How to Tie Your Belt
Picture this: You're five years old and your parents decide it's time for you to learn how to tie your shoes. They either teach you the loop swoop and pull method, or (better yet) the bunny ears method. You try over and over again to perfect your finite motor skills. So young. Trying to learn. Repetition after repetition. Now picture this: How to tie your belt is a similar right of passage.
The very first thing you learn how to do when you start martial arts is how to tie your belt.
A Lesson From A Great Coach
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden spent the first practice of every year with the UCLA Bruins teaching them how to put on their socks. He believed if you put your socks on incorrectly, you'd get blisters, then miss practice, then games. Coach Wooden thought it you learned how to properly do the small things that mattered, it would add up down the road. Ultimately, it was a lesson in attention to detail and good habit building. Much like learning to tie your shoes. And much like learning how to tie your belt.
Tying your belt can be the most confusing a frustrating things you learn how to do."
In all of the martial arts. Imagine that! Learning how to do it properly will set you up for confidence and success as you move through your training session. This video will prove how simple it is to tie your belt. When you learn how to take care of important details properly, good habits are formed. When good habits are formed, training becomes a lot easier. Start with building the right habits.
Learning how to tie your belt can be as simple as you want or as complex as you want. Travis Stevens uses the professional knot. He finds that it is the only knot that stays together so he doesn't have to keep tying it during training. While retying your belt during training may not seem like a big deal think about this: Each time you re-tie your belt you're pausing your training for about 30 seconds. If you have to do that three times a session, you've lost nearly 2 minutes of valuable training time. Over the course of a week that's closer to 10 minutes of training time. And over the course of a year that equates to 520 minutes of lost training time (or just over 8 hours). Little things add up. Don't lose training time. Learn how to properly tie your belt.
A Final Thought
Ultimately, you don't want to be one of those athletes who always has their belt come undone and fall off. You're not only detracting from your own training time, but your partner's as well. There is nothing worse than watching your partner fiddle with their belt in the middle of a round. When it's time to train or drill the last thing you want to do is take away from that time tying your belt. Taking care of details and even the mental game is pivotal.
Take a few minutes and try the knots in the video. During training, if you find yourself tying your belt constantly during training try a different knot. Attention to details and building good habits is one of the foundations of exceptional athletes. Take time to learn how to do it right and let us know what you think!
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