The Quest for a Black Belt
by Aaron Kelly
Roughly 10 years ago–give or take a few–I began my journey in the art of Tang-Soo-Do. As a weak, unconfident little tyke who recently quit baseball because of his natural incompetence at it, I walked into Renovo’s fire hall on a Monday or Thursday evening at six o’clock, unsure but ready to see whether or not I could find my place in this new athletic community. Upon entering, I was told that it is traditional for new students to sit out for the first class, observing the goings-on within the “dojang” (the place of training) before stepping onto the green concrete floor to begin training themselves. So, along with my parents, I sat in one of the fire hall’s folding chairs in the back of the room watching the students go through many series’ of blocks, kicks, and punches. In my mind, I couldn’t help but think of Jackie Chan fighting a few evil ninjas off in spectacular fashion.
After the class came to a close, the instructor–Mr. John DeVaul–came over to my parents and me and gave us a few booklets and papers that described the different rules and regulations of the class, as well as the requirements for advancement through the belt ranks and definitions for a seemingly endless list of Korean terms that I had never heard before that day. I was told to take all of this home, and after careful consideration, come back ready to do my best on the green concrete floor of the Emerald Hose Company’s fire station. On our way home, my parents asked me what I thought and my desire to go back to class was self-evident in the massive amount of sheer excitement that was bursting from me. My father nodded his approval, but–along with my mother–warned that if I were to start this new athletic pursuit, I was to stick with it and not just give up like I had at baseball and who knows how many other activities before that. Without any hesitation, I agreed.
The next two or three days flew past in a blur and when the next day of class rolled around, I was there once again. This time, I was allowed to join the lines of students and go through the entire day’s training–my requirements at this point being only to pay attention and to do my absolute best. With some difficulty, I was able to make my way through the seemingly endless (and painful… and surely pitiful-to-watch) push-ups, full-body stretches, and jumping jacks to finally reach the time in which I would begin to actually learn all of the exciting techniques that drew me to the class in the first place. I stepped into line, and–ready to punch and kick my way straight to a black belt–promptly had all of the energy remaining in my body after the seemingly strenuous warm-ups snuffed out by the order to disregard technique and simply learn the ‘proper way to walk’ in Tang-Soo-Do. Confused, I watched as the senior members of the class and my instructor demonstrated a new way to walk and then tried my best to copy their movements. Looking back on this moment, it is obvious that the learning of how to walk as a martial artist was not only a practical lesson for me, as a new student, but a symbolic foreshadowing of the long, ‘one step at a time’ philosophy that would become the framework of my entire journey into Tang-Soo-Do.
By the time my first class was finished, I had already learned a few simple blocks and strikes and had been given my first homework assignment of practicing these techniques at home, on my own time, so that I would remember the movements for when the next class rolled around and I was asked to perform them once again. So, with the fervor (or lack of fervor) of any young child given a homework assignment, I went about practicing… albeit much less than I probably should have. Luckily for me: because I was young and new, I wasn’t expected to be great at what I had learned yet, so when it came time to show what I had practiced, my mediocre performance showed an adequate enough amount of practice and I was told to simply keep trying–in and out of class–and eventually things would come together for me.
At this point in my martial arts career–and indeed at the beginning phase of all who begin training in Tang-Soo-Do–I was expected only to watch and learn from the older students in class and not yet worry about refining my skills all that much. According to our tradition, a white belt is representative of ‘a seed that lies dormant beneath the winter snow’–allegorically meaning that there is no previous experience in beginning practitioners of Tang-Soo-Do, and only room for growth and improvement. As a side note, it was also noted to me at one point or another that a person wearing a white belt is potentially the most dangerous person on the dojang floor at any given moment. This was, apparently, due to the facts that they are often neither completely indebted to the study of their martial art–leaving room for messing around and the like–and that they have not yet worked on one of the most important martial arts training skills: control–the absence of which, I learned, often leaves one’s wary free-sparring opponents open to overzealous punches and kicks that may wind up unintentionally making painful contact with the aforementioned opponent (read now as “victim”). So, just as a seed begins its journey to maturity in planthood, I began my own journey to maturity in the realm of self-defense and personal growth.
From that point forward, attending ‘karate’ was a part of my routine. Although I can’t remember exactly how my schedule was for the first year or so of my training–that’s ancient history to me now–it ended up being something like this: every Monday and Thursday at around 5:45 PM, my dad and I would hop into his truck and ride down to the Renovo fire hall where we would wait patiently for Mr. DeVaul to arrive. At that point, my dad would leave me and return just before 7:30, when he would often times come inside the building and sit and watch the last few minutes of class. This frequently caused me to, in the closing moments of our lesson, become nervous and mess up whatever I was being asked to do (an effect that I only now realize should have been blamed on my own lack of confidence–not the presence of my father), although I never made a fuss about his presence because I was always just glad that he was around to support me at all–something that many young people, I notice, either take for granted or are never able to experience depending on their familial situation.
Regardless, when 7:30 finally rolled around, class would end and I would go home to begin another few days of freedom from the lessons that, in my mind, began turning into nothing more than annoying exercise once my dreams of becoming a ninja had dissipated. For the next few years, I was in a love-hate relationship with the mandatory athletic endeavor of my own choosing. There were times, as a young practitioner, that I didn’t have any desire to continue my training but was forced to stick to the schedule by my parents. The soreness that my muscles felt just didn’t seem worth what I was getting out of class, and I would often sit and pity myself by comparing my Monday and Thursday afternoon schedules to those of other kids who didn’t have to work their butts off during those endless hour-and-a-half sessions. Once or twice, I’ll admit, I even lied and feigned an illness to get out of going to ‘practice’ when I was desperate for a break.
And then there were the classes with Mr. Newton. While I don’t remember my first encounter with him at the front of class, it would be impossible to forget the fear that he was somehow able to strike into every young person in that room–me included–just by walking through the fire hall’s doors. While Mr. DeVaul rarely worked us to complete exhaustion, if Mr. Newton showed up, then we all knew that we were in for a rough evening. Looking back on it now, it seems odd that I could ever have disliked his presence at class- as over the years, my impression of him changed dramatically. That, however, will come later.
Now, despite the horrors of physical exertion and the previously mentioned jolly, white-bearded black belt, martial arts certainly weren’t all bad for me. There were times when I stepped inside of the dojang and couldn’t wait to get class started, as we were about to learn something new or play some sort of fun game. In addition, I was also self-aware enough to realize that practicing martial arts was, in fact, good for my entire well being, as I learned many skills that broke the constraints of mere usefulness on the karate practice floor. I learned to be disciplined, and to achieve focus whenever and wherever I needed it. I learned to think outside of the box, and to respect everyone. I learned about balance, human weaknesses, and a number of other things that helped me with sports and other such activities outside of karate. Occasionally, Mr. DeVaul would take time to tell us all some story that would relate to our martial arts development in some way, such as the one in which two angry karate masters decided to fight and met in a field for a one-on-one battle. When the battle began, neither karateka moved a muscle. Instead, they both stood right where they were–in fighter’s stances–with their gazes fixed on their opponent. For days and nights, the warriors stood ready to fight, but still neither of them moved. Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time had passed, one of the masters fell to the ground, dead due to exposure, leaving the other one as the victor. This story, while interesting and definitely full of wisdom, still meant less to me as a child than it does now–only after having gone through years and years of ‘slow but steady’ training have I finally been able to fully understand the true meaning of patience, as described in this story, first hand.
As I advanced through the belt ranks, things slowly began to change for me. The older that I grew and the more intricate that my training became, the more Tang-Soo-Do truly became an integral part of my life. My instructors and fellow classmates literally began feeling like family to me and by the time that I had earned my brown belt (the order of belts in our Tang-Soo-Do tradition is this: white, orange, green, brown, red, blue, black; with a white stripe on every belt except for white and blue), I had completely grown out of the moody, “This is pretty annoying.” phase and into a delighted, “This is really cool, and I can’t wait to learn more.” phase. Mr. Newton’s classes became exciting instead of terrifying, and I began to always look forward to my now-weekly training regimen. For years and years I worked harder than I ever had before and, while juggling practice time with a huge number of other things (football, drama club, girlfriend happiness maintenance), I was able to move forward through the green-brown belt plateau and reach a new realm of advanced techniques and cinder block breaking.
For some reason, my red belt test really left an impression on me. Led by the steely-eyed Master Walker, I was drilled as hard as ever and, by the end, I was completely exhausted. Puddles of sweat accumulated on the dojang floor and I felt slightly ill from nerves mixed with exertion from having pushed myself so hard in the free spar that I’d participated in during the test. Finally, Master Walker looked me straight in the eyes and–with his commanding ‘trademark’ voice and demeanor–interpreted my overly-intense performance by summing me up as a ‘bull in a China closet’. At this stage of my training, he said, I knew all required forms and techniques, but I certainly needed to focus on controlling my techniques and calming myself down when sparring and fighting. This was because, I understood from his subsequent lesson, my unintentional over-exertion and lack of practiced self-control (a set of problems that I’ve had since the beginning of my training) could potentially be the end of me or my enemies in a real fight that could be ended with less injury if only I would learn to control my techniques and physical effort better (one part of the symbolism of a red belt is its wearer’s mastery of ‘control’). I took all of what Master Walker said to heart and became determined to work on controlling myself before my next test–a test that ended with me coming out not with a white stripe on my red belt, but with an entirely new belt of blue.
Normally, in Tang-Soo-Do, it takes a competent student three or four years to earn their first ‘dan’–the first rank of a black belt. The Renovo dojang is different now, in that regard, from many other schools–including our semi-official ‘sister-school’ in Lock Haven–as the process of belt advancement is a much more arduous and time consuming process on the part of the student, here. By the time I reached my junior year in high school, it was generally accepted that I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel–I was en route to finally earning my long sought-after black belt before graduation. I had worked for quite some time and was getting so very close to the pinnacle of my martial arts achievement that my instructors and I made the obtainment of my black belt our main focus and goal. However, because of a series of unfortunate circumstances including a number of sports injuries and a bout of mononucleosis, my progress became stalled at the 3rd ‘gup’ (red belt) for much longer than expected and my schedule was majorly thrown off. Luckily, in special cases such as my own, students may receive permission to attempt to skip a rank in their belt tests if they properly prepare and show that they have all of the required knowledge to succeed at the higher level. I requested that I be allowed to do this and was permitted to test for my blue belt instead of my white stripe. In an interesting change-of-course, however, I needed to–because of time restraints–take my test at the Lock Haven YMCA with the students of Mrs. Sue Feathers’ Tang-Soo-Do class, with whom I became acquainted over the course of the preceding months during extra classes that I sometimes drove ‘down-the-road’ to take part in.
The test day came, I adapted to the foreign test procedures, and I ended up nailing it. I never felt more prepared for a martial arts test in my life and my confidence and overall preparedness showed through in my performance. Of course, I made a few mistakes throughout my physical exam, but I was right where I needed to be for everything else and I passed the test without any serious problems. Very soon after, I received my new belt and rank in a belt presentation ceremony at the Renovo dojang, after which my instructors, fellow classmate Charly Kepler (a 5th-grader with a green belt who is quite advanced in her Tang-Soo-Do abilities), and I stood around discussing our tests and what the future held for me as I entered the last leg of my high school career. The plan was still to try and get me my black belt before graduation, and it seemed possible, but yet again–my involvement in many school and community activities forced me to drop that goal and work towards achieving my black belt sometime in the summer before I left for college. So, ever since summer arrived, I have been working hard to prepare for this test and I now find myself with less than a week until that fateful evening arrives. On August 11th, I will attempt to prove myself worthy of the honor of being allowed to complete one 10-year journey and then begin a completely new, lifelong, one.
If I should pass this test, then becoming a black belt will be one of my life’s defining moments, as the belt itself would forever symbolize all of the personal lessons–not to mention the many self-defense skills–that I have learned throughout the course of my training in Tang-Soo-Do. Every day that I went to the Renovo fire hall to train and every day that I practiced something outside of class in my backyard, I learned or developed a skill that has not only made me a better martial artist, but also a better person in general. Ruminating on where I am in life right now made it obvious to me that without Tang-Soo-Do, I truly would not have become the ‘Aaron’ that I am today, as so much of my identity is based on the values and lessons that I learned in that training hall over the years. Of course, having a black belt would also dramatically increase my responsibilities to my martial arts family, and to the world as a whole–as a black belt is looked to for wisdom in uncertainty and for guidance in times of hardship. Should I pass my test and earn my black belt, then without hesitation I will gladly take up these responsibilities, as performing them will be my way of repaying the art of Tang-Soo-Do for the innumerable quantity of personal qualities that it has single-handedly formed within me.
Tang-Soo-Do developed out of numerous fighting styles dating back thousands of years and is a Korean martial art that is practiced all around the world. If you are interested in learning more about the art of Tang-Soo-Do, please feel free to stop in at the Renovo Dojang (Emerald Hose Company) any Thursday at 6 PM, or the Lock Haven Area YMCA any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday (inquire at the YMCA for more details).
