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 (2nd 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
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 2nd Dan (2nd 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 2nd Dan.
My father and I trained for about 6 months after we promoted to 2nd 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.
