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Martial arts students feel a strong sense of camaraderie with their fellow students. This feeling of fellowship is based primarily on shared experiences and surpassing of challenges, but is also based in tradition.
In historical times, instructors taught the martial arts only to those students the instructors deemed worthy. To endear themselves to the instructor, prospective students would often have to perform menial labor or perform the most basic techniques for hours--showing that they were humble, patient, and honest. Today, most students don't need to undergo these tests before they can start training, but the sense that the martial arts are special, and learning martial arts is a special privilege, remains.
Many martial arts classes are held as a few parents have noted, "like the old one-room schoolhouse". Although kids of different ages and belt levels are segregated into their own smaller groups, most children's classes are held with all kids together in the same room. Kids at a lower rank can look over at the senior students practicing their forms--even when the lower-ranked kids haven't yet learned those techniques.
Martial artists feel a sense of esprit de corps with other martial artists--and particularly with students of their own style.
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