The Ultimate Black Belt Test

Every member of the Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT) keeps a weekly journal online, here, of their 13 month testing journey. If you want to know what kind of people these UBBT participants are, their journal entries reveal what they're thinking, their ability to communicate, their self-discipline, what they're working on, and how they are (or are not) progressing.

A failure to journal is a complete failure of the UBBT process, as the journey is as --if not MORE --important than the destination...and these participants (UBBT Team 6) have pledged themselves to recording their journey on a weekly basis for 13 months.

Read the  UBBT Journals Here

The UBBT is a mix of athleticism and literature --as this is a story about what these martial artists are doing to transform themselves, as well as the people in their various spheres of influence, their schools, their communities, the international martial arts community --and even, perhaps, the world.

UBBT members aren't necessarily Olympic-level athletes; in some cases team members are just novice martial artists. What they all are, however, are people willing to step up and practice a kind of discipline that is, today, uncommon.

These are people willing to put themselves to the test, to go "public" with their efforts --to serve as teachers, both through example and by trial and error, for others.

They have banded together to bring a number of innovative projects to their own schools/communities and to the international martial arts community; projects involving peace education, anger management training, environmental and dietary self-defense, diabetes prevention, and a host of other creative educational concepts.

One of the questions posed by the UBBT might be: Are the martial arts really more than just kicks, punches, and grappling? And add to that: What does all this training mean OUTSIDE of the ring and off of the mat?

I wonder if the members of the UBBT can, in the journaling of their own and varied commitment to the practice of the martial arts, reveal the answers?

In success and/or failure, in the grand accomplishment or the hardly-measurable forward-movement, these are people who have set some rather remarkable goals --and are going at it.

I admire that.

--Team Coach, Tom Callos