Beginning and Ending Class
COMMANDS
To start the class, the instructor will call the following commands:
Line up:
On your feet, in your spot, standing or stretching however you like.
Attention:
Face front of class, stand straight, hands on belt, feet shoulder width apart.
Acknowledge Origin:
Maintaining attention stance, face toward home place, make a left hand fist into right hand palm, raise hands to chin level, nod (chin down), return to attention stance, face front of class.
Acknowledge Instructor:
Same as Acknowledge Origin, but facing instructor, instructor facing students.
Warm Up:
We meditate at the beginning of the warm up.
Most other martial arts styles meditate cross-legged. We do it differently. We meditate on the knees, sitting down.
We have consulted with a physician, and have been told that a popular and effective knee treatment called "Knees Over Toes" has exercises that work the knees like that as part of the treatment. We are told that if done daily, it will help to mitigate future knee problems. So we sit on the knees, with the legs bent under us.
Meditation has been a part of our own internal culture for decades. Most successful people meditate, from all walks of life, all over the world. In Timothy Ferris' 673 page seminal book "Tools of Titans", Timothy interviewed 112 billionaires, icons, and world-class performers in an attempt to tickle out their tactics, routines, and habits that brought them to success. More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily meditation practice.
Meditation is NOT the act of "emptying your mind". To "empty your mind" means to cease brain activity, which means you are dead. Meditation is the act of placing thoughts in your mind towards the goals you are meditating on, and in doing so, you push other unrelated thoughts out of your mind.
For the meditation at the start of class, the student should be thinking about and visualizing their body doing the martial arts curriculum. Fill the mind with these thoughts, and it will push other thoughts out of the mind.
This is the complete warm up routine:
We have made the following changes to the warm up routine shown above (we will make a new video eventually):
1. Head tilt instead of head roll - Look here for an explanation
2. Spear punch has been eliminated - Look here for an explanation.
3. Hands support hips has been eliminated - Look here for an explanation.
To end the class, the instructor will call:
Line up (if needed)
Attention (if needed)
Instructors and Judges Forward
Acknowledge Instructors
Acknowledge Origin
Class Dismissed
Notice "Line Up" and "Attention" might not be needed, as the students might already be at attention in line. So before calling "Class Dismissed", there are typically 3 commands, and those 3 are in reverse order to starting the class. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
Entering / Exiting
Be respectful of the place and your fellow man. Otherwise nothing in particular is needed upon entering or exiting.