Belt Stayed Home

It seems to be a truism that the belts in martial arts are meaningless.

I call BS on that idea.

Today I was training at a sister school, and my 2-stripe Purple belt seems to have decided to stay home. No matter. I peeked into their store room to find something to hold my uniform tied in place. No purple-coloured belts in there, so I borrowed a no-stripe Blue Belt. It even fit.

Before the first class I was approached by a real no-stripe Blue Belt to see if I wanted to warm up with him. He wanted to review something they’d done recently, and he proceeded to try and teach it to me. Soon, he got stuck, so I showed him how to finish the moves he was “teaching” to me. After a bit of this, I asked if I could try something.

I dumped him 3 different related ways in rapid succession. They were moves I like to keep fresh, and haven’t had a chance to do at all for at least a month. My new friend then asked me if I could show him something to counter twisting arm control. Seems he gets caught there a lot.

So what was different about me wearing the wrong belt? First off, it is rare that anybody wants to just train with me before class. They might have questions that they’ll ask. They certainly don’t try and teach me, just as I wouldn’t try and teach a Brown Belt.

As we had plenty of time, it didn’t matter, but would have been different if we’d only had 5 or 10 minutes. We never would have gotten to the part where he got a chance to be shown something that will actually impact his free-rolling ability. As it was, he got a rushed version, but at least he got a few ideas, and that would have been the best version of what would have happened if I’d had the correct belt on.

The nasty version would be that he wouldn’t have approached me, and gotten nothing at all, and I would have just sat about.

For me it was fun working with a new partner, regardless of rank, so I would have won either way, unless he had avoided me.

Then the beginner class started. My partner was one I’ve worked with before. She cheered to get me. I don’t think she cares about me wearing a Blue or Purple Belt, but knows that she gets a private tutor in either case.

In the advanced class that followed, my partner wore a Blue-and-White Combatives that means she has only recently completed the beginner program. The no-stripe Blue Belt I was wearing implied that I was a single step senior to her, rather than the 8 steps my own belt denotes.

She made all sorts of comments and suggestions about my performance, and even bullied me into trying all the moves on my weaker side. This all made her a better partner for me. She quietened significantly when somebody asked what happened to my Purple Belt.

Belts don’t matter? Today, of the 3 people that I worked with only the one who already knew me didn’t care. It did matter in the dynamic for the other two pairings.

Both were much more willing to offer opinions, to help, and even to cajole or correct me. This made them excellent partners for me. If they’d known they might have been intimidated to work with me, but to use me more like a tutor.

I don’t know if it was positive, or negative, or a mix, but each dynamic sure would have been very different.

I don’t mean to say that I hold a lofty rank, and am particularly awesome. Perhaps compare it to University students who’ve spent a similar amount of time to my partners and I. My female partner has perhaps finished her first year at university, and my Blue Belt companion has maybe got his second year finished. I would be a holder of a Master’s Degree, and be starting work on a PHD. A Black Belt in our organization in terms of time, is perhaps the same a somebody with a couple of PHDs, or maybe even three.

There is also an obligation placed upon higher belts whenever in an unequal pairing

For example, my new Blue Belt friend from the start of the session asked me for help during the advanced class when he and his partner couldn’t figure something out. I immediately dropped what I’d been up to and clarified the point for them, and then rejoined my own partner. I could have said that I was busy, but as he found it necessary to call for help it was necessary that I render assistance.

I learned something about myself in this regard. I don’t normally grab a partner at pair-up time, especially if I do not know the group well. If somebody goes for me, that’s fine, but I don’t expect it. Just before we start I always check to see if there are an odd or even number of participants, not including myself. If even, I tend to move away from the pairing up action. I then wander about helping, but also keeping an eye on the door to see if any late arrival comes in with nobody to work with. If the number is odd, I make sure to see who doesn’t get picked, and to bet there before they have time to feel left out.

I found myself doing this, even when not flagged as a high-ranking student. I didn’t conciously know that I did this at all, until I found myself thinking, “why am I not acting exactly like everybody else?” The normal action at partner time is to look to one side and take whoever is there, and then look a little farther, and then to shuffle around looking rejected.

Extinction of the Giants

The retail world has changed, and this Christmas season has illustrated this most clearly.

Gift shopping has always played a part in the holiday. It used to be done in a landscape of department stores.

In the Victoria of my childhood, the Meccas were The Bay, Eatons, Woodwards, and Woolco. A big Sears opened very near my home, followed by Zellers, and K-Mart, and finally Walmart.

Then the closures started, brought on by financial collapse. One-by-one, they fell. Woolco, Woodwards, K-Mart, Eatons, Zellers, and now Sears.

Only two of them remain.

The Bay was founded back in 1670, and has weathered many storms. In its current incarnation, it caters to a high-end market with its reputation for quality. They seem to be hanging on, but it is only a matter of time. A casual walk-through will show a clientele of older citizens. It is not a place where the young go to shop. An aging customer base is one that can only shrink.

Walmart is the other survivor, and the only one with a future that seems bright. They are known for bullying unsustainably low prices from overseas suppliers, and painfully underpaying employees. Their only redeeming feature is that they are able to provide customers with low prices.

So where has the business gone that used to support all of these varied department-store giants.

For a time, malls seemed to be the future of shopping.

They started out as mere attachments to the giants, but long ago developed serious clout of their own. They became the main shopping experience, with the department stores as mere afterthoughts. Although still called the, “anchor stores,” in a mall, the department giants became increasingly irrelevant and less frequented.

Big stores still exist at malls, but are often specialized, such as a Best Buy, or Indigo Books.

But even this isn’t written in stone. The large non-department store chains are suffering, too, as are the malls themselves.

The business is more and more going to other suppliers than department stores, or to malls.

The current big success story is with merchandise being delivered to the home, and to other non-traditional types of retail.

Let’s say you want to buy a new item, and have a tight budget. You could buy it at the cheapest price you find in a store, or you can go online to try and do better. Within a few minutes you will be able to locate a significantly lower price, and can have the item quickly delivered to your door.

Or lets say you are after something expensive, such as an iPad. They are available many places, or online, but if you live in a big city you might decide to pick one up from an actual Apple Store. The staff there are truly expert in everything that Apple handles, and if you manage to stump them, they will instantly grab one of the even more highly-qualified “Apple Geniuses.”

Apple Stores are sometimes in malls, but are also sometimes stand-alone places. There are no checkout tills, and plenty of casually uniformed staff is available. These places just feel different.

Any staff member can perform a sale of any magnitude instantly, using their phone, and your credit card. The only thing that slows this is a cash sale, where the staffer has to disappear for a moment with your money and return with the change.

It is even possible for a customer to take something off of the shelf, and perform the transaction with their own phone, and leave the store without bothering to find a staffer at all.

These places also hold training sessions, and one-on-one problem-solving dates with experts, and full-blown courses. They are as much educational facilities as they are merchants.

Perhaps the future is a mix of online buying with home delivery, mixed with educational/retail centres loosely based on the Apple model.

I am not, however, very good at predicting the future.

I can recall the past, and in my holiday travels around town, remember the department store giants that resided in this location, and on that corner, and attached to that mall.

Nothing ever stays the same.