The Secret

I often get asked what martial arts are really all about. The answer is, "coffee".

After training hard with a bunch of folks, it is very pleasant to sit down with them afterwards over a hot beverage and to find out who they really are. Time for coffee.

We used to do this up north regularly, and also at my first club here on the coast. I need to make it part of my new Karate club and also at the Jiu-Jitsu school.

We're trying to move the Monday Karate class to an earlier time. If that works out we can go for a cup of Joe afterwards. The Saturday class will be easy, too, depending on where we hold it.

Jiu-Jitsu also has a Saturday session that will fit well with my cunning, go-for-coffee intentions.

It's actually an important thing, besides just being pleasant. People share training-related experiences, and over time become more comfortable. Many are soon asking questions that they'd never ask in class. They find out why and where their instructors started training. They find out about things their seniors found challenging, and gain a deeper understanding of martial arts as a result. At coffee, their opinions and ideas are given equal weight to everybody else's, including the instructor's.

Got to get coffee going.