talk a little bit about what black belts do and then what it does for you. And so that goes along with the quote that you brought Mr. Fleas that why would you earn a black belt? Because of what achieving it is going to mean to you. And let’s go through some of these comments, if that’s okay.

One of the things, if we list all the different things that we do as a black belt, one of the things probably not in the order that we do it, we don’t do this first, but one of the things we do when we earn our black belt, one of the processes is board breaking. That’s classically what people think about the black belts they see them on TV or they see them in videos, breaking boards. And again, that’s not the first thing you do but it’s one thing that people think about. What that does is develop confidence that what you’re doing and the things that you’re learning are going to work, but it also develops muscle development because we practice a lot, not on boards, but on other things. And it helps you with your muscle development and fitness. And you guys can talk a little bit more about this, but you have to do it with both sides of your body and your feet and your hands and other you do it with. We do board breaking with knees and other things.

Go ahead, guys. Add onto that. What would you add onto to what board breaking accomplishes for our students?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

A lot of it is focus as well, the confidence knowing that what they’re doing works if they pay attention to what they’re doing. So it’s not going to just accidentally happen. You’ve got to work to get there, but you’ve got to pay attention to what it is that you’re doing to make that, to build that confidence and build the muscle development. None of that happens accidentally.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Right. And if they do the technique correctly, they realize that they can put less effort into it to break the board.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s a really good point that when a student sees a board and they see somebody break a board the first time, they go, “Well…” That can seem unachievable. It doesn’t seem like something that they could possibly do, especially when as they progress, we’re asking them to do more complicated board breaks and techniques that are difficult, or they have to jump up in the air and kick. And then one day, they do the thing that was they didn’t think they could ever possibly do. I know I felt that way when I ended up breaking a board and jumping over three people. And I’m not bragging when I say that. It’s like if you had told me when I started out that I would do that, and then one day I jumped over five people and broke a board when I was testing for 5th degree black belt, and gee, if you told me that when I started, I would’ve thought you were completely insane. And I would’ve never thought that that was possible.

But when that happened, it was because I did a lot of work to do that. And then, oh my gosh, it was incredible. So imagine how confident you get when you do something that you never ever thought you could possibly do.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

It’s the overcoming of fear too. A lot of people, when they see somebody breaking a board, they just automatically assume that it’s going to hurt so they’re afraid to even try it. And when you help them overcome that and they’re successful at it, they realize they can apply that to other things.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s right. If you can do that, if you could… And that’s one piece of confidence and self-esteem development that I think is misunderstood. If you build confidence in one area that you could do something, then when that same feeling applies in another area, if I build confidence that I could break the border, achieve something or do something that’s very difficult, when something happens, maybe when I’m an adult and I get tasked to do something difficult at work and I’ve never done it before and it’s a challenge, that feeling is the same. It’s not a different kind of feeling. It’s still the same kind of feeling.

So yeah, it’s hard and it’s difficult. And maybe I don’t know if I can do it, but now, well, I’ve done a lot of those, “It’s hard. It’s difficult. I don’t know if I can do it.” And now I think I can do it again because I went through those experiences. And we frequently see people maybe have the conversation of, “Well, oh, that’s hard. Oh, well, then don’t do it. It’s hard,” or, “I’m scared of it.” “Oh, don’t do it.” Instead of, “It’s hard, I’m scared.” “Let’s help you through it. Let’s help you through it.” Let’s get more experience of, “It’s hard. It’s scared, and we’ll help you through it so that you can experience success at the end.” The more of those you have, the more confidence you build that, “Maybe I can do more and more and more and achieve more and more and more and be more successful.”

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Yeah. And that’ll apply to any transition that comes up in their life, when you’ve got to move from one job to another, when you’ve got to go from college to having a job and looking for a job, moving from one place to another. All those things that happen in a person’s life, having the confidence because you’ve done it and overcoming the fear of it can really lead to some exciting stuff for people.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Or even maybe if something fails because there’s going to be some failure, because we don’t always break the boards. My best story of that, I was testing for what’s, as you guys know, probably one of the most important black belt ranks that we could ever have, is 6th degree black belt. Our viewers may not know that, but that’s when you become a master, when you become a 6th degree black belt. The next, that’s like a big deal. That’s a big title. 1st degree black belt and 6th degree black belt are the big deals. And all of them were big, but that’s a big one. And I didn’t break my boards the first try. That was a big deal because you maybe don’t pass. And I didn’t and I had to do it over again. That was really disheartening. But I had to get up and do it again because I had lots and lots of experience of maybe it didn’t break so you work and do it again. And it’s easier not to get discouraged when you’ve had sometimes it didn’t work and you were able to then later achieve.

So let’s move on to the next one. But I think this is a great example. Each one of these topics has a lot of value. So the next thing that black belts do in their classes is people that are color belts and that move on to black belt, we do forms in our style of martial arts, TaeKwonDo. We do forms, a sequence of moves that we have to learn to also called poomsae that we learned to move on to our next rank. And this helps us develop focus and concentration. Maybe you guys want to start with this one and talk about what value that has in the other parts of their life.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

There’s going to be a lot of times in life when you’ve got to pay attention and know what’s happening and what you have to do to get to the next spot. And if you’re not concentrating on it and paying attention to it, it just doesn’t happen.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

I remember this. Yesterday morning, you were working out in our master workout, in our morning workout, and one of the things we were working on is you have a very, very complicated form and it’s very difficult, and to try to make sure it lines up exactly the right way and exactly the right direction even with lots of distractions because it was challenging. So even as you become a 7th degree black belt like you, it’s not easy. So we keep pushing people and challenging. So it requires more and more concentration, and that helps us develop more neurotransmitters and more brain power to be able to, in lots of chaos, be able to stay focused. That was happening yesterday for you.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

That was yesterday. You added lots of chaos to my form. Even just changing the direction of it, which seems like a fairly simple thing, requires more concentration than the regular form does. So I’m still being challenged on that, to get better and better with concentration and paying attention.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah. And I think sometimes we forget how concentration and focus affects us in a lot of areas. One of the things that I work on with the business clients that I work with is concentration in time management, that so many things get lost during the day that we end up finishing a day and going, “Gee, I was busy all day. I was busy all day, but what did I get done? Nothing got done.” And when we train, when black belts train like this and do this part of our training and you can’t do anything else, you have to stay focused on this stuff for at least the two minutes it takes to complete this section or complete this part of the training and then you do it few times, but just to do one of these forms takes a couple of minutes, you can’t do anything else. You’d fall over. You have to stay focused. So that’s a metaphor for how the rest of staying focused and the rest of your day is. Mr. Flees, do you want to add some more to forms and what value they have?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Well, I was thinking of multitasking, but I don’t think that’s the right word for it because there are a lot of different techniques that you have to perform in one direction and then into another direction, at which way do I have to turn? So I don’t think multitasking is really the right phrase that I’m looking for.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

You have to do a lot at once though, don’t you? You have to keep your feet in the right place, your body in the right place, your shoulders and arms and legs and hands and everything. Every part of our body has to be in the right place. And it’s very different than another sports activity. We just did a podcast on how this is not a sports activity. It’s a developmental activity. But everything, and that’s why we get people that are experts. Sometimes we’ve got professional athletes or experts in sports, and they come and do this stuff like the form in particular, and they’re horrible at it when they first start because they’re built to do specialized sports. They’re not… I think multitasking is appropriate because they’re multitasking with their whole body, and to do all that at once when they’re so specialized at a sport is very difficult.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

It’s like learning how to drive a car since I-

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s right.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

… taught my 16-year-old daughter recently.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Right. How do I do all this stuff at once without thinking? And then that helps us learn to concentrate, concentrate, concentrate as we make it more difficult, difficult, difficult. Because we continue to make these things more difficult on purpose. It not designed to be easier over time.

Okay, well, let’s go on to the next one. Good, that was good for this. So weapons training is another thing we do, and we use safety weapons. That helps us with hand-eye coordination and strength because it is not physically easy, but we do these with both hands, so we do left and right-hand training. And a lot of people recognize these types of weapons we do. In our style of martial arts, we do pretty much every kind of weapon you can imagine. Some people recognize them as nunchucks. We use the Korean name called ssang jyel bong. We have everything from sword to sticks to long staffs to everything. And again, we use right and left hand of our body. So hand-eye coordination is very, very complicated with all these. And when you have to do training with this for a long time, it requires a lot of strength. That helps us physically in many ways. What other things would you guys say?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Recognizing the commonality of them. Even though the weapons are different sizes, different thickness, everything about them can be totally different, but you still do the same type of strikes in the same direction. So there’s a commonality between it and recognizing that you can use different things in similar ways. So it’s super useful that way. A lot of times, we’ll do the drill where we have all the weapons out and you pick them up and you do the exact same strike with each one. Even though one’s six feet long, one is a knife that’s maybe six inches long, but they’re still doing the same technique because that is the effective technique.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah. And I think just because you’re using a weapon that’s not traditional or able to be used for self-defense right now in these days, still the techniques that we practice are open-handed techniques a lot of times as well.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Right. So we haven’t really talked about how to use, how all these things apply. They all apply to self-defense too, which is not what we’re… We’re not really focusing on that because obviously they apply to self-defense, but all these things would apply to picking something up, picking anything up and using it in a self-defense way. So there’s some application there for development. But if you were using it for any kind of sports thing, or so you can drive better, or what I was thinking about with this is for our young students that need to learn coordination, they’re learning coordination in multi-multi-faceted ways that they will learn some in PE hopefully in school if their school does have PE. Sometimes schools don’t have PE anymore, but they’re probably not going to learn the variety of coordination-type skills with something weighted like the weapons training that we use in so many different aspects because there’s just so many different ways that the weapons give them ability to coordinate and the precision that we require of them. So there’s a lot of different ways.

And then the other end of the spectrum would be some of our older students. We have students in their nineties. One of our student’s real special and in their seventies got their black belt the other day with us. And they’re going to develop. If they started in their seventies and they started doing these things, developing hand-eye coordination then is almost like rehab form. So they get that type of development. There’s another place where we’re asking for an extreme amount of hand-eye coordination way beyond what they would normally get in other types of anything that they would do.

So let’s talk about specifically self-defense or advanced self-defense is against… This one, we’re very, very focused on what self-defense is, but we can talk about what other things it does for people. This is against the 12 most common attacks judged by the FBI. So if something really happens, this is for our color belt specifically, if something really happens on the street, they’ve got the very, very… About 80 or 90% of possible attacks that’s going to cover, we have very specific drills that they’re learning that they will have programmed in their head that they can be learning to be safe from. And we’ll address this in the next one too. But if they know that something’s going to happen and they would be safe from it, that they’re developing some confidence that if things like this happen, they can make good decisions. In other words, they could make decisions to be able to escape or run or do something to protect themselves because they wouldn’t be in a freeze mode, in a scared mode. They could use their brain.

The other stuff to add for you, guys, so we’re going a little… So I’m not the one talking all the time.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Well, it gives them the confidence because they can practice it in their head on their own as well. “Oh, I saw this. So what if that happens?” They can go through what ifs and not be trapped. Maybe they won’t get agoraphobia because of it, because they now have the confidence to go outside knowing that they can do something. And it is not all about, “Oh, I have to run away. I have to protect myself by holding in myself in. I can go to the grocery store when it’s 6:00 in the evening and it’s getting just a little bit darker. I can go where I need to be and get stuff done because I’ve practiced something that will work and I’ve practiced it on somebody that it did work when I did it.”

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah. And a lot of times doing that visualization part or like shadow-boxing, just thinking about it helps provide your neural pathways to open up, creates that muscle memory as well so that when something does happen, you can react to it and deal with it faster than if you never thought about it before.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah. And again, back to that fight-flight-freeze mode, that you’d be much less likely to freeze. And in reality, we know from psychology, people have this background idea that maybe they may not be safe in certain situations. There may be some fear and some trauma that they may be dealing with. And so for our students that may have that, the feeling like they’re safe in those situations can alleviate some of that trauma and help them develop so they can not be as scared in certain situations and not be as susceptible to the trauma or the reactions that they may have from other trauma. So this has a lot of benefit. In addition to hopefully if something does happen, we want them to be safe as well.

We also do reaction drills which relates to sparring. If they can react to live type sparring, and this helps them develop discipline and confidence. When we do live sparring or what we call free sparring, students get to fight each other in safe situations with safety gear on. And when they do that, part of everything we do in martial arts starts with discipline. Even the class, how we set up class, we call that lining up, and how the students, where they put their bags and where they walk and where they stand and where they sit. Everything’s related to discipline so that we can be safe during all of these, everything that we’ve listed so far. So discipline is something from the we tell them what to do and then they learn how to do it themselves so they have self-discipline. That means if you don’t tell them what to do, as they become a black belt, by the time they’re black belts, they know how to do these things themselves. So that discipline relates over to them having discipline in the rest of their lives is our goal for black belts.

Guys, what would you add to that in terms of how you see discipline affect them or the discipline we help them with affect them in the rest of their life?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

It leads to independence. Their parents don’t have to be right on top of them all the time. They have to go out and do stuff on their own. They have the discipline to do it themselves without somebody telling them what to do. And that can affect their job, that can affect just their home life, relationships with other people if they’re doing what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it, and they know that they have to do that and they’ve got it automatically ingrained in them now. “Oh, I’m supposed to do that and I’ll just go ahead and do it. I don’t rely on somebody else to tell me what to do.”

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Right. And I think when you’re sparring, it helps you with when things change, you have to change because in sparring, what you thought was going to happen and planned on is different because the other person thought about doing something else. So you have to adjust on the fly to accomplish your goals.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s right. That’s a good point. And that’s what real life is like too. And it doesn’t work in sparring in the middle of sparring to go, “Hey, I didn’t expect him to do that. I’m going to complain about it.” We end up hearing people, I’ll bring up some of my other work I do in my psychology work and my business work where I might end up hearing people say, “Well, I’m upset because it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.” Or maybe an employee says, “I’m upset.” I’ll complain about the world not working the way I want it to. And therefore some of our viewers probably have people in their lives that complain about the world not working out the way they want it to and that’s why they didn’t get the results they wanted. “It’s their fault,” or it’s some…

Well, if you’re sparring, if something doesn’t go right, then what are you going to do about it? You have to block or move out of the way or solve it yourself. There’s nobody going to fix it for you. So you have to resolve things yourself when you’re in that kind of situation. If it doesn’t work out, then we want to help you and train you and help you and train you. And what our students find out is that they can keep getting better and better and better and better and better. And that’s my example about board breaking. I didn’t think I could be possibly good at it. And then after a while, one day you find out, “Well, I’m pretty good or at least I’m way better than I used to be.” So that helps. I think that’s where the confidence comes in that you can continue to get better and you continue to grow in these areas too.

Anything else to add before I move on?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So competition training, we also do. Now, not all of our students compete in tournaments, or this type of training, it’s not required part of what we do. But it is related to I think real life training where in real life, no matter what you do, whatever kind of job you have, if you’re in business or if you work in a factory or you work in whatever job, it’s real life that you’re competing a little bit, at least for the next job or at least to keep your job. Or if you’re in business, you’re competing when you’re marketing. Or if you’re in school, you’re competing against the other people that you’re taking a test and you want to get an A. Well, it’s related to the other people that are taking tests along with you. So it’s real life that when you are doing things, there’ll be some comparisons with other people.

And so how do we manage that and how are we okay with that? In some areas I’m going to be, maybe I’m going to be the best. In some areas, I’m not going to be the best, and that’s part of what we have to deal with in real life. What would you guys add to that?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

The winning and losing, pretty much similar to what you were saying, but sometimes you’re the winner. Sometimes if you don’t compete to win and don’t put the effort in to win, you won’t. You’ve got to know that lack of preparation, lack of putting the effort in, then the results of that are you don’t win. Which means you don’t win the new job, you don’t get what you wanted to get. Those things aren’t just handed to you if you don’t prepare for them and put the effort towards getting things. And that’s really easy to see in competition. The person who you can look at them and just tell, “Oh, they’ve put a lot of work into getting there.” They wanted to win, so they put effort in. That’s why it looks different when they do it. And that’s exactly what’ll happen when you have a job. If you don’t put the effort in that was required, you may not keep that job.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah, and then-

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That reminds me the emotional… Go ahead, sir. Sorry, sir.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah. And then the opposite of that would be when you do put a lot of effort in and you did work hard at it, but then you didn’t win, how to deal with that without falling apart and lament your whole week after that.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, that’s an absolutely fair statement too. Because sometimes you didn’t win and you guys, they had to pick somebody and they picked the other person and that’s just the way it goes. That’s real life. That’s actually what happens. You can go home and complain and get depressed and it is disappointing.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Right.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

The real thing is it’s disappointing if that happens. You might’ve felt like you did better. We have all kinds of situations where that might happen. And so this can be an opportunity for us to have a training ground for that when we’re young. Now, as I said, not all people want to do that. You have to, as you develop, you can learn to do that. But if you do competition, then it does help us learn to face those types of situations and be successful. Okay, awesome. Those are all great examples.

So performance skills, now we do this in our leadership training. Most of our black belts or most of our students that are training to be black belts are in our leadership training program. And they work on performance skills and this helps them with ability to perform in any situation. So they learn a particular set of advanced, maybe weapons training or a kick training that’s a little more difficult than the regular classes, and they do it to music or they do it in a special way with people watching. So they get, like in competition, the ability to perform in any situation.

A couple pieces of this. Performance in a stressful situation allows us to learn that in a stressful situation, that they’re going to be able to be. Because the way we set it up is that they will do it, but there’s not really any… They’re going to get positive feedback and positive correction. So they’re going to learn to do that type of performance environment. They’re going to be in that performance environment, but they’re not going to have a failure situation. So they’re going to be sensitized that those are positive things when they learn to perform in front of people. And that is in real life, there’s all kinds of times where they need to perform in front of people or perform in situations that might be stressful and not to be afraid of them just because they’re stressful situations.

Anything to add, guys?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No, that one to me is pretty straightforward. The practice of dealing with a stressful situation is something you didn’t think you wanted to do but getting up and doing it anyway, and it can lead to success. It can get you not immunized, but so used to it that you’re no longer having that much stress in that situation.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, I think we can add that. Maybe I could put these two together or presentation skills that we do in our leadership class, which is standing up in front of people, leading other people, and learning to communicate and teach. It’s not the same as our instructor program, but they learn the basics that come, the very basic skills from our instructor training, which we’re also, we have a great instructor training program that teaches even at a young age how to be an instructor. That’s our highest, highest level.

But the basics of that, we put in our leadership training so they learn how to stand up in front of people and communicate and teach some very simple things back to other people. So even a six-year-old could stand up in front of a group and teach. It’s incredible to watch this. And when they can do that and also perform in front of other situations, they can overcome the number one fear in America, probably number one fear in the world, which is speaking in public. Death is number four. So people are more afraid of speaking in public than anything else by far, even more than dying or getting hurt or anything else. So this is something that they’ll be able to apply to almost any job or thing they do as an adult. All the high-paying jobs, all the things that are really successful are all being in front of people. What would you guys add to that?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

I was thinking the same thing about the fear of talking in public is presenting. It took me a long time to feel like I was comfortable up in front of people, but it was the repetition of doing it over and over and over again that made the difference because every situation-

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Now, everybody’s afraid of you.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

… is exactly the same. Pardon? Oh, yeah.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

I said, now everybody’s afraid of you. Well, Sr. Master Sanborn, you’re the one that even in our area people respect. You know that if you’re standing up and you control the whole room and that’s because you have been used doing that, and that’s a true statement and that’s impressive. So I think you own that because you’ve done a great job of that. So I appreciate you sharing that. That was hard initially though, right?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Oh, absolutely. And I know that I feel good every time I do a class now that is not necessarily… Outside of the school, even. Inside the school, I know I can teach anything that has to be taught because I’ve got it in front of me. I practiced. But I can also go out into a different environment in a different corporation in front of people I’ve never met and people I don’t know that need to learn what it is I have for them, but I can get up in front of them and do that without it being an overly stressful situation. And that’s all from practicing getting up there and doing it.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

It’s impressive. And again, we have six-year-olds that can do that because we’ve given them time and repetition to be able to do extra. Flees, what would you add to that?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Well, I think when the kids go through this from the time they’re three or four, when they get into high school, they’ll be able to do this in their classrooms and they won’t even think about it. They don’t even realize that it’s happening. That happened with our daughter. She was praised for a lot of things in her class that she was doing, and they were all skills that we learned in leadership.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, I think that’s a really good point that some of our students that become black belts or 2nd degrees or 3rd degree black belts with us, they don’t even perceive how much they’ve gotten out of becoming 2nd or 3rd degree black belts. And then they’re doing these amazing things later. One example I told you before, Jordan Jostwick is one of our students that started with me when I began my schools, and now she’s been a VP of a company and she’s in her thirties and started a bunch of startups. And it’s like, well, if looking back, she can see the experience that she had. But in the moment, she’s just got these embedded skills that are very, very good and have all these things that we’re listing here. And it is hard to perceive all this stuff because you learn them when you were three or four or five or six years old. So it’s pretty exciting.

Well, let’s move on to a couple of these other things. I know you guys have to get to… You’re teaching your classes. Physical skills are some other things that we do specifically in leadership that help with fitness and body awareness. And we mentioned it earlier, that we were asking the students to have a certain level of fitness and body awareness that’s really way beyond what they would do from regular PE or normal physical training. Now when I say PE, obviously I mean kids, but also what we’d ask them to do or what our adult students would do in regular aerobics or physical fitness training, because our adult students continue to do this forever and ever. They don’t just do it for the average health club. They do physical fitness for four weeks and quit. It’s the average that people would train in a health club. Anything to add there guys for physical skills?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

It’s fun.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yes. If it’s more fun, I can stick to it longer.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, it’s engaging, right?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Yeah. So it’s easier to stay with it because it is fun and you’re always learning something new no matter how long you’ve done it.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, there’s mental stimulation along with it. If you’re doing aerobics or lifting weights, it’s hard to be, unless you’re competing in one of those things in some way, it’s hard to stay interested in one of those things.

We also, in our leadership class is another thing black belts do. As I said, most of our students are in our leadership program, whether they’re color belt student or a black belt student. And this is so that they learn the ability to control themselves in a leadership environment and they learn specific leadership skills so they can learn to be in front of people and manage others and pay attention to others and communicate with others. And that’s in our Life Skills of Leaders book. And we have six other editions of that book with each of the life skills for discipline and self-esteem, respect, vision, and a bunch of other things. So you guys want to probably talk about that instead of me? What leadership skills you notice people developing?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Well, for kids particularly, it’s choosing right over wrong when they’re not here or they’re off on their own and they’re with friends, not falling into not following. They’re not doing what the other ones are saying. They can stand up for themselves and say, “No, we’re not going to do that because that’s wrong.” They don’t bully because that’s wrong. It’s going to hurt somebody else. And they can lead their group away from some of those situations because they’ve got the confidence to stand up and just say, “This is not how we do it because that’s wrong. So let’s do this instead because it’s not going to hurt anybody.”

And I’ve seen lots of our kids do that where they stand up, especially against bullying in school where they know that what’s right and what’s not and what to do in those situations and can tell other people so that they can lead, especially their own friends. It’s harder to do with people you don’t deal with all the time, but with people that you’re friends, you’re helping your friends do the right thing as well.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s a great example, Sr. Master, that understanding what you need to be able to do for yourself, but then as a leader, helping the other people see what’s right and wrong and what they believe is the best thing for them.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

And I think we’re helping them want to do the right things. So they’ve learned that doing the right things gives them the feeling of great worth and being able to help other people.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, that’s a great point too, that it’s not… They’re wanting to do the right things because they know it’s in their best interest. They know it’s a good thing to do so it becomes valuable, not just like I’m doing it because I’m supposed to do it.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Right.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s sustainable. It’s sustainable and they can keep doing it rather than, “I was told I have to do this, so now I’m going to do it but I really don’t want.” Then it’s really hard to keep people doing that forever. That’s a great point.

So the last thing on our list, and not that this is the limit of the things that black belts do, we do a lot more stuff, is championship training. Some of our students become world champions or try or work on that. That’s one of their goals. And that’s a pinnacle of performance abilities, but not all of our students do that. Sr. Master Sanborn’s a world champion in martial arts, and that’s really an area where they can try to be in a very elite group and have an opportunity to do something like that if they choose.

Another area is our instructor training that they can, as a black belt, learn to be like one of you guys. And my son is an instructor. We develop instructors and somebody that can then create this back for everybody else and create more black belts. So those are opportunities that black belts can provide. Maybe we want to move on from this and move on to our next one, if that’s okay. Anything else to add on any of this stuff before we move on?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

No, I think that’s good.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

No? Good? Okay. So what I thought I’d list is a list of some of the things parents have said, and we can chip in. And these are comments that parents have given us. We can talk about any of these and we’ve seen all of these from our black belt. So what black belt has meant to them, to the parents and what black belt’s meant to the kids that we’ve had, what black belt’s meant to the adult students that we’ve had. And all of these things we’ve seen come true. Be financially successful is one of them. Here, be great public speakers, have great careers. We’ve had many, many lawyers, doctors, engineers, very successful people, PhDs.

As Sr. Master Sanborn mentioned, strong enough to stand for themselves. That’s the second one up there. Stand up for themselves. That’s happened. We noticed that with our kids, with our personal… Mr. Flees and Master Sanborn and I, with our own children, that they stand up for themselves. Sometimes when we don’t want them to, probably. That was a joke. But no, in a good way. All of these things are different pieces of the things that we talked about turn into these things.

What are some of the ones that you guys or Mr. Flees that you maybe to start have any examples of or ones I’ve missed here?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Just the desire.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Put you on the spot.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah. I’m trying to think of one of our students, that desire of them to do better even when they know that they’re not the most coordinated athletic person, but they keep pushing themselves forward to get better without anyone else pushing them. They’re doing it their self.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

I think that’s a great example because what we end up seeing come into our schools is a bell curve of society. We don’t see in a lot of sports, and there’s nothing to knock any other sports. I’m not trying to knock any other sports when I’m going to say what I’m going to say. But for example, if I’m going to go play, maybe… I love football. My son played football. He is a star football player. But you’re probably not going to go to play popcorn or football at an advanced level unless you’re really good at that or you have an affinity for that or stick with it unless you’re probably pretty good because you won’t start. You won’t get a lot of playing time. And that’s nothing against those sports. It’s great. I had a great experience with my son playing football.

But typically a competitive sport like that that’s about sports, you’re not going to stick with it unless you either worked super hard or you’re talented that area and you’re going to compete with that. So people will tend to go towards that activity if they have some innate talent. You’re probably not going to go do that activity. You’re probably not going to go play basketball for a long time if you’re very, very short.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

That’s true.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Maybe I’m using bad examples. There’s some short people who play basketball, but in other words, we are probably going to have a skewed bell curve of people that go towards certain sports or you have a certain type of affinity or talent for the sports. We get everybody. We get a bell curve of people, of everybody that comes to be with us. And you don’t have to have any particular physical talent, you don’t have to have any particular ability, you don’t have to have any particular anything to be one of these black belts that we’re talking about. And you can get all of this stuff.

So Mr. Flees, that was a great comment. I think it’s really important. In fact, Sr. Master and I were just talking about a couple of our students that were diagnosed, one with autism, another was diagnosed with ADHD, and these were severe cases so that they wasn’t questionable whether they had those diagnoses. And you and I have talked about some students that have had other challenges. We did a podcast on working with kids with disabilities and so in challenges. So those can be existing, but yet we still can get all of these benefits and we could have a separate list for what our adults students have gotten out of being here. So an equal list of challenges that people have come in with. So we love having an entire bell curve of everybody in the entire population of the universe coming in to see us. And they still get all these benefits because it’s not a requirement to have some sort of innate talent. So I think that’s a great comment. Not only do we give these benefits out, but they can be for everybody. And so that’s such a great example.

Okay, I think this was a great podcast today. I appreciate… Anything else to add there, sir? I know that Sr. Master Sanborn had to run.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

No, I think we have a good list here of things of what people can become by working towards earning a black belt. So yeah, I think this definitely will help people see what their kids can become by earning a black belt.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Awesome. And our adult students too.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

And our adult.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

We keep… Yeah, I think we focus on kids because we have the kids and we saw our kids do so much, but all of our adult students have created so much by becoming a black belts as well too. So I don’t want to leave them completely out.

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Flees, for being here. Thanks to Sr. Master Sanborn for being here as well and being part of our podcast as always. And I appreciate all of our viewers and listeners being here today as well. So let me… Oh, there’s Sr. Master Sanborn. You came just in time for us to finish up and wrap up the podcast today. Did you have anything else you wanted to add, ma’am? Right when I was ready to put…

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No, I don’t right at the moment.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Okay. Well, that was the right answer since we were ready to finish up. So thanks a lot, Sr. Master Sanborn for being here too.

P.P.S. Get Dr. Moody’s Book on Bullying – Click Here

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KarateBuilt.com and KarateBuilt Martial Arts have been selected the nation’s #1 martial arts schools for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!

KarateBuilt L.L.C. was founded in 1995 by Dr. Greg Moody, an 8th degree Black Belt and Chief Master Instructor, KarateBuilt Martial Arts and Karate for Kids offers lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up are designed to develop the critical building blocks kids need – specialized for their age group – for school excellence and later success in life.

KarateBuilt Martial Arts Adult Karate training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay in shape), or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.

Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 866-311-1032 for one of our nationwide locations. You can also visit our website at KarateBuilt.com.

About Dr. Greg Moody:  Dr. Moody is an eighth-degree black belt and chief master instructor.  He has a Ph.D. in Special Education from Arizona State University (along with a Master’s Degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering – he actually is a rocket scientist). He has been teaching martial arts for over 25 years and has owned eight martial arts schools in Arizona and California. Chief Master Moody is a motivational speaker and educator and teaches seminars in bullying, business, and martial arts training, around the world. See more at DrGregMoody.com.

The KarateBuilt Martial Arts Headquarters at KarateBuilt LLC is in Cave Creek, Arizona at 29850 N. Tatum Blvd., Suite 105, Cave Creek AZ 85331. You can locate the Chief Instructor, Master Laura Sanborn there directly at ‭(480) 575-8171‬. KarateBuilt Martial Arts serves Cave Creek, Carefree, Scottsdale, and Paradise Valley Arizona as well as Grand Rapids, MI.

Also, check us out on Today in Business and Educators Observer!

Here is Dr. Moody’s Amazon Author Page with over 16 of his Amazon Bestselling books: Click HERE

P.P.P.S. From a parent:

“KarateBuilt Martial Arts is known as the best – the premier martial arts in the valley! I know my son, who is now an instructor will leave a legacy!” – Herman Francisco