The Challenge is that as a 52 year old martial arts practitioner I am being called upon to do a black belt test in the near future where the test will be anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. Here is the dilemma: the average 52 year old is not usually fighting fit to do a 5 hour event of anything involving physical exercise. One of the last black belt tests administered in my school, from what I understand, went approximately 5 hours. So, that leaves me with a plethora of thoughts running through my head about how to approach this challenge.
First, one can be fit, yet not be conditioned to perform in a sport or given event, given their training. There are a lot of people my age who are fit. But, being fit does not constitute near enough training to be able to pull this off. I have a pretty good working knowledge of my art, and my body is familiar with all the moves. But familiarity and average training do not come nearly close enough to the training that is required for what I am about to try to do.
I was explaining to a friend of mine that I have to actually try to roll back the clock with my training to bring my body back to a level where I can last for 2 or 3 hours with a high level of intensity. It is like being an elite athlete when performing a test. You can take chances, and you have to be able to perform at a high level. Excellence is demanded, which is fine. It is part of attaining such an honored rank. However, the greater challenge, at this point, is getting a body that has been out of "elite" mode for some time and get myself conditioned to take the punishment that will be coming. There are multiple levels of conditioning that have to be considered, things that I did not even worry about when I tested for 3rd degree brown at 25. I was an active track and field athlete then and had youth on my side. Now I have more experience, but the physical conditioning will need to compensate for my lack of youth. Ugh. It is a challenge.
I embrace it as a process. I look at it as part of the journey. I try to analyze and plan the training so it can fit my new self. What do I have to do to pull this off? Well, it is a lot. First, my general lifestyle is this: I have a family that I support; I am 52, not 25; I work full time as a teacher and extra hours as an athletics coach; I have no more than a 2 hour window each day to fit in whatever training (mental and physical) that I need to continue making progress towards my goal; and I have general physical aches and conditions that must be monitored in order to safely and effectively training without interruption. It is a lot to handle. Planning is key and discipline is 100% necessary if I am to be successful at this point.
I have to be in bed by 9:30 pm, roughly, and I must wake up around 4 am to 5 am each day so I can fit in whatever I need to. It's like when I was back in college and training as a division 2 athlete for track and field. The schedule was different, but the discipline was needed all the same. You can't play around with something like this. I did a quick search on statistics. The answers were somewhat anecdotal, but they help demonstrate a point. I was once reading (with respect to college sports), that less than 5% of high school athletes ever go on to play any level of college sports. In researching about how many people who start a martial art and go on to achieve a black belt the estimated percentage was between 1%-6%. very similar numbers. I guess my point being is this, to achieve this level, you must be prepared and you must be disciplined. The knowledge and the learning of the way of martial arts is a journey that you must find joy in. However, the push to the "top" is not easy. The one thing that has helped me is that I embraced the fact that there is no "end point" in martial arts where you are done. You either embrace the way and the training, or you don't do it. I guess, for me, the intensity has to increase for a time, but the journey is worth it. It is like life. It is changing and evolving, but if you are able to grow with the art, then it becomes easier to understand.
Continuing the Training
In a continuation of what I started writing from before, I decided to add to my entry. It is August 24, 2023. I continue the journey of training. There are distractions, to be sure, but my path continues to be consistent, which is what I need. This Thursday is a strategic day of rest. The personal trainer in me tells me I need one day off to let myself recover just a bit. The martial artist in me says to push on and ignore any need for rest. I am not sure which is better at this point, considering the goal, but I listen to my body's need for recovery more than the imagined immortal warrior yelling at me to train on, no matter what, even if it hurts or does not make sense. I suppose there is a place for strategy, since Sun Tzu was made famous for his musings on various strategies.
As a side note, in actuality, earlier this week I was in a fair amount of pain and stiffness from the other day of training and I trained through all of those days. So, if anything, I did push through, but in principle, the body does need to rest in order to recover and push harder. It is a matter of science and common sense at this point in the 21st century.
However, there is no amount of science and common sense that make training for this any easier mentally. The chore is real. The mental and physical battle with myself is real, because life is full obstacles and this on stands in front of me and requires overcoming. I know, no matter the level of difficulty, it will be a valuable achievement to persevere with. We cannot learn without challenging ourselves. It is in the difficult moments that we learn what we are able to do, because those are moments of learning. In one way or another, it is a moment of learning. Every moment is a moment of learning, but especially when times are difficult.
I am partially inspired by our track and field athletes at the world championships. They persist in the most difficult conditions, with the most challenging competitions, and find what they can do. For, in this way and on this journey, I find myself on a similar path. It is not a world championship, but I am testing the limits of my physical ability, and trying to find solutions to obstacles that stand in my way of reaching my goal. I must train daily, and train with a plan, so I can be successful. I must remain undaunted by what I face so I do not fail. In that way, sports and martial arts mirror life. We all must persevere, and we all have challenges, we all must remain vigilant and have a plan to help us find success - however that may look or consist of. It is a mirror for what we face in life.
September 30, 2023
More than a month later, I have been able to continue the training. That, in itself, is a major hurdle that I was able to overcome. Working full time as a coach and teacher, it is hard to find time to train, and I was able to do it. It is a process on a road where travel is measured in feet and inches, not miles or kilometers.
Part of the journey for me is knowing my priorities. First, I must sleep enough, so I can function each day. That is a must. Second, is eat correctly and monitor health. Without those two things, everything can fall apart quickly. Third, understand when I can fit things in. I try to train 3-5 days per week, depending on the home and work schedule. Home and work are not exactly routine schedules every day. Things shift. When things shift, I find having flexibility is the greatest ally. As long as I can keep the 3-5 days per week in of training, I feel that I am on track. Fourth, I recognize my big blocks of time are on weekends, so 2 of the training days come there, that means 1-3 days during the week are trained the same days I work.
Martial arts is a lifestyle, and a way of life, so I find where it fits in and make it happen. There is certainly nothing easy about it. There is nothing glamorous about it either. I wake up at 4 am a lot of the time so I can fit in 30-60 minutes of training, before I run off to a crazy day at work. I don't have the luxury of training with my classmates on a regular basis because I live 3 hours away from my instructor's school. Often times it is lonely and cold, or I am stiff and trying to overcome the least efficient hour of the day to train so I can burn in some material in a way that I can become more efficient with it. I fit it in where I can. If I were to make a video, I would try to make it pretty and glamorous and show only the interesting and relevant side of training, but most views who look at social media want music video stuff that lasts about 60 seconds before they move on to the next clip of whatever they find interesting. With any hope, maybe you snag a couple of followers who may or may not come study with you and help you build your list of students or your school. But it is not about that. If you do what you do, make it a part of your life, eventually you find people who recognize what you do as real and worthwhile and they eventually follow along for the ride. That is when you can share your skills and knowledge that you have spent years developing.
It is what you do in private, in the dark of night or the chill of the morning, that makes the biggest difference. What you do in public or post to social media is entertainment version of what is done. I have a few people who have followed me for years that understand it is a way of life and want that to be something for them. It is for those few people, myself, and my family, and my brothers and sisters I have trained with that I do this. After so many years, there is no way I stop. As I sit here now, I can feel certain aches and stiffness from it just being morning and knowing that I have to go through a process to prepare myself just to train so I can perform my martial arts practice with a certain level of fluency. However, I embrace the process and journey because I recognize it is a way of life. I sensed it was a way of life years ago when I first started. Now I embrace it and make it my own. I want to share it with my friends, family, and the world because I think the study of martial arts is a physical and academic endeavor that can make us all better and I hope to inspire maybe just a few people to do the same, or inspire them and maybe they take a different path, but it is still worth sharing and trying to inspire others.
