There is an old aphorism about the difference between freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. It is said that...
- Freshmen are clueless and they don't know it.
- Sophomores still don't know anything but they realize that they are ignorant.
- Juniors know something but they don't realize what they know.
- Seniors (hopefully) know and they know what they know.
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But that is not the end of the progression. New graduates may know their subject and they may have great self-awareness of their capabilities, but they have no job experience. Their education and knowledge still lacks social validity and they often find themselves in a Catch-22 situation in which they can't get a job without experience and they can't get experience without a job.
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Without street cred, noone will hire them because the public does not know if or what the graduate knows. It is similar to a recent quote by Elon Musk - He is apparently not interested in hiring you unless you can demonstrate clear evidence of exceptional ability.
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Perhaps you could add a couple more levels to the hierarchy above...
- An novice practitioner knows that he knows but nobody else knows it.
- A master or expert practitioner knows and he knows that he knows, and everyone around him can see that he knows.
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You have to know what you know. (self-awareness)
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And you have to show what you know. (demonstrate clear evidence of exceptional ability)
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So, what does this have to do with martial arts? It's not like most of us are trying to learn martial arts in order to get hired based on those skills.
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Everything! You could replace Freshmen, Sophomore, etc. with white belt, green belt, etc..
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The black belt is not an expert, partly because he knows that he does not know it all and partly because his skills have not had enough time and experience and seasoning.
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The shodan knows some stuff but nobody else understands or acknowledges it because the shodan has not had time to develop and demonstrate his skills.
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Often this will lead to an existential crisis soon after shodan. At this point, they are suddenly awarded the "coveted black belt" honor (because they know stuff) but the new shodan is acutely aware of his own deficiencies (they know what they don't know) and noone around them can see much difference in them (no social validity). This creates self-doubt.
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One possible solution is what Roy Dean has done - create rank demo embus that make it obvious to everyone that the student has knowledge, knows what he knows, and knows how to show what he knows.
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Who are you demonstrating to when you do a rank demo (embu)? You are demonstrating to others and to yourself in order to generate social validity (street cred) and to boost your own confidence and belief in self and system.
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Check out this demonstration (not a rank embu but still a demonstration) and watch how the it shows these three things about their knowledge/skills.
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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com
