Commitment

 Perhaps the most noticeable and important part of being a martial artist is commitment.  This has become both a great quality as well as a burden for me at times.   In just about every martial arts school you will find, one of the “concepts” or “rules” is to always finish what you start.  We all know we should, however surprisingly many people don’t.  When I first started karate my father signed me up but once I reached orange belt I wanted to do ballet instead.  Karate was not my commitment at that point; it was an activity my parents signed me up for.  So one day near the end of the month, my dad had me talk to one of the female instructors before I quit.  She said she would give me a dance t shirt if I stayed.  So I decided to sign back up, karate wasn’t that bad anyway. 

After that I was committed and when I say committed, I mean there was no way out because I made the commitment this time.  Quitting was no longer an option.  Looking back I am glad it wasn’t.  Fulfilling commitments is not a skill that we are given, but a skill that is learned (or not).  I feel that I have somewhat mastered this skill.  I take pride in the fact that people know my word is good. 

Now on the flip side, while I am great at committing, I have a tendency to over commit.  With every commitment comes a sort of weight.  This is especially true as you get older.  The good news is martial arts is a great stress reliever, the catch is that training is a huge commitment.  It is not only a commitment to myself but to my instructor who puts the time and effort into training me, and my fellow students who also commit and need a partner in class.  When I decided to begin training again, I knew I was making a commitment.  I have since moved 1 hour away from my do jang.  Sometimes on my training days when I leave at 8am and do not return home until 10pm I ask myself why I made the commitment.  Every time I walk out of the do jang sweaty and tired I remember why, because karate is a part of who I am and the commitment is one that I have made to myself for myself.

I never did get that dance t-shirt that I was promised, but who would have know what I was really getting out of the deal I made when I was 7 years old.

I have a fan

So I just sat here for an hour writing a post, only to finally decied you would have no reason to care about the things I wrote.  So I deleted it and am starting over.  Perhaps you will like this little story.

Last week as I was walking out of the dojang to head home, when Sabomnim called me into his office.  He said,
     "You have a fan club."

Now I knew that the kids would sometimes wisper when I came into the dojang.  I am the only woman they ever see and I am also of a higher rank belt.  I guess it doesent help that I am also 5'10.5''.  but this is what he said,
     "The litte girl in the kids class, she asked about you after every class.  She makes her mom wait to see if you are coming to class so she can watch."

Wow.  That gave me a warm feeling.  Inspiring to be inspiring.  I was just her age when I started training.  Now when I see her, I make sure to bow.

:)

The Short Story

It is hard to say that I can remember my first karate class.  I was only 5 and I am not quite sure I even knew what karate was.  All I really knew was that when I showed up for my much anticipated first Ballet class; the dance studio was closed, so the next thing on the list was karate.  I have been told many times that my father at a very young age (before having children) saw a children’s karate class and he decided then that his children would do karate someday.  Of course, he ended up with two daughters which in common cases are more incline to join ballet than karate, but here my sister and I were in Southern California training in a mosh-posh (if you will) style of karate.  The class as I recall was very large in an auditorium.  There must have been at least 50 kids in each class and 2 or 3 instructors per class.  

Not long after us, my father joined class with us followed by my mother.  Mom got her yellow belt (2^nd belt rank in the particular school).  Dad however made this a core part of his father daughter time.  So my sister, dad, and me because a little karate team.  We were always referred to as a group and almost never separately.   Not to long into our training at Young Olympians, our favorite instructor (Sensei) decided to break off from the school and begin his own martial arts school.  His specific training was in Goju-Ryu and Motobu-ryu both Okinawan styles.  We trained with him in a church and in various parks until he was able to establish his school, Advanced Tech World Karate.  We trained in his school for about 3 years until we moved to across the country to New Jersey.

When we arrived to New Jersey my father had already has us set up in a new studio which we started training at the second day we arrived in New Jersey.  It was a shock for us since we were beginning in a brand new style called Tang Soo Do.  We went from wearing brown belts to white belts again.  To speed up the story, we trained at this dojang for several years and finally after about 8 years of total training achieved our first black belt.  I will eventually get into the details about our training in later posts.  

Not long after we achieved our black belts we decided to change to a different dojang.  We searched for schools for a while, and if you’re a martial artist, you know how difficult it can be to find a dojang and Sabomnim that you are comfortable with.  We were looking for a school that had “deeper roots” and a more formal training structure.  Less of a business and more of a place of learning.  We found a new dojang and continued our training.  We spent about 3 years training for our 2^nd Dan (2^nd degree black belt- which is actually blue in Tang Soo Do).  My sister was a teenager and when she turned 18 dropped off from the team but my father and I continued our training and achieved our 2^nd Dan.

My father and I trained for about 6 months after we promoted to 2^nd Dan, but then life began to get in the way.  Dad always traveled for work but at this point be began traveling for months at a time several times a year which made our team efforts difficult.  There are really no excuses, but somewhere along this path we all dropped off from formal training.

Fast forward about 10 years to today.  To sum it up easily, I’m back.