Congratulations on achieving your 4th kyu Red belt, and welcome to the section of our website dedicated solely helping you with your ongoing development and education.
Your previous grade, Blue belt, is where a student starts to make the transition from being a novice student towards becoming an advanced karate-ka. To have achieved your Red belt implies you have successfully made this transition.
Kizen Karate
Kizen is a Japanese term meaning ‘continuous and never-ending improvement’. If Blue belt is a grade on the verge of becoming an advanced karate-ka, red belt is solidly putting your foot in the doorway. Please note that the term ‘advanced’ does not imply that you ‘know how to do it all’ or that we are an ‘expert’. Black belt does not imply that we’ve become an ‘expert’ either. Reaching the rank of Black belt more so implies you have come full circle and are now ready to begin your journey again, only with new eyes. This means that you approach each technique, kata and principle with a deeper understanding and a greater level of mastery over your body (coordination and overall ability). When we combine a greater understanding with greater self mastery we become ready to take our karate to an entirely new level.
Having said that, we cannot keep learning new skills and developing new tools without constantly going back over what we’ve already learnt. Therefore, in many ways, each and every grade is about going full circle. It’s about going right back through everything you know with a deeper level of understanding, and greater level of physical ability. This will help you progress as you go. Furthermore, as one of the goals of karate is to equip you with the tools for self-defence, it’s not enough to have learnt techniques and principles, they need to become instinctive.
We trust you will find plenty of both inspiration and education in this section to keep you on track with your journey and moving towards your next grading.
