My Essay for 1st Dan Grade in Tang Soo Do

“The truth is… We’re not always the men we hoped we would be.” This line from Robert Louis Stevenson’s book: Treasure Island was stuck in my mind at many times as I sweated through some of the harder training sessions and gradings. I’ve seen awkward teenagers grow into confident young adults in the space of just a few years, as they achieved their first dan grade, and thought to myself: “Is that much change even possible when you’re in your 40s?”.

I believe now that change is always possible with enough humility, incentive and support. Progression through the gup grades is certainly a good incentive and the support and solidarity within a good martial arts club is undeniable. Martial arts training “builds a better you” as they say.

My journey started way way back, when as a child of about 8, watching ‘Kung Fu’ on Saturday evening television I was captivated by the Shaolin philosophies of the path to mental harmony through hard physical training. Consequently as a teenager, I trained for a few years in the modern Korean Art of Choi Kwang Do, but my determination drifted away, like so many others at that age. Some 20 years later, after slowing down into a sedentary lifestyle lacking exercise, I stumbled upon the British Tang Soo Do Institute.

I will always remember the excitement I felt after my very first training session. I was hooked, then. I knew my muscles were going to ache all over in the morning, but I was hooked.

I remember Master Cockram, my senior instructor telling me he had “a passion for Tang Soo Do”. I don’t know why that phrase stuck in my memory, because I didn’t really understand it at the time. Only years later do I now understand, as I’ve discovered my own passion for the Art.

For the first year or more, I didn’t get muscle soreness the day after training, but the day after that. It was so draining that I couldn’t contemplate more than one session per week.

I remember my red belt being the first grade where I genuinely felt proud and accomplished. As I had progressed, I think I’d always regarded red belts as the first rank with ‘good’ techniques, worthy of imitating when doing the exercise drills in class. Having trained before, I knew not to copy the row in front of me when I was at the back. I always craned around and studied the front few rows. I look back at my fitness level as a red belt and I realise how much progress I’ve made even since then. I always struggled to imagine what it must be like to be ready for a black belt. Only recently have I realised I was already there. A black belt is not a prize, it’s an acknowledgement of having reached a state of mind. The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

I’ve had a respectable amount of injuries along my way: finger tendon injuries from mis-timed low-blocks in my first grading, a fractured rib caused by my bad stance – leaning into an attack against my instructor, and a torn ACL ligament in my knee – caused by landing much too hard on one leg from a jumping kick, when I was tired.

Some lessons are harder than others and of course I pass on my hard-learned lessons to everyone who will listen, now.

That knee injury prevented me from jumping or kicking without further injury to the cartilage, and recovery from the corrective surgery took well over 9 months. I clearly remember – almost ceremoniously – folding my dobok, wrapping my belt around it and tucking it away, out of sight, at the back of my wardrobe. I knew seeing it would be saddening. My rehabilitation seemed long but I was driven: this was actually the first time I got to realise some of what I’d learned from my training. I’d learned to work HARD at exercises, to push myself beyond the uncomfortable when you’re out of breath. To push myself and to enjoy the effort. Sore muscles are both the worst and the best feeling, because you know when you’ve had a good work-out.

I’ve learned to push through pain and train myself harder than ever before.

You don’t ignore pain, you combat it.

I think my shyness has been a useful tool in achieving the humility so often attributed to learning a martial art. I have always liked the fact that it isn’t a race to black belt, it’s a journey. A journey that passes at a student’s own pace, dictated by their determination. My journey has been accompanied by many great training partners who I now consider to be old friends. As I pass each milestone now, I do so not on my own but as part of a team. A team that helps one another over each hurdle, and will always be there for you when you need them.

I haven’t read many books on martial arts but the few I’ve read have taught me new appreciation of my training and my journey so far. It is said that each move in training has a reason, even if that reason doesn’t reveal itself for some time. Once I realised this, I was more accepting and able to learn more freely.

Bruce Lee said “There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them”. Thankfully I have never felt that I had plateaued. I feel slightly less capable, since my injuries, but I have continued to develop in other ways: I continue to deepen my understanding, from my training, and I am every bit as enthused each time I learn a new gem of wisdom. I don’t consider that I’ve mastered anything about Tang Soo Do practise but that’s not a bad thing: it simply allows me to learn from more people.

A lot of my hyungs and one-steps have been taught to me by students less than half my age – and sometimes half my height – but I have only ever seen them as the belt they wore. In Japanese karate, ‘Sensei’ translates simply as ‘born before’, I take this to mean that the teacher was ‘born’ into the martial art before the student. Age therefore is of no relevance and certainly no handicap.

I have read that the key to mastery is to love the process, love the training. Success is winning a gold medal, mastery is knowing you can win it again.

My journey to this point has been a journey to the start line. What started as a hobby has now become a large part of my identity.

Tang Soo Do teaches us humility, respect, loyalty, integrity, honour and much more. But it doesn’t guarantee it.

And that’s why black belt is not really a belt.

It’s a state of mind.