Nathan Wong - Arizona State University



Don’t Fear the Black Belt…

By xxxxxxxx

Once again, I found myself in a pushup position, knuckles and toes on the ground, arms locked out, my back and legs held in such perfect alignment that if someone were to lay a piece of wood along that plane, the only place to slide a piece of paper in between would be the small of my back. And that was because of human anatomy alone; if it was possible, I’d be forcing the small of my back outwards so that my back could be used as stencil for drawing a perfectly straight line. As I heard a commanding voice bark, “Down!” I lowered myself to the ground so that my elbows were bent at ninety degrees, the knot of my belt barely hovering over the floor, but my back and legs were still in line. Five seconds passed before the same voice called out, “Up!” In those five seconds, my upper arms burned as if they had been doused with gasoline, lit on fire, and then fueled more by a person spraying a can of Axe; my wrists felt as if they were holding up a ton apiece, as opposed to supporting just the 135 pounds that I weighed at the time; and my abs, which were crucial to maintaining proper pushup posture, felt as if they were being simultaneously stretched out on a rack and compressed by a car compactor. Those five seconds also gave me a chance to think the one thought that I could not afford to consider at the time: “How did I end up here?”

Here: Defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “in or at this place,” or “in an arbitrary location.” So, “this place” was my dojo, or training grounds for karate. The time was approximately 9:30 in the morning, and the event was the official spirit portion of the black belt examination. I had been laboring physically for the past two hours, dropping sweat on the mat with every step I took. Even then, the physical toll that this test took on my body could not even come close to comparing with the mental strain that I went through. Have you ever tried to focus on a singular goal for three consecutive hours, with nary a second to take a mental breather? No? You should try it sometime, it’s quite an experience, but I issue fair warning here: you will feel tired after the first hour, exhausted by the second, and halfway through third, find yourself praying, “When will it end?”

I, for one, followed this train of thought. Nonetheless, I plugged through. This event was the culmination of seven total years of training, with the past year dedicated solely to passing the most difficult exam I had yet to encounter. If I backed out now, I would never be capable of forgiving myself. But it wasn’t just because of that overly used cliché, “I had worked too hard to let this chance get away.” That was true, but it was also a matter of honor: It was my second attempt at the test.

Honor was a value instilled in me practically from birth. An honorable child was one who made his parents proud: this was, and continues to be, one of my main sources of motivation today. I actually began training in karate because I was “dishonored” in the sense that I had been caught unawares in first grade. As I sat at lunch, laughing at some stupid joke, I felt someone’s hand grasp the back of my head and push forwards. Hard. Lacking either the preparation or the strength to fight back, my forehead hurtled towards the worn corner of red, beat-up wooden lunch table at what felt like fifty miles an hour. Time didn’t slow down for me. I literally blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I felt, right under my hairline, a throbbing sensation accompanied by a gradually rising lump that matched the edge of the table exactly. Every groove, every indentation in the table was mirrored in that inch-and-a-half long swelling.

The physical pain I could handle. Ice and Ibuprofen (before schools were forbidden from issuing over-the-counter painkillers) were more than capable of taking away any semblance of pain. What I couldn’t handle was the sorrow etched in my parents’ faces as they came to the nurse’s office and saw me with an icepack virtually anchored to my face. Behind the sorrow lay a certain level of despondency and disappointment in both themselves and me, their child. I was incapable of defending myself; they didn’t teach me how. Taking one look at their expressions, I vowed to do what was necessary so that I wouldn’t have to ever face this situation again.

With that in mind, I went to my parents near the end of first grade and asked, “Mom, can I do karate?”

My mother, in her infinite wisdom, responded with, “Why in the world would you want to do that?”

Naturally, with all the tact that I had learned in my seven years in existence, I answered, “Because I want to be like Jackie Chan.”

As most parents would do when they heard that, she turned away, the universal action that indicated, “This conversation is over.” Not to be deterred, though, I followed my admittedly idiotic statement with a much more coherent argument: “I also don’t want to be hurt again like what happened two months ago.”

At this, she turned around and said, “I’ll talk to your dad about this.” My mom can be a very convincing person when she wants to, and easily won my father over. So, with their blessing, I began training the following year, and the results were instantly noticeable; my zanshin, or awareness, increased considerably, and I have yet to be caught by surprise in the same way again.

A student’s sense of honor should be similar to that of a child’s, in that he aims to make his superior (that is, his instructor) proud. For that reason, I made it a point to attend the biweekly classes on with a nearly religious regularity, and worked tirelessly, unceasingly, to improve in all aspects: basics, kata (forms), and kumite (sparring). Such dedication and effort rarely goes unrewarded; I advanced through the ranks quickly, efficiently. After four years I had received my brown belt, the rank directly below black; after another year and a half, my sensei, or head instructor decreed that I was ready to take the next step and test for my black belt.

I spent the next six months training for the sole purpose of passing that test. Concentrating primarily on my weaknesses, my sensei drilled me incessantly on technique, with added emphases on fitness and focus. Fitness would be crucial in carrying me through the three-and-a-half hour long spirit portion of the exam, which all black belts recall fondly as, “going through hell and back.” Focus, on the other hand, would be the key ingredient in impressing the judges: a student who can show that he or she is existing solely in the present, be it in kumite or kata, is one who is truly deserving of the rank of black belt.

The six months passed, and my sensei told me and my two peers who were testing with me that we had the option of taking a pre-test one week before the actual exam. Seeing as I had no experience with real pressure situations, I thought to myself, “This would be a really good measure of how well I can handle an immediate, omnipresent stress and whether or not I’ll crack under the strain.” (Disclaimer: I was not nearly that eloquent at age 12). Confident that I would pass with flying colors, I asked my dad to drive me down to the dojo that Friday night.

I walked into the dojo, emanating self-assurance so thoroughly that you could almost smell it in the air…or it could have just been the fact that the dojo smelled of sweat from the class right before us. Either way, I walked on to the floor, joined my peers, bowed in, and then took my position facing the two judges, one of whom was my sensei. He began to count out basics: “Lunge punch on the left, kiai, ichi! Ichi! Ichi!” This continued until we had gone through all the basic techniques. Throughout this time, I was wondering, “Is my stance deep enough? Are my wrists straight? Am I slouching as I strike the imaginary opponent?”

We progressed to the kata portion of the pre-test, where my sensei would then bark out the name of a kata and start us off with the command “Hajime, Begin!” Then we would have to dredge the katas from the recesses of our memory, especially since he was asking us to perform the katas that we learned as white belts. About five minutes in, I realized that I was struggling to remember the most basic of katas, and that my problems were obvious to all present. It was impossible: I lost all semblance of timing, the sequence of parries and attacks was muddled up, and hesitation, which would kill me in a real-life situation, ran rampant. My focus was distant, and it showed: my eyes kept wandering.

It was during this time that my eyes caught my sensei’s, and I almost keeled over in shock: his face showed the same expression that I saw in my parents’ six years earlier. Disappointment in me, his pupil, and himself, for not teaching his student well enough. That sight alone was enough to break my spirit, and from that point on my technique jumped on a slippery slope downhill. Needless to say, the remainder of the night passed miserably; as soon as I finished up the pre-test, I changed out and left my dojo within five minutes.

I got home, and showered off. As the steaming hot water washed off all the sweat, all the salt that I had accumulated on the training mats I thought over the events that had taken place just half an hour earlier. Why had I choked? What went wrong? I was bubbling with confidence beforehand; why couldn’t I hold on to that feeling as I walked on to the floor? I mulled over all of this for the next twenty minutes, with the hot water running over my head, down my back, dripping off my fingers as I stood there. Unfortunately, the long shower didn’t provide any answers.

My dad, who picked me up, knew me well enough to know that I didn’t want to talk on the drive back. He waited until I had come out of the shower, and then asked, “Do you want to talk about tonight?”

“Sorry, Dad, not tonight. I just need to think.”

He understood, and let me be. He added at the end, though, “Okay, that’s fine. Just let me know when you’ve decided.”

Decided what? That was the question I took with me as I headed to bed early. Obviously he was referring to that night’s pre-test, but what in the world was he talking about? Decided whether or not I would take the official test the next week? Decided on whether or not I would continue with my karate training? Decided on the best way to torment my little brother? Odds are, he was talking about the first two questions; I didn’t think that the third one would have flown over too well.

I tossed and turned endlessly; trying to think about what path I was going to take. Thoughts ran through my mind as quickly as Asafa Powell finished his 100 meter dash, and they kept me awake as if I were sleeping on a bed of rocks. Eventually exhaustion won out, though, and I woke up feeling a little more refreshed. More importantly, I woke up with an answer.

I told no one of my decision until the night before the actual exam: neither my parents nor my sensei broached the subject, and I wasn’t exactly compelled to talk about it either. Then, half an hour before the exam began, my parents asked of my choice, since they knew the timeframe as well as I did. I simply stated that I wasn’t going, and they let things be. My sensei called five minutes later, and asked the same question:

“Are you coming for the exam tonight?”

The man who had trained me for six years deserved more than a “no;” he deserved a reason, too:

“I don’t think I’m coming tonight, sensei. I just don’t feel ready. Maybe next year.”

He responded with the words that proved to me that I had made the right decision:

“That’s fine. If you don’t think you’re ready, I can respect that. I’ll just see you in class on Monday.”

So, that weekend, I went to bed with no regrets whatsoever, and life progressed as normal. I went to school, came back, went to karate twice a week, and once again trained for the sole purpose of passing the black belt exam. But this time around, I knew what to prepare for. I doubled my intensity, training for the intangibles: focus, strength, conditioning, showmanship. I pushed myself to actually hit the invisible enemy in basics. Strength and conditioning came in the combination of a season of tackle football and karate training, when a senior black belt would stand over me as I did push-ups and sit-ups, barking, “Up! Down! Up! Down!” until I was at the brink of collapsing. I stayed late after class, asking the kata experts in the dojo all the minutiae of every stance, the hidden bunkai (purpose) of each motion. And in being able to envision the purpose, I could move with greater poise, which translated into simply a better-looking kata. I moved quickly, sharply, efficiently, looking capable of dispatching numerous enemies in one fell swoop.

A year passed, and once again I felt confident going into the test. However, this confidence was mixed with a little trepidation: what if I screwed up again? No, stop. I was not going to let that thought slow me down. I was going to walk on to that mat, and work so hard that they would have to scrape me off the floor. For me, this was an all-or-nothing shot. Use all the clichés you want: the point of no return, crossing the Rubicon, going all-out; all of that aptly described my attitude as I walked into the dojo on Friday night.

This was no pre-test, however; the two senseis had decided to do away with the pre-test and jump straight into the technical section – all basics and kata for the next two hours. The five candidates for promotion did the basics as a group, then were called up in either a pair or a triplet to perform the katas. For the first time in a very long time, I performed them without fear of recrimination. I felt so assured, so certain of my steps and motions that I did not have to sacrifice power and speed in exchange for technical accuracy; after all, the bunkai remained the same.

The night passed fairly smoothly. My sensei’s face was impassive as a walked past him on the way to my dad’s car, but it was a far cry from the disappointment that I had seen 52 weeks earlier. I went to bed that night, bubbling with anticipation. Another three hour section the next day, and I’d be done with the examination.

I woke up early the next morning, wired, ready, and admittedly a little nervous. The true test of my spirit lay ahead; the kata section from the night before was the easy part. I went through the motions of my morning routine mindlessly. I know I ate breakfast because I refused to enter the test on an empty stomach, yet I don’t remember the taste of my meal; I know I brushed my teeth because my toothbrush was wet, but I don’t recall the sensation of foaming toothpaste on my tongue. My dad drove me to the dojo, but I can’t bring to mind passing any of the familiar landmarks. Still in this state of disillusionment, I entered the dojo focused on the singular purpose of passing the test.

We began the test by going through the katas one more time. Although it was never spoken aloud, both the students and the teachers understood that this was the warm-up for what was yet to come.

The next hour and a half felt as if they would never end. Imagine doing push-ups and sit-ups until every muscle in your body ached, every bone in your body creaked. Imagine running in place and jumping rope nonstop until your legs turned to jelly, your feet as leaden as bricks. Imagine gasping for air, trying to recover your breath, but every time you fill your lungs you might as well be inhaling gnats. Got the picture? Now raise each of those sensations to the tenth power, and then to the tenth power again, and then you might have just a glimpse of the physical strain that all candidates went through in the spirit exam.

Push-ups, sparring, speed kata, repeat. Push-ups, sparring, speed kata, repeat. Push-ups, sparring, speed kata, repeat. When I reached the end of my tether, the examiners decided to alternate between raising your arms out to the side to shoulder height and sitting in the horse stance, where you essentially spread your legs and bend your knees at ninety degrees, so that the plane between your thighs, calves, and floor looks like a box. This is normally a great quadriceps exercise…assuming that you’re not just about ready to keel over and die. And the arm exercise may not sound too bad, but try supporting them for a minute at a time in the empty air with nothing but your shoulders and core muscles. By that point my arms were so dead that it felt like lifting weights while suspended in water. For those of you who haven’t done so before, it’s virtually impossible.

Both senseis know that the arm exercise is more difficult with your eyes closed; so naturally, they told everyone to close their eyes. I have no idea what it makes it so challenging that way, but I could not give up then and there. So I closed my eyes, and prepared myself to accept the pain that I knew was yet to come.

It began as an ache, but quickly graduated into a state of near-anguish. However, the throbbing in my arms, coupled with the absence of visual input, led to a heightened awareness in all my other senses: suddenly, I could smell the iron-rich scent of blood clotting on my upper lip, the sweat drenching my uniform; I could feel not only the pain in my arms, but also my uniform sticking to my back, the texture of the rubber mat that I stood on; I could hear the examiners pacing around us, the panting and gasping of my fellow black belt candidates as they strained and pushed against their own physical limitations, the ticking of the clock that the examiners watched to determine when to call, “Stop! Now drop into horse stance!”

After forty-five minutes (or it could have been five) of this creatively devised torture, my sensei announced the words that all of us were longing to hear:

“That concludes today’s black belt examination.”

No, we did not burst out cheering. No, I did not walk off the floor in the quintessential Rocky pose, arms raised in triumph. No, we did not jump up and down hugging each other. Yes, we gave each other tired, exhausted smiles. Yes, we oozed/crawled off the floor and into the changing rooms. Yes, we went home, and probably slept until dinnertime. But as I left, I caught my sensei’s eye, and saw him beaming with pride.

The next morning, I woke up, and literally was so sore that I couldn’t even roll out of bed. I couldn’t sit up, couldn’t even raise my arms to stretch in as I yawned. When I yawned, I gasped; I couldn’t even take a deep breath without feeling the pain in my abdominals. So I resigned myself to lying in bed for the day.

As I lay there, I thought about what I had accomplished in the past two days, in the past year, in the past seven years. Sure, I was confident that I had passed the black belt exam. But what is a black belt? In essence, it’s just a piece of cloth. The meaning behind it is much more important. Yes, it does indicate a mastery of karate, but as with other aspects of martial arts, there’s a deeper meaning. It demonstrates an understanding of purpose; it signifies dedication, commitment, determination; it symbolizes an attitude of refusing to go down without a fight. The piece of cloth is unimportant, but the person who wears it is a formidable opponent in any situation. A martial arts apparel company summed it up best:

“Don’t fear the black belt; fear the one who earned it.”

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