Spiritual Dimension of Yoga

 

Spiritual Dimension of Yoga 

Project report

By

 Manikandan Ragunathan

September 2020

 

 Spiritual Dimension of Yoga

 

 

1. Introduction 

2. Purpose of Life 

3. Secret of Life & Creation 

4. Enjoy the Freedom 

5. Slowly progress in the path of Enlightenment 

6. Reach the Blissfulness with the help of a Guru

 

 

1. Introduction

 

Spirituality is becoming a common word with people in current generation. But Most of them doesn’t know what it really means. Spirituality is not just Going to the temple, Singing Bajans and chanting mantras in the free time, and in the rest of the time living a Normal life with Greed, Jealous, Anger, Lust etc..

 

And also it is not just going behind the God and not taking care of our own life, not taking care of our Health and Being Selfishness and not thinking about other Humans and all other living Beings. Spirituality is Understanding ourselves as God and all other creations around us. Nothing has been created here just to live and die. Everything has a unique value and Eternal Energy.

How Yoga Helps to Travel the path of Spirituality?

The above question is totally wrong because Yoga doesn’t help us to travel in the path of Sprituality, Yoga itself is spirituality. And we will see more about this below.

 

2. Purpose of Life

 

Whatever happening in this universe has its own purpose. Glowing sun, Beautiful Moon, Vast Ocean, Non stop Tides in the Sea, Barking Dogs, Flying insects, everything has its purpose in this world.

What could be the purpose of Humans?

Schooling ? Marriage? Reproduction ? Job or Business? Buying House and Car? Nothing above these are the purpose of our Life.

These are the things we Just copied from someone who were not really known What is the purpose of life is. And We were been and being following someone and we are being passing on this wrong knowledge to our Children and society to just blindly follow us. We have no time to think about the purpose of life. But still we are being a part of this universe and the universe is need us to be the whole universe. The energy keeps us living is the energy keeping this universe to be the universe. Our purpose of life is just to know the truth why we are here and what are our capacities as a Eternal Energy. We are Deep inside the Drama we created with lots of fake commitments by unnecessary Gatherings from outside keeps us away from the truth about who we really are. Finding the truth and walking the path to finding the truth is called Spirituality. 

3. Secret of Life & Creation

 

3.1. Secret of Life and Secret of Creation is not Easy to find when we are fully tangled in the fake commitments which been blindly followed for Generations. We have to spend our whole life or take more Births to find out the secret of Life and creation. There is no much difference between life and creation. Whatever is outside of us is also there inside us. It is always better to look inward to find the truth than looking outward because outward is vast to compare to the self. Once we understand what is inside us and what are the process happening in our punca koshas, Than we will also understand what is happening outside of us. As mentioned above everything is common outside and inside of us. Punca koshas are an example.

Water, Air, Fire, Space and Earth. Without any one of these There is no human life as well as the universe. To go inward we have some practices to do which is called Yoga.

3.2. In yoga there are different options to travel the path of Spirituality. Like Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti yoga and karma yoga. In western countries Yoga is being just the physical exercise. Physical part of the yoga is very important which is called Raja yoga. But it is not just the physical part that can lead you to the spiritual life. We should do Astanga Yoga which has 8 different levels of Yoga. Which are

 

1. Yama

2. Niyama

3. Asana

4. Pranayama

5. Prithyahara

6. Dharana

7. Dhyana

8. Samadhi

 

We should reach all these 8 stages to reach the Final stage of Spirituality called Moksha.

3.3. Yama & Niyama are the two Stages to absorb and understand the

Process of happening in and outside of us. And the third stage Asana is the physical exercise part which includes the postures to realize the real capabilities of our Body level and increase it slowly. By doing the asanas it gives us more confidence in physical level which increases our will power, and then by doing pranayama it keeps our life energy in high level to make us do Meditation to increase the power of ones mind which gives us creative power and discrimination power.

Prithyahara is the process happen in our mind level after it gets ready to concentrate. Dharana is the level of concentration were several subjects with several thoughts floating in the mind being reduced to one subject with several thoughts and then  bring it to one subject with a single thought.

Then next stage is Dhyana.

Dhyana is de-focusing, it is effortless Dharana.

Then the last stage of Astanga yoga is Samadhi. Samadhi is Merger. There is no different subject and object in this level. Samadhi is super conscious state. To moving to this stage will all the process mentioned above is Sprituality. It cannot be achieved in a single day or may not in a whole life too. When we start how we start and how we progress will determine the time to reach the Destination of spirituality.  

 4. Enjoy the Freedom

Freedom is not just doing whatever we want or whatever we can.

Freedom is just being away of unnecessary gathering of our life which we gathered physically as Things and relationships, Mentally as in unwanted thoughts and desires and emotions, and by the health the Deceases we received from the wrong life style. Unwanted knowledge we gathered from the technology and other sources.

When we get away from all these unwanted things we will reach the self freedom. The self freedom will let us think about the truth and the path to the truth and will lead us in the path and make us reach the destination the Truth(Moksha).

 5. Progressing  in the path of Enlightenment

Progressing in the path of Enlightenment should happen without any distractions. Yoga is helpful to make us concentrate on where we have to travel and the right path to our destination.

Progress can happen starting from Intellectual level to physical level and then go to mental level, or starts with Intellectual level and then mind and then to physical level.

There will be more than one path to the same destination. Who we travel is not important but the destination.

Also how fast you travel is also not important unless your concentration is not gets distracted from the travelling. 

6. Reach the Blissfulness with the help of a Guru

We talked about the destination which is Blissfulness of the super----_consciousness us. To do anything in life we need a Guru. Once we born we don’t even know how to talk and how to walk but our parents being a Guru and teaching us all the things to make our life efficient.

To do basic things we had a Guru ( our parents or Guardians ) . To know the Path to our destination we should definitely have a guru.

When we are ready to travel in the path of Sprituality (Yoga) we will find a Guru. And it will happen like a magic.

As There is a Saying in English

When a Student is ready , The teacher will Appear.

 

 

 7. Conclusion

 

Spirituality is the purpose of life. Not reaching the Moksha and living the Fake life as one of the person as a society for the society and by the society will not take ourselves anywhere than to the Death and the Rebirth.

Merging the Jeevathma (Individual self) with Paramathma ( universal Self) is Yoga. In Sanskrit it is called Yuj. The spiritual dimension of Yoga is actually the Purpose of Yoga. 

If Yoga become a subject in Schools and colleges to make everyone study and understand about the purpose of life. Then there will be an end to the Drama happening around the world and it may lead to an another creation happening in this universe. Whatever happens in the universe we can be a joyful super consciousness part of the Universal Energy.  

Why Stretching & Endurance is Important in Martial Arts ?

 Hello Everyone,

      Hope everyone Doing Great. Today's topic is about Stretching & Endurance training which take almost Half of your training time in your Martial arts class. Few may think i am here to learn Martial arts why should i spend More than 20 mins to do stretching & endurance. and Few think why Same Boring workouts every class. 

 I will give you the Answers below.

First in Fighting Aspect :

With out Flexibility and strength it is like Fighting your opponent with Eggs, Even if you hit in a Vital point, opponent not going to feel the pain but you are going to loose your Eggs. Instead we should be like Whip.

Whip is flexible and Fast, strong enough and So much Painful.

Without doing Stretching Exercises and Strengthening exercises and Endurance we cannot do Martial arts. There is no use if we do.

Second in Health Aspect :

To be Healthy we should Stretch our Muscles everyday and Some endurance to keep our Heart Healthy to pump the blood everywhere in our body. Which is very essential for our health. We all see Cats and Dogs Stretches their body every morning or after they wake-up from sleep. it is Natural. Humans don't do it naturally because we live artificial life.

And another question rises now, That why we do the same stretches and few endurance every class.?

Answer: we have the same body for the whole life. nothing is going to change. every joins and muscles going to be there wherever it was where we born right? So we need to do the same stretching and strengthening exercises in every class. 

Now i explain the Stretching and strengthening exercises we do and why.?

All the Stretching and endurance exercises we do in martial arts has taken from Yoga. We all know what is Yoga for. Obviously to keep us Fit and Healthy.

In yoga we call the Joints rotation exercises as Shukshama Vyayama.

Which activates all the small joints like Wrist, Elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles and fingers. 

and other workouts called Stithili karna vyayama

Which is some endurance like Jogging, Hopping, Butt kicks and High knees and also like Cobra stretch and Surya namaskar( we split it and do it ) as seperate vajrasana, sasankasana, chaturanga dandasana etc. also we practice Chakrasana and other Asanas to strengthen out spin and other body parts. In more of the Martial art classes they practice most of these Exercises without knowing there are doing Yoga. But it is Yoga.

As yoga is not only Physical work it also for Mind. 

Obviously Martial arts needs Mind work, Where do we get it from do you think?

Yes from Forms and Drills and also from the Exercises with proper Breathing.

So it is very important to do the same routine in every class without feeling boring. May be we can do the same thing differently and add some variants. But it is very important to work all your Joints and Muscles every day or at least every class. 

We do nothing useless in Martial art class. 

Our Body is very important for Fighting, Not only with your physical Enemy but also with Mental enemies of our Life. Good Body Holds Good Mind and Good Mind strive to have a good Body. 

All the very Best. Take care

Guru Manikandan

Learn to win - Martial arts school

www.chennaimartialarts.com

 

Martial Art is Nothing But Yoga with Fighting Skills

            Martial Art is Nothing But Yoga with Fighting Skills

     Yes, Before we talk about How Martial art is nothing But Yoga with Fighting skills. We must know what is Real Yoga.

     Yoga is not which has become more or only physical around the world, to succeed as a good business. (It happened to real Martial arts too). Real Yoga is not just Physical Asanas. It is which should lead us to spirituality ( not religious or becoming Monk) but understanding one self and to Join the Individual self with Universal self. Now we will see the important aspects of Yoga to understand how it helps us to keep us physically & mentally healthy.

In yoga we say Puncha kosha, which are

1. Anna maya Kosha ( Body which we build from food)

2. Pranamaya Kosha ( Energy level from Breathing)

3. Manomaya Kosha ( Mind & Thoughts)

4. Vijnanamaya Kosha ( Intellect)

5. Ananda maya Kosha ( Blissful state)

    We focus on each level to lead our self to Blissful state with proper training of our Body & energy with Asanas & pranayama, Mind with Meditation, Our intellect with Reading and listening to vedhas.

okay I don't want to go off  the track from the title by talking more about Yoga. 

Now we will see how the martial arts are nothing but Yoga.

    We do all the exercises in martial arts which are all Asanas from Yoga. Because of some teachers made it as adrenaline pumping workout routine to attract adults they increase the speed of doing asanas and Didn't bother about breathing method while doing those asanas which Improves our Anna maya kosha. And we do Breathing practice before and end of the class which improves Prana maya kosha ( Pranayama practice is very good for this).  And Meditation ( which improves our Manomaya kosha) was a part of Martial arts long ago, but Now it is not. Pranayama is a kind of meditation we can do with training. And the way of doing Katas and energy flow drills from martial arts teaches us to be relax our body and mind, and Wing chun form Sui lim tao which teaches us to keep our joints very relax when we fight. If we can do physical combat with full body and mind relaxed, then we can do any work in relaxed state. And with relaxation we will do everything to our best because when we are relaxed mentally and physically we can see everything clearly with no interruption and no hesitation. with no interruption mentally we do any work without error and with no hesitation we control the time and space which leads to success in a combat. Finally before or after a fight, It may be a combat or life situation we be calm all the time with understanding of Life. We be ready for anything with peace of mind. 

As we practice the fighting Art with calm mind and relaxed body we understand we don't have to fight because we can. And we also practice Love for the universe because we come to understand we and the universe are not different. When we understand the enemy who is standing in front of us is not different then us, We don't fight we blend with him and control his anger and ego as our own and defeat his mistake as ours. 

    Hope i said enough to understand how the Martial arts is Nothing but Yoga with Fighting skills. Please don't hesitate to Email me if you have any query. learntowinkarate@live.com

All the best

Guru Manikandan

Make sure your are not Disabled !!

     Hi all, I hope all of you enjoying the lock down as we don't have a choice. Today i am going to talk about Physical disability that we have or create in our body. 

What is disability?

Disability is not that missing of a limb. it is also not using it as per its capability. there is no different between who doesn't have legs and who is not walking with the legs he got. 

When we born we don't Move much because we were not trained our body to. But step by step we learn to walk , talk , run and try to do what ever we can do with our Body. It differs from person to person. People who miss to do Sport activities in Childhood, they also miss to Develop their physical ability. Human body is not as simple as we think, it is a very sophisticated Machine in the world. And we should know its capability and use it accordingly. Every single day without stretching our body and do some exercises we loss its capability slowly. More day we miss to exercise, Less efficient our body becomes.  

      Age is a factor which will reduce our physical ability. But our Mind can always lead the body to do its best. Decay of our body is a process of life, it happens in some time in our life when we get too old, we should always fight for our health with great physical ability. when we have good physical ability it also improves our mental ability. We may feel it every day in our life. If we don't feel physically good in a day, we unable to do any work with our full efficiency and we make some errors and finally the day ends with dissatisfaction which leads to stress and the stress leads to illness and the illness leads to physical damage and it cycles. 

Waking up in the early morning and do some stretches and breathing practices and some exercises which keeps us strong and healthy. at least Stretching our body everyday is very important, We may see Cats & Dogs stretching their body once they wake up. It is not made by humans as a business to make people to do exercises. It is our duty to keep us happy with good health.

Happy Yoga Day 

All the Best.

Guru Manikandan

How Martial arts improves your Immune system

                                                      How Martial Arts Improves Your Immune System

 In our busy life and day-to-day stress, we sometimes fail to take care of ourselves properly. Hence, we end up compromising our health and as a result, our immunity suffers and we fall sick easily.

Just improving your diet alone would not boost your immune system. It is important to strengthening it by training martial arts?

 5 Ways Martial Arts Improves Your Immune System:

1) It reduces Stress

.

Feeling stressed from work, or life in general? Well, instead of hitting your usual bar for some drinks, why not head to a martial arts gym! Trust us, your stress would vanish quicker than your hangover will. So put on those boxing gloves or gi and spend that hour experiencing an endorphin rush like no other.

If you don’t already know, your body produces cortisol, which is a hormone that is released from the adrenal gland whenever you’re stressed out. Unfortunately, when your body has high levels of cortisol, you’re more vulnerable to infection and illness. However, before you let this piece of information stress you out, you should know that training martial arts can help reduce cortisol levels in your body.

Every time you train, your body goes through a low-level form of stress due to the fact that you get your heart racing and trigger hormonal changes. Over time, your body would become immune to this kind of stress, and as a result, become stronger and help you cope with other forms of stress better. 

2) It boosts detoxification by sweating

You can burn up to 1,000 calories in a 60 minute training session.

As much as we hate to admit it, we sometimes don’t treat our bodies with enough care. Hence, we indulge in unhealthy junk food or alcoholic drinks – without thinking about the toxins that we introduce to our organs. In order to boost the detoxification process, it’s crucial to get moving! This is to ensure that your body can effectively stretch, circulate, breathe and sweat. By increasing your breathing and heart rate, as well as drinking more water, you would enable your body to flush out those toxins, waste and fats.

Moving your body encourages the circulation of blood and lymph, which plays a role in purifying and cleansing your organs. Besides that, your heart muscles get strengthened and your lungs increase in capacity as they produce and expel carbon dioxide as a waste product. Your skin also helps to get rid of toxins whenever you perspire. 

3) It improves the Sleeping quality

How much sleep do you get every night? A study has shown that you are 4 times more prone to falling sick if you sleep for 6 hours or less. So if you struggle to fall (or stay) asleep at night, then perhaps you should start training martial arts! This is because training consistently at a regular time would encourage your body to re-align its internal clock so you can get those much needed quality sleep every night. What’s more, you would be tired from training and as a result, be able to sleep better. Hence, your body would have the chance to repair itself effectively.

4) It improves your body’s healing ability

You don’t have to be Wolverine to recover quickly. All you have to do is start training martial arts! This is because when you engage in regular physical activity, you can recover more quickly, and heal more easily, while keeping diseases and injuries at bay.

“There is no medication or nutritional supplement that even comes close to having all of the effects exercise does,” shares David C. Nieman, PhD, author of The Exercise-Health Connection: How to Reduce Your Risk of Disease and Other Illnesses by Making Exercise Your Medicine (Human Kinetics, 1998). “It’s truly the best medicine we know of.”

5) It encourages healthy lifestyle choices

Ever notice that you tend to make healthier choices – be it choosing nutritious food or having an early night – after a workout? Research has shown that regular exercise and maintaining a healthy diet both ultimately lead to better health – so people can switch between the two easily. What’s more, when you reach a point where exercise becomes a habit, you no longer need as much mental effort, which gives your brain the chance to think of new ways to feel better. By leading a healthy lifestyle on top of consistent training, you would definitely be taking care of your body the way it needs to be taken care of.

    There’s no doubt that martial arts can benefit your body greatly, that’s why we believe that it would help you to get into the best shape ever – inside out. Now that you know what you can do to give your immune system that much needed boost, go forth and punch your way to great health! 

Train Well, Exercise Everyday, Be Healthy

How to Find what is useful & what is Not in your Martial art training

     Dear All, Hope everything is fine under Lock down. Today we are gonna see what is useful and what is not in your Martial art training. As i Have been Trained with Several Martial art trainers in Several Martial art Styles for 22 yrs, Few Martial art teachers want to make you believe their particular practicing discipline is the best and other styles are doing useless stuff and not efficient.

In my experience i believe that there is nothing useless in any martial art training. But may be some martial arts(may be because of teachers) are not efficient in Self defense or in fitness.

A traditional martial art style training will include the following:

1. Dojo etiquette
2. Breathing practice 
3. Warm up & stretching 
4. Endurance ( power training & Stamina training)
5.  Basics (stance/Punches/kicks/Shadow drills,etc.)
6. Forms 
7. Sparring
8. Flow drills with practice partner
9. Weapons
10.Real Survival drills

Now we will see one by one to see why it is useful or not  in your training

1. Dojo Etiquette: This includes Coming to class on Time, cleaning the practicing place by self, Arranging mats by self, Training with uniform, not talking unnecessary while training, Respecting your seniors, Being focus on training, etc. These things we Don't even learn from the Schools & colleges. These are the things make martial arts as one of the must do in one's life time.

2. Breathing Practice: While breathing practice we sit in seiza position and Do Breathing practice to relax our Mind and body to prepare for the training. 

3. Warm up & Stretching :  Every day we wake up after sleep every muscles and joints become tight and it is very important to warm up and stretch the body to make our body ready to move. It is not good to start the Martial art training without preparing our body. Even when we start our car we let the engine to get warm up sometime then we start driving. Body and mind are not different than Machine & computer memory but more divine than them. 

4. Endurance ( power training & Stamina training): Endurance is the one which keeps us different than normal humans. That difference gives us the self-confidence and makes us feel strong in any situation. it also improves our immunity, stamina and strength .

5. Basics (Stance/Punches/Kicks/Shadow drills,etc.)
How many years you train in martial art doesn't matter, if you refuse to do Basics every time you train than you will go back to beginner level one day for sure.

6. Forms: Forms (KATA) are very important in any        Traditional martial arts. In few styles the Bunkai ( Explanation of the Moves) will be complicated to understand and seems unreal for the real situation. But still the forms are very useful to improve our Focus & concentration, Body & mind co-ordination, Perfecting the stance and movements, Changing the directions, Sharpness of eyes, Memory, etc. 

7. Sparring:  Sparring training is must to Reduce our fear in facing an opponent or a problem in life. It trains our adrenaline to act properly in a survival situation. And train us to hit proper target, Pain tolerance, Control the body & mind to not hurt your opponent very badly. Improves reflexes of our body, etc

8. Flow drills with practice partner: Flow drills are very important to train our body to fight before our mind. If we train the fighting drills every day, then our body will be ready at any time to protect itself. Before the mind thinks about consequence( which may hurt yourself) the body start fighting for survival. And Mind will not take more time to give you commands. The well trained mind will stop you when you have to stop.

9. Weapons:  Weapons are not something which is different than training our body. When we touch a weapon it should become our body, as just an extension of our body. The weapon should listen to you as your body does. When we train weapon for long, we will know how to convert anything as weapon in the survival situation. 

10.Real Survival drills : Real survival drills? is it different than sparring? 
Of course it is different than sparring. Most of the schools and practitioners believe that sparring training will save them in real fight situation. But it may not. When you face a skill full opponent in a real fight or multiple opponents , the sparring experience may not be enough. that is why we should practice real survival drills in martial art training. It is very primary in any martial arts, but unfortunately  it is not happening in most of the  Martial art schools. 

     Now it is time to Decide what is useful and what is not in your training. After all the explanations i don't want to give the answer. You could have found the answer yourself. 

All the best.
Guru Manikandan
Founder of Yutha sasthiram Martial arts

Understand the Martial Arts as Spiritual and Fight Fearless

     Hi all, hope everything is fine in the universe even our planet got corona.  Lol..

       Ok today I want to take an interesting and important subject to prove that martial art is an spiritual art.

And also in the end of this blog you will understand we don't need to be afraid to fight with any one who is messing with you.




    
      When I say martial art I just want to clear that I am not talking about martial sports which is point based or fighting in the ring or cage. 
I am going to talk about martial art which is fully based on using energy not brutal power. 

You may ask me How beating a person can be spiritual?

Okay Now I agree that being United is spiritual. We all just atoms or cells or whatever the scientists call. If we all be together we are  just the universe, not separate as we are.
In the name of  Evaluation, knowledge, religions, cultures & technology we all became separated as fools and proudly say that we the humans are intelligent in the planet.
Okay We will go from fun part to serious talk.

As I said above if all of us(atoms) be United we are just one universe nothing there to fight each other about. But now after our evolution and as we have an extra sixth sense we started thinking and became what we are really not. Now we will see it from the fighting view as we are looking for the explanation of the topic.

     In a fight when we connect to our opponent even a small touch of a connection makes your opponent as  you. It is difficult to understand but if you keep learning and practicing the Martial arts with Principles you may understand it.  Your opponent is just you in a different living experience,  you can avoid that person(atom) hurting you by avoiding the situation but anyway sometime the situation gets worse and the opponent may start his first attack against you, now when you start defending yourself the first thing you must do is get connected with his energy. Once you connected he becomes you. 
When any of your body part is malfunctioning against you and you cannot correct it what will you do? You have to remove that part from your body if you can, right?. For example when people getting diabetes and getting injured in there legs or hands they get those part removed by doctors with their permission. Just like that when you are connected with your opponent and once he becomes you, you can decide what you have to do your body part which is malfunctioning against you right?

Also It will be easy to operate your own body than some one else's. So make your opponent you by connecting with him and do whatever the action needed by operating your own (opponent's) body.

If the two atoms gets united they become strong, but when they oppose one atom gets broke and still it is not going to die, it will live forever. so Don't hesitate to kill an atom when it tries to kill you atom. If you are weaker atom than your opponent, Don't worry as an atom you will never die but as we are all living as a human with sixth sense we have to care lot of stuff(lol.) so we need to be alive and fight to be live . All the best. 

I hope few martial artists can understand this blog. 

Thank you all and be United 🙏

Guru Manikandan
Founder of Yutha sasthiram Martial arts
Indian Executive for Filipino Kyusho Association.
www.chennaimartialarts.com

Why Grading is a Must in Martialarrs

   

                 Why Grading in Martial arts is Necessary?

                How one should get promoted to next level??

Hi Freinds, 

     Happy new year to all.

     Writing after long time in the beginning of the new year,  In this blog i would like to talk about 

Grading and belts in Martial arts and How should a student be promoted to His/Her next level.

The Grading in martial arts is Necessary to check the progress of training and the improvement of student's capacity and maturity in martial arts.

It doesn't mean a person who gets black belt can beat anyone in this world? if it was like that, there would be only one Black belt in the world. As a life lesson we always try to become our best, 

want to be better than ourselves from the past. I cannot talk about other martial arts schools and their grading system. But as per our Learn to win-Martial arts school as a Teacher i believe that the one who can perform better than their last grading and finished their syllabus are ready for the next grading. I don't put them in grading and fail them for any reason. I put them in to the grading once they are ready to face it and worth to do it. Adult's and kid's grading may differ a little bit. But i always check and confirm that they are better than before and they are eligible to get their next belt. 

Belts are a physiological thing, it is not just a one day celebration or life time pride. it is just to tell ourselves that we got better in martial arts and we are travelling in the right path for the right destination. Here the martial arts doesn't only mean about Fighting and Doing Forms, but also we consider the improvement in our Concentration level, Discipline, Behavior, maturity about reality, etc. Training without grading will be like Hobby class with no Goals.

I cannot expect my students to perform like me. Obviously there are lot of difference in year of experience, Dedication level, Body flexibility and everything. But as a teacher i Monitor each and every student of mine from the very first class they start and try my best to improve their capability and maturity in every aspect of life (Martial arts).  Every grading they attend i know what they improved and why they can be promoted to the next level. from other's eyes some may say why this kid or adult got a belt? He/She didn't perform kata or sparring good. But i know why. 

Students must be promoted for their own growth in martial arts and the primary thing we must consider is Survival skills. That is very important. And again i cannot expect a kid to fight with an adult and defeat him. If it is a real situation that an adult against a kid, it is very difficult for the kid to fight an adult, but they still will have the brain to think better and smart body to try its best with better stamina and pain tolerance. when a student is in continued training, Their body reflex automatically in survival situations.

Few may argue that the kid black belts are not real. we can say any black belt student is real when they did their best in every aspect to receive their black belt, or any black belt student is fake when they just get the belts with no improvement in every aspects of martial arts.

And when A black belt quits Training, become a white belt physically and mentally.

Black belt is an Achievement for the students but it is not the end of the journey it is just the beginning.  

All the Best.

Guru Manikandan