You Were Your First Student

Today, I had the honor and privilege to be evaluated for the next step, at the endorsement of so many in support of this journey in the martial arts. It was a culmination and testament of our work as students and teachers in the Art of Tang Soo Do, as well as the many unprecedented challenges of these strange times and circumstances. I tested alone in a room, but when this uniform is on, there’s no alone. I rediscovered today when and from whom each artifact of my training came from. Each mechanic had an origin beyond me, each, with permission to make my own, and all of these old conversations starting pushing out the nerves and feeding me energy. There was vacancy in the dojang, but it’s the same floor I teach and learned on, and felt the presence of every student and instructor who’ve ever stepped foot here, and that was unique and special. Every moment of these 23 years of training has been an assessment of character, always has, by those who’ve pushed me forward, and most importantly by myself, and I get that now. The day I remember walking shyly onto the North Athletic Club floor in State College, a timid 13-yr old, nervous and anxious in life, in school, in my own skin. I remember so badly wanting to do something about it. We are, and always will be, our first student.

My teacher, Master

Scott Merrill

(thank you sir) constantly reminds me, “Be who you are.” That can be the most difficult thing in our busy, distracted lives, but there’s no peace in being anything otherwise. That’s the real, true bottom line, the big lesson I'm crossing this threshold with. Tang Soo Do’s ultimate goal is to 'be one with nature,' and can prove to be a lofty and nebulous enterprise, but in recent years, it started taking shape for me. We often look outward, around, projecting and superimposing ourselves on our multitude of environments and the rules of the world in struggle, and forget to trust the nature within. I began to interpret that goal as accepting one’s own humanity to be whole, regardless of all the broken ways you may be or see yourself. Social media is a strange landscape that may or may not be appropriate for this personal reflection, but I know there are individuals out there who this might resonate with, both martial art practitioners and non, alike. Because I learned this through you, with you, in, and beyond the dojang.

This was an amazing way to celebrate the first anniversary of

Summit Mist Martial Arts

. A special thanks to Master

Roy Uttech

for his encouragement and crucial guidance through this year’s sessions, for Master

Becky Wolverton

for her continued mentorship and endorsement, and of course Master Susan Strohm for her continued lessons on life and instructorship. Thank you Kwan Chang Nim

Strong

for the opportunity to demonstrate for you who I am as a student, and who I still strive to be as a teacher of this art.

Soo!

The Price of the Plague

The string of doomsday movies on Netflix serve as a foreshadowing of an event we never thought we would live through: the world on its knees, bowing once again to the wrath of nature.  As business slowed instantly, and workers sauntered out of the Hobart Building with boxes of work to take home during a forecast quarantine, I felt a chill in the air.

Covid-19 [Coronovirus 2019] has hit the Bay Area, bringing the city to the decision to stop business and halt life as we know it, in order to keep this new menace at bay and reach some sort of damage control.

Words can't express the what-ifs that drift into my head, the focus of which goes to the top.  We had warning signs, we had statistics, we had science, and it was ignored by the person [people] who had the power to do something about it.  After such a terrible year and an already morbid perspective on the leadership of the free world, I can't help but reflect on the light at the end of the tunnels I was already careening through; the fires I tried to put out for the better part of two years were beginning to be quelled, and both the political and natural world stepped in to simply say, no.

And all I see as we move into a quiet, unsettling and uncertain new normal, is just how distant I am getting from the people that taught me that a man like THAT should NEVER be someone you look up to.  At at time when a support system is not something to take for granted.

Strange also to stumble in the ER for the first time in a very long time in the middle of a pandemic.  But it was quiet.  Clean. Pleasant.  Except for the birthing pains emanating from my insides as I suffered from my first case of kidney stones, a humbling reminder to take care of myself and that there's always time to slow down and watch my health.  Worst pain in life EVER and been up all night.

Welcome thee, to another apocalypse.  I wish the best for everyone, and I wish that the freefall I'm enduring didn't deter me so much from being an important kind of help to someone else.

I miss being able to do that.

Cider

And then there was Cider.  A little baby frenchie we often puppsat, who now calls our home, his.  We couldn't be happier.  He's an absolute gentleman, explorer, sweetheart and cuddler...

...and he's going to be responsible for tempering a lot of me.  Which I know I need.

Woven In the Fabric

It's strange calling it a white uniform, when it is clearly stained and denatured to such off a white.

But every time I make these creases, every fold and bind, the lessons come flooding back in.  The ones that hurt, the ones that helped me put myself back together, the ones I missed, the ones I wish I could teach, the ones that changed my life.  Even reminds me of the ones that I may never learn.  I’m so desperate to pass all that on and mirror that as a teacher, but this art is meant to be experiential and not rote, most ESPECIALLY in a world that is no longer familiar with the practice of barefoot and unarmed combat.  That’s the beauty and the reality of the practice: that in the meticulously shaped and synchronized swing of arm and thrust of leg, there are a thousand worlds being explored.

A dream I didn't know I had, but really always had, came to pass today.  And I wish to god that it didn't come at the end of such an ordeal, a separation anxiety from a decade of real work and denial of need, from being neglected and taken for granted in the trenches of teaching the next generation.

My favorite teachers, and the ones I try to emulate, are the ones enlightened in understanding that they didn't have the answers to everything, and had the humility to admit that to their students with an honest and self-self-depracating sense of humor.  They were curious, investigative, communicative, and humble.  They knew how to teach because they knew how to keep learning.

The teachers we become fundamentally stem from the students always we strive to be.  Here's to the hope that I can live up to my own expectations, put away the past and become something better.

Earth-Shattering Revelation: Don't be surprised by your students' success and constantly exalt them in that.  Expect achievement and make accolades commonplace.

Honestly

2019 left me physically and emotionally drained. I've had to wear a lot of hats and not any of them particularly well, I don't think. The one that I've struggled most to keep on at my (quite unstable) core is the one labeled 'artist,' which serves to center me and still drives much of my thought and action.

An artist's life is one of pure, unapologetic passion. A thing, whether a message or a feeling, burns from within to manifest in some hopefully tangible, meaningful and always HONEST way. The only thing we must apologize for is that not everyone gets to have a voice so free, so loud. I've unleashed that voice this past year; many honest, uncomfortable conversations navigated a difficult 365 days, but offered the benefit of real solutions to problems seemingly beyond control. Many defeats, and much acceptance of both change, and tragic lack thereof, alike in the fallout. But all honest.

In this new year, new decade, let's step fully into our interactions and speak up, free of the rehearsals we often have in our heads, especially in the digital age, with tendency to edit, delete and delay. Be fearless and curious, debate, explore conflict, understand alternative viewpoints by having them (and accepting they exist for a reason) in every arena of life, and not silencing them. Many are mouthing off about our freedoms in limited, self-serving ways. The obscene twisting of their interpretations from every side has been rampant and a shameful, toxic betrayal to all who have fought for them, regardless the arena in which it may have been fought for (battlefield or not). But all's not beyond repair. 

Having a free voice means two very important things: speak (draw, paint, sing, act, move, love) wholly and HONESTLY for everything you're worth and everything you understand to be true and right. And then, more importantly, LISTEN.

Thank you for LISTENING (or more accurately, reading). Happy New Year, and yes, to many in this world, "yet another revolution around the sun", is an important unit of measure for another set of chances at doing all this better; some need that structure to operate: a green light, a form of subconscious permission. Let them have that. Whether or not that means anything to the rest, does not make today (or tomorrow or the next day) any less of an opportunity for anyone to do just that.

Earth-Shattering Revelation:  There is no levity in knowing.  There is just the burden of truth.