Black Belt Essay

This essay was written by one of our martial arts students who was testing for her Black Belt a few years ago. I came across it on one of my old forms and felt that it should live on. This was written by a 16 year old student. Wow! – Tristan

My training has meant many things to me throughout my life: a hobby, a source of bragging rights, a second home. People always give me impressed eyes when I say that I’ve been doing this for ten years, but I do not remember it as a monolithic lifelong devotion. I have come to karate eagerly, reluctantly, and sometimes not at all. But even when I had not come consistently for months, I still considered myself a part of this community, and I never really pictured myself walking away from all that I had found here.

When I started karate, it was not to learn the mysteries of the universe. I had seen every movie from Blockbuster with the word “ninja” in the title at least three times, and I loved them all for their very similar plot lines. They featured geeks and loners, people frightened and distanced from the world around them, and their journeys to empowerment by way of squinty old men with archaic training methods. I wanted that sense of security. I wanted the divine calm of the Zen masters. I wanted an escape from the petty, hurtful conflicts of everyday life. I still want that, but in the beginning, all those intangible qualities were distilled into only one clear thought: karate is cool.

So I went to lessons. I trained. I was still angry and afraid in almost every facet of my life, including karate, but gradually, I consciously realized that of all the places in my life, the dojo was the only place where people talked about how to be less afraid. From Sesame Street, to my school, and everywhere in between, people had always smiled complacently and told me to “just be myself” even as they fed my insecurities and rewarded me for showing them the sides of me that most appealed to them. Only the Senseis and my sister talked to me about the masks that we all wear: the rebel, the activist, the A-student. Only they talked about what lay beneath, the calm freedom from fear that knowledge of the self brings.

What you are about to see me do today is the showmanship that attracted me to karate when I was a seven year old girl. These superficial skills are the product of long work and therefore I respect them, but they are not the aspect of my training that I value the most. I love and value the idea that I can change and become more myself, that I do not have to live my life for the approval of others. That is the part of my training that I most hope to continue throughout my life.

Mary Hannah Duhon (08-12-05)