Martial Place

At Orange Belt we started sparring on a weekly basis. The first time I sparred I got totally destroyed. It was good for me: I had to learn to control my emotions. I started teaching the little kids in my dojo as an Orange Belt, and soon after became involved in the USSD Instructors Academy. My wife and I became totally indoctrinated into the USSD Way. How to teach, what to teach, how to share our passion for the Martial Arts with other people: how to transfer our love of the Art to our teaching and thus to other students. We were taking extra classes with Senior USSD instructors as part of our Academy training, which focused primarily on sparring. Why? Because our sparring was REALLY bad. We didn’t have any technique. The good news, though, was that the Orange Belt katas, defensive maneuvers and kempo punch techniques focused primarily on sparring technique, footwork, and following up on attackers. We got better quickly and knew it. We started learning about club defenses and by this point knew all sorts of grab defenses. My confidence was continuing to grow…but I really wanted that purple belt and that black gi!