A New Beginning - 2004
As someone who has practiced karate for 20 years it was a wonderful surprise to come to understand that I really knew nothing. All my training and sweat and frustration had only been for the glorification of this thing called "talent". Sure, having great talent can be wonderful but what is a great skill without the proper wisdom to wield it and use it for the benefit of others instead of the self.
In my heart I knew there was more to karate than good looking forms, punches and kicks. I always asked myself: "Can this performance and routine be it?". The moment my heart asked the question is the moment I began growing beyond the school I was learning from. Very slowly I began to come to terms with the feelings I had about my practice. What I learned throughout the years was indeed very valuable. However, after a certain point I felt I was stuck and no longer evolving my training.
This feeling of emptiness within my karatedo did not just spring out of nowhere one day but arose over a course of five to six years, slowly revealing itself to me. My lack of focus and spirit rooted from the inconsistencies I observed in those who called themselves my teachers. Their direction was no longer mine, their actions and words--while they may have been well intentioned--did not serve where it is I needed to go.
So on a hot summer day I made arrangements to speak with my former instructor to let him know my truth, however painful it was for him to hear. With the help and support of a close friend of mine I was finally able to confront my former instructor with these very feelings.
It seems obvious to me that when one reveals the truth about personal feelings to another and tells what is in his heart, there should be a certain level of acceptance, if you are loved for who you are. This alone should be enough. Alas with my former instructor it was not. My own need to grow beyond what was in front of me and ultimately change schools was taken as a slap in the face.
In the end I made arrangements to meet with all of the school's black belts and higher ranks so that I could speak my truth; which was simply this:
If I am unhappy where I find myself and am not growing and tapping into my fullest potential, then with love shall I depart and bless my experiences for what they have been and move on to that which calls to my heart.
I tried my best to explain but was met with resistance and consumed with feelings of spite and anger. I completely understand the pain of loss that my former school and instructor felt when I told him I was leaving and the anger and betrayal he feels from the situation. In his mind it was a stab in the back but for me to stay after my decision to leave would be living for someone else. This is my life and to obey and be loyal to someone despite your heart's desire to move on is a life lived in cowardice and misdirection. One should have clear goals and any movement hindering that process must be evaluated at the spiritual, mental and physical level.
I still love my former instructor and would have continued a relationship outside the karate school where it not for his sense of perception of things. As I have learned at my new place of training: "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change". I can put myself in my former instructor's shoes and actually see it his way--the disrespect, the abandonment, the pain, the anger, the frustration, the sense of time and effort wasted. That is why I understand his refusal to acknowledge me and know that his perspective is deeply rooted in the concepts of loyalty and sacrifice. Yet I also understand that there is a limit to how far loyalty and sacrifice can go in ones life until it has consumed your very identity. Past a certain threshold loyalty becomes abandonment of your soul and sacrifice a means by which that is possible. Of course if it is a road one willingly embraces then it is something different. But if the path is not of your choosing then moving on is the only way, for these are not the times of the Samurai and our culture is not realistically the same, nor should it try to be. The ethics of loyalty, obedience, respect, honor and practice should be carried on no doubt but it should be expressed in the traditions of the time and community where they find themselves.
Thus my journey has been one of tribulation but great things have come out of it making me stronger, happier and more secure of myself.
In my current place of practice there is a balance and depth of spirit I have been thirsting for. It is a place that is slowly bringing out the best in me. I am a teacher and a student most of all and look forward to each class. I am not judged and if my heart were called to move on and leave I would receive a hug on the way out. I am free to leave without being made to feel guilty and it is one of the biggest reasons I am happy there.
One of the most significant experiences I have had during my time at my new dojo has been wearing a plain and indistinguishable black belt with no markings. I was used to wearing a belt with the rank of a third degree but was humbled by wearing the former. At first I was a little uncomfortable wearing it, as my ego was the first to tell me that I was better and deserved more. I came to learn that a black belt rank is just a state of mind. Ranks are really illusions, which serve to give us a better awareness of where we are in our practice. They are good illusions that if taken too seriously can blind you on your path towards mastery. In the same breath I have learned that receiving a certain rank marks you with the power to change people's life.
I look forward to all the great and small lessons I will learn from and to the mistakes I will grow from. My karate has now become a way of being and my practice a way of healing.