The Karate Dojo

Sensei has asked me to write about the Student of the Year award and what it’s been like from starting classes at The Karate Dojo up until getting the award. This is probably very long winded but I have to start a bit earlier for it to make sense to me:

I’ve always had the drive to try to be the best at whatever I’m doing. I’m not afraid of working very hard to reach a goal or sacrifice my free time in order to get just a little more work in. I’ve been running my own business for over a decade and have fought that fight and continue to evolve things to stay ahead of the game and keep my business(s) relevant. I’m proud of those accomplishments and I deeply enjoy the industry I work in. I’ve had ups and downs like anyone would over 10+ years of self-employment but, I would say I’m truly satisfied with where things are and the paths taken.

I am truly blessed with a great family. My wife is one of the most understanding and loving people I’ve ever met. She is also my best friend. Together we have two wonderful boys, who are both very smart and kind and growing up to be what I hope to call good men. We have our ups and downs like all families do; we have plenty of things to work on to be better at it and I feel like we are. I am very happy with my family life.

It was very easy for me to write those first two paragraphs, because lately I think about all of it a lot. This hasn’t always been the way things are. I never took any time to truly think about how lucky I am and everything I have. In my professional life I’ve usually been keenly focused on the next goal or the next project. Never really taking stock of where things are but just pushing ahead. In my personal life I’ve taken more than I’ve given from my family. I mean, I’m always there for them when they need me, but typically it’s after I’ve been asked.

For the extent of my life I’ve never been overly concerned with being a physically healthy person. I’ve eaten what I’ve wanted to and pretty much been able to do what I wanted. If I wanted to eat a hamburger for lunch three days a week I would – or drink a few beers, sure no problem. That will catch up to you though, as I realized one day after reaching almost 300 lbs on the scale. I was tired all the time and got sick a lot. I blamed things that would go wrong on other things like work. I began to have a negative view of people and often dismissed others before getting to know them, just generally being a grumpy jerk a lot of the time, even to my family.

It was roughly about 4 years ago that my dad was diagnosed with cancer (Multiple Myeloma) after an incident where he had broken his back; it kind of rocked me. Not just because I was faced with the idea that we might lose him but also because I realized I wasn’t exactly doing anything to ensure I would be around much longer myself. Shortly thereafter I tried to diet; I lost a few pounds, but gained them all back a few months later. My wife started to work out on her own doing a boot camp thing and then joined a kick-boxing class. She would drive all the way across town to work out late in the evening or get up super early to go take her boot camp class. Honestly she inspired me (and still does). I really had to do something and it had to be permanent.

I’m usually an all or nothing type of person but I knew from experience that changing your lifestyle is super hard to do. So I started small, I set small goals and tried to change one thing at a time. I started with diet then eventually added exercise. I started running and eventually ran in a 5k race. I’ve since lost a bunch of weight, it was really hard to do too. I was getting a little better physically but mentally I wasn’t changing or improving at all, which resulted in more ups and downs with my weight and physical state.

We enrolled our youngest son at The Karate Dojo’s after school program and Karate class, we felt like he needed a different type of discipline when he was away from us during the day. Something he most definitely wasn’t getting in Public School. After a short interview with Sensei he seemed like he was the man for the job and very soon after joining we noticed a real change in our son’s behavior. We then enrolled our oldest son in Karate classes too. Sensei asked me a couple of times if I would give it a go and luckily I did.

I remember being very nervous that first Karate class. I’d seen what the boys had been doing in class so far but when it’s you doing it, it’s different. Thinking back to those early classes and the struggles with simple things, like doing a front kick without falling over or how long it took me to get the idea that Taigo 1 is in an upper case “I” pattern, it makes me realize that I’ve been setting small goals all year long and working on them one at a time.

I failed the written portion of my Yellow Belt rank test the first time, mostly because I took it for granted. I thought I had all that “stuff” memorized but it goes farther than just memorizing things. I took it again and passed, then took the physical portion of the rank test which I was somehow able to survive. I got the requirements sheet for Orange Belt and went to work. I really wanted to improve on my approach and preparation to Karate and the test I knew I’d eventually have to face.

Just about a month out from the scheduled rank test, I was struggling to keep up mentally with training. There is a lot of stuff to learn between the Yellow and Orange Belts and you’re somewhere between novice and sorta knowledgeable about Karate-do. However, I wasn’t ready… I told Sensei that I thought I should postpone my next rank test so I could continue to train and prepare for it. I realized that I was more afraid of failing the test than I was concentrating on getting better at Karate. I had to sort of reboot what I was working on, and after I calmed down I started to set small goals, working on each requirement one at a time, not focusing on the entire requirement sheet all at once like I had been doing all along.

I took the next rank test and passed. But this time it felt different, it felt like I’d earned it, it also felt like I’d internalized something about Karate-do. I’ve also been working on small things in my personal life too, one thing at a time, truly trying to change things that I don’t like about myself. It’s slow and sometimes I don’t make the best of it and slip back into bad habits, both physically and mentally. But I know one thing is true, if you don’t start somewhere no matter how small you’ll never get anywhere.

When Sensei called my name for Student of the Year I honestly didn’t get it. I heard my name but it didn’t register in my brain until I shook his hand and he handed me the framed certificate. I never once considered that I could be Student of the Year because all I knew was that I worked on small pieces of Karate at a time and surely there were others in the Dojo that had surpassed that, had done more than me…

I don’t know if this is the way things will stay. I suspect not. I think the point is that this is all a path that you travel while you practice and learn about yourself. My wife recently asked me what it took for me to decide to change and get healthy and then oddly Sensei asked me to write this paper on the very next day. I’m glad to have taken the time to reflect on everything over the past year and even farther back to get to today.

It’s humbling to see how far there is to go to get to the “next level”. For once I can truthfully say that I’m thankful that there is always a “next level” to reach for. I now realize that I was missing something in my life before and I believe it was Karate-do.