The AEGIS Black Belt Graduation 26th March 2011

The Black Belt candidates are busy honing their skills, getting fit and practising their demos for the big day. Over 25 students are testing for the ultimate prize in martial arts BLACK BELT!

Years of study, training and dedication has brought them to the peak of their abilities and they will be duly recognised for their achievements. Plus existing black belts will be doing their ‘mid terms’ where they have to demonstrate that they are maintaining their skill level in order to continue being recognised as an AEGIS black belt. Our black belt testing is one of the UK’s most demanding but as the saying goes ‘you only get out what you put in’

We’d like you to join us as our guest and be witness to the tremendous unleashing of human potential as demonstrated by our students under the watchful eye of their friends, families and colleagues as they step up to the challenge and it is fair to say that their lives will never be the same again.

Black Belt is the badge of honour in martial arts and represents the 5 keys of combat which are Attitude, Expectation, Game plan, Implementation and Study. These 5 life essentials are epitomised by the AEGIS black belt and with the help of our Black Belt Leadership Program our black belts not only build them into their martial arts lives but also their daily lives, you see martial arts done properly is NOT based on just making you into a fighting machine. True black belt is not just about changing your physique either; it’s about taking control of your life, shaping it and creating the best life that you can imagine. Black belt is also NOT just about helping your own life but also the lives of those around you. Think about it, we don’t live our lives in isolation from everyone else. No, we share our lives, our goals and dreams and just as the master martial artist uses his skills to protect others he/she is also expected to proactively assist others to share in the benefits that they themselves have done and achieve what they have done too.

Too often martial arts is portrayed as egotistical, winning at any cost and destroying enemies when the real picture is the defence of others, the aid of others and the development of others. Every good general needs an army of soldiers just as every good instructor needs students. A general isn’t a general without soldiers and an instructor isn’t an instructor without students – likewise the very essence of black belt excellence relies on others in its achievement; those who help us along and those we help along the way.

With this in mind I would like to invite you and your family and friends to witness our black belts in their achievement by clearing your diary for the 26^th March, coming along to St Margaret’s Massive Church Hall at 11am and there you’ll get to share in the glorious atmosphere of support, enjoyment and achievement as these dedicated martial artists are awarded their black belts after first demonstrating their skills. I can promise that at the end of the graduation you will be inspired by these people both young and old – you’ll have a whole new view on martial arts and it will be an event that will stay and inspire you for many years to come – So please join us on the day!

For more information go to http://www.nat-mac.co.uk/www.nat-mac.co.uk/info.php?p=10 scroll down to the bottom of the first blog and you’ll find a PDF document with more details on our Black Belt program. If you’d like a brochure on our programs go to http://www.nat-mac.co.uk/www.nat-mac.co.uk/info.php?p=9  and send your full details or phone us on 0800 0920948. It’s a decision you will NEVER regret!

Best wishes and I look forward to meeting you very soon!

Chief Master Tony Higo

7^th Degree Black Belt

Founder of the National Martial Arts College

And the AEGIS martial arts system

IF Only....

This week I have been thinking about what is 'Tough'? Is it being, strong? Winning? or trying to be strong and trying to win? I'm sure inside you know the answer yet all around us we see people looking or acting tough with no internal, real, content. Two of my heroes are Nelson Mandela and Ghandi: were they tough? absolutely! were they strong? No doubt about it! They had REAL strength based on 'feeling the fear and doing it anyway'


They did what was right for the right reasons and were prepared to to die for their beliefs. They weren't hyped as tough like UFC fighters, they didn't swagger and act macho full of shallow egotism, they were the real deal living their lives so others could live better ones. They sacrificed themselves and suffered for their beliefs and that's the kind of toughness I seek. Its no good looking tough on the outside if you have no iron core within you that's like combing your hair over a bald patch everyone can see through you.


How do you get toughness? You have to do the things that challenge and scare you, you have to face complete failure and keep going. You have to do what you believe is right in the face of everyone else saying its wrong and you have to do it for something that not just you benefits from. Rudyard Kipling put it better than I ever could so check out his famous poem below and then attack your challenges with true warrior spirit and remember the only failure is NEVER trying!


Best wishes and have a courageous day!


Tony Higo

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;


If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;


If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son

For more information on how we build toughness click on the link http://www.nat-mac.co.uk/www.nat-mac.co.uk/info.php?p=7

The Rules of 5 and the 5 Rings

I first read the ‘Book of 5 Rings’ (Go Rin Sho) when I was in my late teens and to be frank I really didn’t get what it was all about. At the time it was much favoured by businessmen as the ‘new thing’ using martial arts strategy in business. I couldn’t see how that worked, and being young I was like most young people, only concerned with ‘technique’. I did not see strategy as the application of laws and principles which utilised techniques to achieve an outcome; I saw strategy as techniques used in battle and business without fully equating it to one on one combat. Remember the distinction I make between strategy using techniques and techniques as strategies as there is an important difference here that you should think about.

Over the years I have read and re-read the Go Rin Sho gradually increasing my understanding of it. It is a book that requires some deciphering: it was written 400 years ago by a samurai warrior named Myamoto Musashi who was and still is one of the most famous of Japan’s samurai. He fought over 60 to the death duels starting at the age of only 13 and was victorious in all of them. However the book is not easy to understand as it was written in old Japanese which has been translated into modern Japanese and then into English and in every translation something of the original is lost. However by reading and re-reading one can begin to understand what Musashi was talking about, not that his concepts are that difficult but being translated as they have been and without the benefit of diagrams and an understanding of his mindset and background it can be difficult to discern his meaning.

However, getting back to my point, I have recently redeveloped our black belt leadership program and as part of that process I wanted to establish the absolute essential elements or laws that govern success in martial arts and life. Using our martial arts training as a metaphor for how we use our life, we at the National Martial Arts Colleges teach our students to gain success in their daily lives by applying the laws, principles, rules, strategies and techniques of combat training. Using martial arts as a mirror to reflect upon how we live our lives.

After many years of studying and applying the principles of martial arts and life success I have distilled what I consider to be the absolute essentials of success down to 5 keys which are: Attitude, Goal setting, Strategy, Action and Study. We use the name of our martial arts system AEGIS as an acrostic for students to memorise the key laws of success as: Attitude, Expectation, Game plan, Implementation and Study. As you can see some of the initials didn’t even need to be changed to fit the acrostic which I found interesting too but I won’t go into that here. After this I also included several other concepts that are essential to making the first laws to work, these are: the RADAR action process, the 4 plus 1 intelligences and the DELTA sequence of key martial arts skills that all techniques rely on to make them work.

After I had begun constructing the new Leadership program it suddenly hit me that each of these key concepts consisted each of Five keys. DELTA, AEGIS, RADAR, and the 4 +1 intelligences (4 + 1 = 5) all have 5 elements. Without realising it I had been developing concepts each of which consisted of 5 I therefore decided to put together a series of rules to support these concepts which I call the ‘Rules of 5’ The rules of 5 enable our students and instructors to quantify exactly the amount of content and context contained in our martial arts system. Knowing that there are virtually 5 of everything in the system allows students to learn the system faster and for the instructors to teach it more easily. If a student is for instance, trying to practice his stances he knows there are 5 and 5 guards, 5 steps, distances, levels etc. It is always easier to learn something when one knows the full extent of the content and the context that is the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the subject. No one likes to find that there is, after years of study, more in the syllabus that they didn’t even know about, it would be like turning up to an exam and suddenly being faced with a question that isn’t in the syllabus.

By quantifying our AEGIS system this way we make it so much easier to learn, practice and understand which is refreshing when so many martial arts are no easier to understand than the Go Rin Sho with techniques that are not only not used any more, but no one even knows what they were for in the past. Even the most transparent subject can be further understood and mastered through regular and sustained practice but I despair of those systems that complicate their art unnecessarily which could let a novice down when he most needs his arts defence. A system that takes years of study to make it work is of little value when dealing with a confrontation that happens before you become a master. It has always been my concern to ensure that what I teach can be used immediately and without modification or deep understanding. If it can’t then I have let my student down.

I referred earlier to Musashi’s Book of 5 Rings and I was surprised when reading it again only a few months ago I did not connect his 5’s with the 5’s I have been evolving. It wasn’t until I was reading it again just a few weeks ago that I suddenly realised the connection. I was reading and making noted when it suddenly hit me that as he was detailing his 5 stances and 5 guards that it hit me! Perhaps I’m a little slow but I had put together my leadership program and written thousands of words on the laws, principles etc without making the connection. Why do I mention this? To make some connection with Musashi’s genius, perhaps? Or perhaps I have been unknowingly influenced by reading his work in the past? Who knows? But what I do know is that he was trying to achieve the same end, his work was written just before his death and he knew that he wouldn’t be around to mentor the future generations’ progress and study of his system. He was quantifying his system, creating a distinct content and context for his students to understand his teaching in his absence.

I am doing the same, (hopefully my death is not as imminent as Musashi’s was) I am aware that I can no longer teach all of the students in the AEGIS  system, there are too many schools in too many places and this problem (if it is a problem) is not getting any easier as our schools grow. With this in mind it is my goal to teach my instructors to understand exactly what I know by quantifying and labelling everything that I know so that the AEGIS system is passed to each of the coming generations with as much of my experience as possible in the teaching and who understand the syllabus and can likewise pass on the system without it ending up being almost indecipherable as I see so many other system have become. Only time will tell I suppose, and I must be prepared for the AEGIS system to change and adapt and as long as it remains workable and relevant I will be happy enough that I have done my bit.

Thank you for reading today. For more information on our martial arts programs why not get our full colour brochure by clicking on the link http://www.nat-mac.co.uk/www.nat-mac.co.uk/info.php?p=9

Best wishes

Tony Higo

Chief Instructor

National Martial Arts College

0800 0920948

www.nat-mac.co.uk

The Holy Grail - Secrets of the Martial Arts Part 3

The way that martial arts have been passed down to us reminds me of an old story I heard years ago. A young wife is cooking a large joint of beef and when she brings it out of the oven her husband asks why she has cut the joint into two halves. She explains that that is how her Mum showed her how to cook it. Intrigued the husband asks his mother in law why she cuts the joint into two wherein she explains that that is how her Mother always did it so she naturally did it the same. Still fascinated as to what benefit came from cutting the meat into two pieces he approaches his wife’s grandmother to see if she can elaborate as to why she cut the joint in half. He wonders ‘is it to allow the meat to cook faster or to allow the joint to brown more thoroughly?’ And so he asks the ageing granny why she cut the joint in into two. She looks at him and says ‘well you have to remember that when I was young the ovens were smaller than they are today, so I had to cut it to make it fit.’ Martial arts, particularly those using kata and forms are based on these practises of teaching techniques the same way as they were taught to you, without knowing really what the techniques are for or what they mean. It’s a dangerous practice when you think that so many novices are practising a system of combat, learning score of techniques and all without knowing what they are or even how they work!

Technique is another area I will focus on in my blogs and my personal adage is ‘we don’t need more technique, just to be able to understand the ones we have’. Students constantly seem to be searching for more techniques but this search is faulty, one of the earliest sayings I learned in martial arts was ‘one technique mastered is worth a thousand sampled’ and this is a principle that is worth following. To search for more techniques is to undervalue those that you already have, looking for new ones when you haven’t mastered the Basics yet. The student who looks for more technique reminds me of another saying ‘a jack of all trades and master of none’. You see we have the knowledge to create a workable martial arts system, its right in front of us but we ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’.

The wisdom is already before us but it is disguised as styles, philosophy, religion, sport and egotism. My reason for writing this is to show you what I have discovered in the hope that you will gain from it what you need to master either my system or the system that you already practice. Some of what you learn will be uncomfortable because it challenges your systems teaching but others you will recognise as not being able to work any other way. I hope you, like me will enjoy the results of my study and have the mindset and commitment to practice it and pass it on to the next generation without it having to be deciphered

Thanks again for reading and I’ll speak to you again soon on another subject that is close to my heart

Best wishes

Tony Higo

Chief Instructor

National Martial Arts College

0800 092 0948

www.nat-mac.cuk

For more information on our programs simply click on the link http://www.nat-mac.co.uk/www.nat-mac.co.uk/info.php?p=9

The Holy Grail of Martial Arts Part Two

When studying the laws of combat you’ll find that there are those that apply every time and then sub laws that apply in different scenarios. The skill is in separating the ‘wheat from the chaff,’ discerning what applies where, seeing through what is your styles philosophy or what you have taken as gospel from your own instructor. At the end of the day your instructor is not infallible and may, like you have taken everything at face value, not questioning his own learning because he didn’t feel he knew enough or you might come from a background of ‘don’t question your instructor’ or the ‘black belt is always right’ none of these mindsets have done anything to increase our understanding of our martial arts. Some instructors refuse to answers questions because they themselves don’t know the answer.

Let’s face it most of us involved in martial arts come from a working class background and part of being working class is having less education than the middle class. This means we struggle often to dig deeper in what we learn because our fundamental education has not prepared us for it. It is certainly the case for why martial arts remains a largely oral tradition, passed down through the centuries via word of mouth and consequently why we have lost so much of our understanding on the way. Every generation or two has had to relearn from scratch what their master’s master already knew. Learning martial arts is like having a memory problem where every time you learn something you have to learn it again the next time you train. It’s like a martial arts version of ‘Groundhog Day’ every generation having to start again from scratch!

Education issues account for why we know so much about Japanese martial arts, for one thing they were educated men who wrote down much of what they learned for future generations which is why we still have access to works such as ‘the book of 5 rings, ‘Hagakure’, ‘The Life Giving Sword’ and ‘The Art of War’ (which is Chinese) to name but a few. The authors of these books were learning and teaching with other higher caste martial artists keeping the knowledge for themselves, their families and their clan, fortunately we have benefitted from these writings. The road we are travelling has been travelled before, many times and because these earlier warriors had education they could transmit their message by more than just word of mouth, putting their ideas on paper for other educated generations to benefit from as well. The only issue with these ancient tomes is that they are written from a different perspective, philosophy and religion, they have to be translated into modern language and different languages which often make them difficult to understand. They we teaching to the converted, those who already understood the concepts they wrote of and for this reason some of the volumes are difficult to decipher. I have read the ‘Go Rin Sho’ (Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi) many times but my early attempts brought me little understanding as I had few references to connect me with his message, whereas now when I read it again I gain deeper understanding than I could have had before as I have travelled a path that is similar in many ways to Musashi’s journey as a martial artist and teacher.

I don’t want to have to study martial arts for decades to be able to make it work for me. I want what I teach to be easily understood and immediately applicable. If you come to one of my schools and practice for the first time ever, I want you to have new skills that you can use if you need them on the way home! Of course with deeper study you’ll reach a greater depth of understanding and longer term benefits, but I don’t want to study a martial art that is like deciphering hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt! I haven’t got time for that. Who would play football or tennis if you had to study it for years before it made any sense?  No one, football and tennis are simple and effective, deeper study can give deeper enjoyment certainly, but you don’t have to enter into a mysterious cabal and be initiated into a system like martial arts systems seem to have to do.

Even Gichin Funakoshi who was instrumental in bringing Karate to the world did not understand it completely. He practiced his kata through years of repetition gaining an understanding of the movements at an almost atomic level but he didn’t always know what the movements meant. If he did he certainly didn’t pass on his knowledge. Karate like most systems started out as a complete system and included locks, holds and throws but it is only recently that karate historians have deciphered that some of the movements were not double blocks or groin gouges but actually throws. My Karate instructor was a good practitioner but he didn’t know what the katas meant. This is not a good starting point for a system of combat that is sold as a method of self defence. It’s like being taught how to handle a gun without being taught that it will require bullets if you want it to work.

Check in tomorrow to read part three of the Holy Grail of Martial Arts

Best wishes

Tony Higo

Chief Instructor

National Martial Arts College

0800 0920948

www.nat-mac.co.uk