The other night at karate, Sensei Jamie, who I belive is a godan, i.e. 5th degree blackbelt, was teaching us about eyes, feet, hands. First look, then move your feet, last you use your hands. This is something she has repeated quite often before. But she was explaining to us that the only people you really see doing it right are 7th and 8th degree blackbelts. It sounds easy but it’s very hard.
In fact she says that when she first saw the top American in our style, Doug Perry, doing it right she thought
to herself, this guy has slowed down with age, until she realized
he just looked slow. Because
he was doing it correctly his hands started moving after everyone else’s but they finished the move at the same time. Which means that Sensei Perry’s hands were actually faster than everyone elses. The point for me was that there’s a lot more to
karate than meets the eye. You’re not just going to learn it all
overnight. In fact, even when you’re a 5th degree blackbelt you still
have a way to go.
Becky’s always telling me about how many of her first graders have been
in Karate. She says it’s a very common for a kid to
have attended a few karate classes, enough classes so that he can say that he used to go to karate. No doubt he started out wanting to be a blackbelt. But most would be blackbelts drop out at
the white belt stage. I suppose if people could learn karate like Neo
did in The Matrix that there’d be a lot more blackbelts around.
A 5th degree blackbelt still has a long way to go and most would be
blackbelts drop at after a few classes… hmmm. Sounds like Christianity to me.
Most Christians think they’ve arrived when they are born again. Just
like Becky’s first graders they go to a few classes and think they’ve
arrived. Some learn a little bit more maybe they get up to the level of
greenbelts. They attend church regularly, tithe, read their Bible
occasionaly and even know a few scriptures. These are truly exceptional
Christians. In Amercia this would put them in the top 10% of Christians. And they know it. What they don’t know yet is how much more
growing they have to do. They haven’t even arrived at the very first
levels of Blackbelt Christianity.