Belt promotions are an important part of the martial arts experience. It is a recognition of achievement, of growth, of another step towards your Black Belt, and beyond.
It is a solemn, respectful occasion where it isn’t uncommon to become emotional when accepting your belt. For example these solemn words spoken at the last belt promotion at our school. We were all seated as the sixteen year old student received her Advanced Brown belt, last of the colored belts. She thanked her family, her instructors and then, “Cool nose piercing.”
Her eyes had caught the “jewelry” of another student in class, and as she told me afterwards she just had to say something.
To be fair, we were all in our street clothes for a class exercise and the student with the “cool nose piercing” was dressed as he would have been outside the school. I’m pretty sure it was the first time she had seen her fellow student in “normal clothes.”
This was a special advancement for her and it was made more so by a candid and thoroughly sincere comment. And it was appreciated by everyone in the best way possible.
The student with the tattoos and piercings is also one of our instructors and is the nicest guy you could meet. You can learn more about him at www.pocza.com
HAHA, the nose ring thing killed me. But I sure tried to protect it while doing self defense stuff!
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