Belt in hand: A bittersweet journey

On Monday evening, I received my black belt in taekwondo in a small private ceremony. It was the culmination of nearly 3 years of hard work and skill building. Ms. P removed my red belt and as I held it in my left hand and she tied on the black belt with my name embroidered on it, she spoke to me of the significance of the moment. In many ways it was just like getting any other belt, except for instead of doing it in public out on the dojang's main floor, she took us upstairs to the office, because now we had entered a special community, a community of black belts. She explained that even if we moved away and continued to study taekwondo elsewhere that we would always be connected to JHK because this would always be our first house, our point of entry into the world of martial arts.

This made me really think about what this experience has meant to me. I started taekwondo on a whim. I just walked into the dojang one day out of curiosity, and that's when I met Ms. P. She is a high pressure sales person, so by the time I was walking out, I had already made a commitment to try it. The first private lessons were awkward. I didn't know how to block and I had to unlearn the punches I'd used for boxing. My stances were weak and everything was so new. Slowly I began to figure it out. My kicks became more powerful. My blocks and punches seemed more natural. And then I was getting my first color belts and learning about forms and starting to spar.

There were times when I was sick of it. There were times when I was tired and lethargic and only wanted to go home, but still I had made this commitment and I wanted to see it through. And there were other times when I couldn't wait to train because I had figured out how to do take downs or I had landed a turning side kick during sparring and I wanted to see if I could do it consistently. And then there were times when I got upset, like the time I sparred a person several belts higher than me and he kicked me so hard he literally knocked the wind out of me. Or the time a black belt punched me in the face during light sparring (which should be no contact to the head). But good or bad, I stuck with it.

Then there was the waiting. I moved pretty quickly through my first belts, so it was frustrating when I got higher up and needed to spend more time working on my techniques before testing. And then almost a year ago Ms. P told me I would soon be ready to test for my black belt. I was so excited. I started working even harder, but there was only one other person ready to test, and tests take place in groups, so we had to wait and wait and wait until other people were ready.

So I waited. And after several months, there were finally 5 other people ready to test. We were supposed to form our community, but it didn't really feel that way to me,I guess partly because many of the people I began taekwondo with had either quit, already tested for their black belts or wouldn't be ready to test until the next round. Some people had work out buddies, but mostly I felt like I was on my own.

The test was scheduled right after my 30th birthday, which I spent in Ghana, so I had to practice my forms while I was there. And I spent that last 2 weeks before my test training on my own. The day of the test arrived and I was jet lagged and felt like shit. But I was there and I did the best I could. The test was video taped and sent to Grand Master K in Korea. Then came the real waiting period. No one ever really talks about the waiting. Ms. P had mentioned that there was an extent of time between the test and receiving a belt during which time we would receive feedback and have the opportunity to polish our skills. And this is what I did. I came in at least 4 times a week sometimes more and worked on my wheel kick, full range sparring, and my turning side kick. But not everyone in my group came in and as a result two months came and went and still we had heard nothing about our belts.

I knew I wasn't supposed to ask, but it seemed like such a long time. I finally did ask and my suspicions were confirmed, the belts were waiting on us because not all of us were ready. We had tested as a group and we would pass as a group when we were all ready. Living in Japan for two years has given me some perspective on what it means to be a part of a group, but being an American has given me a lifetime of pre-conditioning to be an individual and to expect that my accomplishments will be based on my individual actions and performance.

There are several tenants are important at my school. Improvement of Mind and Body, Ethical Self Conduct, and Commitment to Community. When you first walk in you will notice there are words hung next to the Korean flag...they say Courtesy, Community, Perseverance, Indomitable Spirit, and Ethical Self Conduct. During the final steps of my journey, I lost sight of community and ethical self conduct. When Ms. P asked me to talk to some of my fellow group members to encourage them to put the work in,. I did, but I didn't say what she expected me to. I didn't tell them I missed working out with them, or that they should maybe come in, I told them they were holding up my belt process and that it wasn't fair to me. Which is true...though, admittedly not the nicest way I could have approached it. As you can imagine, this message was poorly received. And I got called in for another difficult conversation with Ms. P about community and being a part of group. In the end, I chose to apologize, not for what I said (because it was true), but for how I said it, and I returned to my waiting period with a renewed vow to improve my wheel kick and to practice patience.

Not all of my group mates chose to come in, but I realized that I didn't have any control over their actions, only my own and the best thing I could do was to work on the feedback grandmaster K had given me. So I did and I was at the dojang almost everyday. Then last Friday, I was invited to a halloween party with the girl I mentor. I would still be able to get to the dojang in time for full range sparring, but I would miss my forms class (Friday nights I like to do 2 hours). I didn't think anything of it until I got a call from my friend asking me where I was. She seemed upset when I answered and I didn't understand why. That's when she explained that this was the night I was supposed to be awarded my black belt. No one had told me.

Apparently an email had been sent out, but I never got it and even though I was there everyday, no one mentioned it to me. I arrived an hour later for sparring, just like I had planned, and saw three of the people in my group wearing their black belts. I congratulated them of course, because I was happy for them, but I was beyond pissed to have been excluded from my own ceremony. Ironic huh? That my belt would have been delayed for months because of community, and yet "the community" couldn't wait the hour it would have taken me to get to the dojang, in order for us to receive our belts at the same time. I was so disappointed. Ms. P apologized, but it wasn't a real apology. She said it wouldn't have been fair to make the others wait, when they had taken off work or arranged for their families to be there. But from my perspective it wasn't fair to make me wait for months to test and then months more after the test and then not give me the opportunity to be present at my own ceremony. Everything felt tainted.

Then I realized that one of my group members was still wearing a red belt, even though she had clearly been there in time to take part in the ceremony. It turns out, she did not pass her test. It was the first time at our school that someone had tested for black belt and not gotten it...you aren't asked to test unless they think you are ready and I realized that this was what the extra waiting was all about. Ms. P was trying to give her the opportunity to make the improvements necessary to receive her belt with the rest of us... then I felt so selfish. It's not any easy thing to test for a belt. It's nerve wracking, but harder still is the idea of not receiving it. It hadn't even occurred to me that anything like this would happen. If I had known, I would have been willing to wait longer, to spare her some embarrassment, but I didn't know. And it made me think about communication and empathy and all the things it takes to really create a community. It's not just enough to be in the same space with one another, you have to get to know one another. This isn't always something that occurs organically, but community is teachable. I spent a week this summer at a responsive classroom conference designed to teach teachers how to create communities out of their classrooms. And what I've realized is that some things are easier to explain than to live.

All weekend I really had to think hard about my next steps. Would I stay with my dojang even though I had felt supremely disrespected? How would it feel to get my belt when I still wanted to punch Ms. P in the face? Would it even be worth it to even go? I thought about not going to the ceremony intentionally this time, but then I realized, it's not about Ms. P or the dojang community. I worked for that belt. I put in a lot of time and money into it because I love it. I love training and fighting and feeling like as a black woman in an often hostile world, I have an arsenal of skills with which to defend myself. And despite my negative feelings towards Ms. P and her inability to take responsibility for her actions, I still recognize her as a good teacher, not just of taekwondo, but of many others things I've needed to learn in my life. I'm not ready to give up my school yet. And when I got my belt and we were escorted out into the dojang, there was an entire community of people waiting to congratulate and welcome me. It wasn't how I thought it would be, but it was still really amazing.

From the beginning I had thought that the belt would be the ending of something, a goal met, a graduation of sorts, but what I have learned it that this specific belt is a beginning. While we are taught to think of the black belt as a sign of mastery, the true symbolism of this belt is that I have mastered the basics. It is just like the white belt of black belts and now I set my sights on second dan...the yellow belt of black belts. I'm not sure whether or not I will achieve second dan at my current school, but I have decided to do want to continue, that I will pursue this goal.