4/10/07
Venting day
1. Certificates
To some people, this one piece of paper could possibly be one of your most important possession. It is proof of accomplishment, and evidence of the blood, sweat and tears it took to reach your objective. This certificate demonstrates what can be done with hard work and is a form of validation from your instructor. So, hang it up and be proud of the goals you met.
Just how important are certificates and/or the act of being “certified”. What actually constitutes being “certified”. The big question is, who and what gives the power and the credibility to the certifier. There is no central board of certified individuals who can approve and verify the certification of certificates or is this idea of being certified all “smoke and mirrors”? Making sure you obtain a certificate seem like a commercial standard. A "certificate" contains certain traits making it look official perhaps like a rubber stamp of something, a picture, fancy boarders, cool logos, and unreadable signatures.
Now, lets look at the some of the different ways these certification are used. First and foremost these certificate/certificates are used to decorate your personal wall of fame. It proves that you have the mastered a task and that someone watched you do the task. Secondly, you can use it to prove your status and linage in your specific organization. For instance, you were wearing a brown belt and now your wearing a black belt. The belt is usually symbol of the highest rank you achieved. Thirdly, the certificate is used to impress your family and friends. And lastly, if you in a commercial environment, the certificate demonstrates or proves, in some form of official manner, that you have the proficiency and the rank to teach.
Now getting all that out of the way, let look at the importance of the certificate from a layman point of view. When you show your certificate to someone outside of the martial arts arena, and you show them that the certificate was signed by Grandmaster XXXX, and that you are the highest ranking person ……….in the world, and this is the official stamp of the xxxxxx organization and the picture on the left means you are of the highest proficiency, do you really anyone gives a rats butt?
It usually ends up servicings someone else ego. "My teacher is certified by Blah blah, is yours?", then the surprise comes when that person who was arrogant enough to make such statement, can't produce the goods.
If you have a certificate, put it away and go out and earn the respect of other by who you are, what you do and how well you represent what you teach.
2. Somewhere I heard stated I always teach the basic foundation and the strong structure of the system instead of selling, opps....teaching the twirls and takeaways. I say, if you are looking for magic, then go to a magic store. If you are looking for bills, go to the bill collector....it was a joke..(bill collector).....
if you are looking to collect more techniques without the proper foundation then so be it. If they build cars that way, then who knows how safe they would be without tweaking the basic foundation from top to bottom and from bottom to top in relationship to advances. Why add a spoiler to the rear of the vehicle when they company cannot keep the frame falling apart at 45 miles an hour..it is called cosmetics. I really don't want collectors, I want people who want to learn and become a person instead of a sponge. If they want to learn, I will teach them.
I am done. And as far as I am concerned, I promoted myself to be the governing body of Certified incorportated. My certificates are red, the borders have eagles, turkeys, snakes or worms and tigers, there are stamps and weird words, it says a lot of meaningful words and means very little, and.....it has a certificate Number (by the way, everyone gets to be Number 1...for $75.00 extra)!!!! So, if you want a signature, it is going to cost at least $500.00 a letter ($150.00 extra for a stamp and initials), and we also sell the frames for an additional $300.00 made of bamboo..... After the signature, you will be proclaimed to be the one person at top. No matter how lacking of skills you are, or how bad your foundation is, and how much you don't know, you will have your certificate to brag about......yeaaaa hoooo.
Zitat von wuerfel
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