Your First Year In The Martial Arts

 To the outsider, those watching a class or visiting a dojo, it can appear as a paradox of understanding.

How can the dojo, the way of training, be the safest place in the world, the safest place in that moment?

Being punched and thrown around.

Rolling on the ground.

Various postures.

There is always a sense of laughter and light-heartedness at the dojo.

Yet the martial arts, the transmission of the arts is very serious. 

That first year of learning in the martial arts, your first year is a very interesting time- the best plan would be a plan of isolation- just train as best you can and don’t think, or worry about asking any questions, or trying to understand. 

One is not at a point to begin understanding yet.

A lifetime, of however old you are or not on un-learning how to move, how you use your body in terms of movement-mechanics, the need to *forget* all that, and learn a new way of moving- a taijutsu (body arts) way of moving.

The dojo is the safest place in the world as we are bound as friends and martial artists by tradition, everybody wants to see you be the best you possible- one is pushed to the limit and not beyond it.

Mistakes made in the dojo, and the dojo *is* the place to make them can be fixed, corrected, and pointed out- make those mistakes now and not later.

Your first year in the martial arts.