Leadership in the martial arts is fundamental. There is always someone to lead the way to accomplish a goal. It can be one or two people or a team, but often there is one person who stands out that can take the bad or challenging and make it good and successful. This isn’t always the case. Like anything else, there are road blocks for any person looking to assume the leadership mantle.
We all deal with stress in different ways. What Elite Training Center is always looking for in students are people who will step up and lead, but not always from the front. The true leader can take a team and place its members in the proper roles in order to achieve a goal.
The road for any potential leader can be rocky. Although what is rocky or challenging is always judged, it should be seen from different perspectives. Experiences vary from person to person. The expectations of one should not be that of another, unless of course both people have shared similar experiences. Therefore, the leader must look at every situation and assess who shares similar perspectives and then consider histories. Once roles are established through this sort of deduction, a team can move forward.
Although martial arts systems often focus on the improvement of the self, at Elite Training Center, students are encouraged to put one another first in order to create the team mindset. Krav Maga, MMA, Muay Thai Kickboxing, BJJ and Kali/Silat are all singular systems, but were forged from warlike experiences. Krav Maga was created out of necessity as Israel is surrounded by enemies. MMA, a very popular sport as of now, borrows techniques from various martial systems. Muay Thai and their various techniques were created through years of war as Siam battled Burma for territory. BJJ, although Brazilian by nomenclature derives from the samurai system originating in Japan.
Each of these systems were created and/or forged through shared experiences and people taking the leadership mantle and understanding the importance of input by others. These innovators saw what could be done and what needed to be done. But not without the help of others. The true leader sees where their faults are and are able to fill the gaps so the team won’t fail.
S. Derhammer
Elite Training Center
1628 South Pacific Coast Highway,
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 543-1600
www.elitetrainingcenter.net
