It’s Never Too Late – A Martial Arts Journey

Thirty-two years; that is how long it took me to enter my first martial arts tournament.  Now, there are plenty of people who enjoy long fulfilling lives in the martial arts and never once enter a tournament or complete, especially outside of their studio.  Where this became an issue for me is that my fear of competition stopped my training outright for many years.  The kicker was that I WANTED to compete; more to the point…I wanted to win!  It was this desire that blinded me to the true point of martial training, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’ve heard other people describe their study of the martial arts as a journey.  Well, mine started out more like a rusted out, ill maintained tilt-a-whirl run by a narcoleptic carny.  In other words, chaotic and doomed to bring disappointment with no shortage of whining and tears.  Growing up I had always been fascinated with the martial arts.  There was a power in every kick and a beauty in the punches that would fill my days with movies, video games, and even lunchboxes celebrating these ancient arts.  Heck, I basically worshipped a gang of anthropomorphic ninja amphibians that were all named after long dead artists.  What all of this meant is that my concept of what a martial artist was included: beating up bad guys that picked on others, rescuing a bevy of distressed heroines from evil Kung Fu masters, and walking into any competition and beating the daylights out of the opponent.  At eight or so years old, this all made perfect sense.  So, when the time came, I worked up my resolve to ask my parents, for the sake of the nation and humanity (if I were to believe the films), to sign me up for Karate.

Considering my attitude going into my first Kenpo Karate class based out of a local YMCA, there was a zero percent chance that I would live up to my own expectations; they were misguided and completely missed the point!  Both of my parents had told me that taking these classes was going to be a lot of hard work and would require dedication and study.  I patronizingly smiled knowing full well that I had to be a natural and this would come easy to me.  Looking back now it is a wonder that someone didn’t drop me during our first sparring session just to shut me up.  This happened during the third session.  Even the black eye that I walked away with from that opportunity to mend my ways did not discourage me though.  Didn’t Jean Claude Van Damme get beaten up during the last fight of his movies only to dig down and tap into the power of martial arts to defeat the enemy?  What really started to deflate my dreams was the fact that over the course of the next year my peers were all improving and advancing much faster than I was.  Their movements were quicker, harder, and much more elegant than my own despite us (somehow) being the same belt rank.  I was being left behind.

As this realization hit me our instructor told us about a tournament that was coming up and he encouraged us all to participate.  Finally, it was my time to dig down and really show them what I could do, have my own Van Damme moment and emerge victorious.  Instead of having my training montage moment of preparing for the tournament at record speed I continued to plateau.  Not once did it occur to my young mind that I might be doing something wrong.  No, it had to be that the instructor didn’t like me, or my allergies were acting up, or something similar.  The truth was so much simpler; I didn’t practice…ever.  What my peers understood, and I wasn’t able to fathom, was that martial arts is only as good as what you put into it.  It was a curiosity to me, but I had made myself unteachable because I still had the attitude that I was naturally gifted and didn’t need to grind to improve.

As time marched ever onward and the tournament approached it became clear to me that I was not ready.  All of the confidence and bravado that I had starting out crumbled to dust and I was left with fear.  It wasn’t a fear of getting hurt during sparring or of embarrassing myself during my kata demonstration.  It was the fear of failure, of having to admit that perhaps I was not the prodigy that I had thought.  Something had to be done, and the quickest way to avoid failure at the tournament was to back out and quit my classes all together in order to avoid acknowledging that I wasn’t ready.  At first this did not feel like failure to me since I had made up countless excuses as to why I quit, but over the years this cloud has followed me.  Always wondering what if I had kept at it and actually put in the effort needed.

Fast forward to 2023, and I’m sitting at the Alliance Tournament in Londonderry, New Hampshire.  My son is competing in open-hand forms displaying skills that he had been developing for four years.  Cheering him, and others from the studio, will always be one of my favorite memories but I was becoming distracted as the day wore on.  I enjoyed watching the beginners practicing their art with a dedication that I simply did not have at their age.  Also, I watched a number of under-belts that were at least my age (and in some cases much older) competing.  It took me a while to understand what I was feeling…jealousy.  I was jealous that they were out doing something that I had convinced myself that I could not do.  That jealously raised a question in my mind; why couldn’t I do it?  There was honestly nothing stopping me.  It was that night that I told my wife that I wanted to start taking classes.  I fully expected her support (which she gives freely and frequently) but I was not expecting to see relief on her face.  Apparently, buddy week at the studio was the following week and she had already talked to a friend of mine that was in the Kickboxing class to take me, which he readily agreed to.  Thus began my training in earnest with a much different mindset than my previous attempt.

I am not going to lie, this part of the journey (as I now see it) has not been graceful or easy.  I remember those first few classes where I honestly thought I was going to throw up from not regulating my pace or breathing properly.  To this day I am one of those people that leaves a body print, like some sort of sweaty Wile E. Coyote, on the mats after warm up.  Even in these moments being in the class makes me smile because THIS time I am giving it my all.  I’m no longer trying to prove myself to the world, leave that to the magic of Hollywood.  Now I’m just trying to impress myself, to enjoy pushing my body as far as I can and then surpassing that level later.  I now love the journey and knew that there was one major hurdle still to come.  If I was to be true to myself, I would need to compete.

Movies are very entertaining but certainly do not paint a picture of what I now consider a successful tournament.  There were no grand ring entrances or tiki torch lit combat arenas.  What there was, though, was a huge community of people crowded into a high school gymnasium all cheering each other on and celebrating the martial journey that we were all on together.  This event was extra special to me because not only was I competing but so was my son (now a recommended black belt) and my wife.  It was amazing beyond believe to be able to truly share in the excitement of the day with my family.  Certainly, it also doesn’t hurt that we all did well in our events despite me getting a gouge in my shin and a set of bruised ribs from the same “buddy” that brought me to my first class.  Despite being terrified of competing I felt ready this time, and proved to myself that I could do it.  Forget saving the world with jump kicks like my idols of old, the martial journey is my motivation now, and I can’t wait to see where it will take me.