Becoming a black belt wasn’t originally my intention when I started taking martial arts here. I’m not entirely sure what my intention was. But I hadn’t thought that far ahead at the time. I simply wanted to learn as much as possible. And, of course, once I started I was hooked. That decision, changed quite a lot.
If you ask my family about how martial arts has been good for me, the first thing they will say is confidence. As I learned more, understood more, I stopped being the small, shy person I had become. I felt more like myself, like the me I was to myself. And I was able to share that with others through martial arts.
“Black Belt” is for many people, a destination. They look forward to the goal, and once it has been achieved the journey is over. But I never really saw it that way. The term “black belt” denotes all the work I have put in to not only my martial arts, but also myself. How I have grown and changed and become a –hopefully–better person and artist. It also is a representation of the person I still want to be, the person I wake up and decide to be each day. Because if I deserve the title of black belt, then I have to continue to earn it over and over again.