Yesterday, my school had it's first Black Belt ceremony, which ended two days of testing. Of course, I consider this to be a special milestone for me, since these two students are NOW the beginning of my martial arts FAMILY TREE.
As I sit here thinking about the past few days, I can't help but think about the effect Coach Tom and the UBBT and The 100 have had on me and how it was reflected in this weekend.
The students that tested this weekend, moved out of state over a year ago and now live an hour outside of Washington DC. Their training the last 12 months has been a combination of a few hours of training at my dojo every few months, combined with lots of skype training. Certainly not ideal, but these were two very devoted students who had the discipline to train on their own.
I had been thinking about this test and how I wanted it to be different from what I had experienced in the past. I also wanted it to be a reflection of the work I do with my school and in the community. Lastly, I wanted to highlight certain interests that I knew these students had.
Day 1
I have always referred to this day as the physical challenge portion of their test. Since they arrived earlier in the week to help teach with classes and get some additional training in, I could see they were in pretty good shape. So in the spirit of the UBBT, I created a special day just for them.
Volunteered at food pantry
First thing in the morning we arrived at Sharing God's Love, a local food pantry that serves 6,000 people during the course of the year. We helped fill orders for clients as they were processed through the pantry, helped load food into their cars, we sorted through clothing dropped off, helped prepare items for an upcoming tag sale, as well as sorted through food stuffs as they were donated from local stores or churches. Nearly everyone associated with this pantry volunteers. They were such a compassionate and inspiring group of people.
Hiked in State Forest
3 hours later, we headed to the local state forest and hiked 6 miles. During the hike, we did several push ups, practiced doing kicks on fallen trees and I even had my students do a couple of kata's on dead tree stumps. Hiking also gave us the time to look at different plants and trees, we saw a deer and we talked about the environment. Of course, I couldn't help myself, and brought up the discussion about Julia Butterfly Hill and the "Legacy of Luna" and wanted to know what their TREE was?
After a quick lunch we headed to downtown Columbia.
Homeless
Next on our list was to deliver water and socks to Columbia's homeless. We have a growing homeless population as the economy has worsened, but due to the cooler tempatures, we didn't have any luck finding them in all the usual spots that they normally hang out during the day. So we headed over to Oliver Gospel Mission, which provides shelter and drug treatment for men. It has been in operation for over 100 years and they gladly took our water and socks and shared with us the work that they do.
Organic Farm
Our last stop was at a local Columbia organic farm called City Roots. This is the only urban farm that I am aware of in downtown Columbia that is organic. While it only covers 3 acres, they are doing some great work and producing quite a bit of food. They showed us their worm composts, their hydroponic gardens and their fish pond, where they are organically raising Tillapea fish. They use NO pesticides and the fertilizer they use is all natural (from the worm composts). We got a great education on sustainable organic farming.
So, we started our day at 9am in the morning and finished by 6:30pm. It really was a great day for me and both of my students. And while it didn't center exclusively on physical training, we got lots of exercise in.
Day 2
This was test day, which included all key components on self defense, basics, sparring, kata and weapons. Really, the only thing different to my test is I included many of the striking drills that we practiced in Alabama this year.
Ceremony
We ended with a candlelight ceremony similar to one I had experienced with my first instructor. Of course, students and family members who were in attendance were are part of the ceremony, and we had the younger students provide a demonstration for the parents which went really well. We ended the night with a pot luck supper.
A new family tree begins in the spirit of the UBBT and The 100.
Sweet!
"Adversity tests us from time to time and it is inevitable that this testing continues during life." Walter Annenberg
This blog post is a part of The Ultimate Black Belt Test (ultimateblackbelttest.com), an undertaking of The 100 (the100.us), and a part of Samurai Karate Studio (samuraikaratestudio.net).
Like many people, I once believed in the safety of RoundUp. Back in the 1980s when I was a young graduate student in ecology, it was the “safe” herbicide of choice for clearing weeds from study plots.
