Mockbee lived and word in "The Black Belt" region of the Alabama
I never got to meet architect Samuel Mockbee, I tried, but the day in 2002 that I spent a few hours trying to reach him was the same day I picked up an Architectual Digest at Border’s and found his obituary. He had died of cancer in December of 2001.
I was trying to reach him for the very reasons you’ll hear him talk about in the video below. I didn’t hear him say the words, in person, until I found this film today, but everything he had his hands in that I did see prior to that day I found out he had passed away, were so infused with the “soul” of his intention and ideas, that he might as well have been shouting them at me.
You see, I had just had both of my hips replaced and I was recovering in Florida where I had taken a position with a martial arts association that, for the most part, taught school owners how to better run their businesses. The only problem was that the company wasn’t what it had appeared from the outside. It was, for the most part, a soulless place where business was business –and the world was viewed as just one big marketplace. My inner voice was screaming at me for allowing myself to become engaged in such an endeavor –and it wasn’t but a few months into the position that I started to look for something that would restore my faith in people and their ability to think outside of the box, the profit and loss statement, and a narrow-minded vision of what we’re here for.
Along came Mockbee, this architect, who was teaching young people how to transcend their subject matter; teaching them how to engage the world with creativity and insight and a sense of mission. When I was trying to call Mockbee I was going to suggest I come live in Alabama for awhile, that I might volunteer my services and labor in exchange for just being able to hang out with or around him. That’s how much his work spoke to me (and I’m not anything close to an architect –I am a 38 year practicing martial artist and martial arts teacher).
I missed my chance, but I have made up for it by bringing a team of martial arts master teachers to Greensboro, Alabama (the home of Mockbee’s Rural Studio) every year for the last 5, doing work with other Mockbee “students” and real students from The Rural Studio.
Please take the few minutes it takes to watch this video –and listen to what this Master Teacher has to say. When he talks about “living the myth,” I think of martial arts master teachers and black belts. When he speaks of “being engaged,” I think of calling my “style” of martial arts instruction “Engaged Martial Arts.” When he talks about soul –I am just a little bit shocked, as a few years ago I started calling The Ultimate Black Belt Test “a black belt test with soul.” Did I borrow that from Samuel Mockbee? I don’t remember!
The bottom line? I want to be a teacher like Sam Mockbee–and I want to be a part of nurturing 10,000 other martial arts teachers who think something like Mockbee. That’s why you see this architect here on the pages of The Ultimate Black Belt Test. I honestly believe that the people who will have the MOST influence on the value and content of what MASTER teachers of the martial arts teach in the future, won’t be “kickers, punchers, or grapplers.” They will be men and women of the world –like Mockbee.
I spoke with Mockbee's wife -and I forgot to ask if he'd ever studied and practiced the martial arts; I suspect that he didn't, but the man had the soul of a great master...the kind of master I'd like to be someday.
In April of 2010, the Ultimate Black Belt Test will, once again, return to Greensboro --and practice the martial arts in extraordinary ways. More will be posted here on our site as the event draws near.
Here's a video of a past event: