This column was written about seven years ago, and caused a bit of controversy for me. One person in particular didn't like it. You can guess who. But I have little tolerance for... well, read the article.
Z A N S H I N
By Dick Morgan
On Becoming a Brown Belt
A month ago, Grandmaster Garrison
asked me if I would be free to be on the judge’s panel of a Hapkido promotional
exam. There would be a student or two
testing for brown belt. Of course I said
yes, as those kind of questions are not really questions. When your teacher says, I’d like you to do
something, you rearrange your schedule to make that happen. That defines the teacher/student relationship. The teacher is really saying, “I think your
training will be enhanced by having this experience.” And it is the student’s job to obey. You must trust the teacher’s judgement no
matter what the request. If you can’t,
then you need to find another teacher.
Being a judge
is both informative and fascinating. I
get to observe my teacher in his most intense and critical mode. I get to watch students get physically
pounded and mentally squeezed past their own limitations. I get to see them firm up their intent and
rise to the challenge, determination blazing across their faces. This is what my teacher wants for all his
students. It’s what I want for my own.
So, when I
accepted, I asked him a favor. I had two
students who were almost ready to test for brown belt. I asked if they could be included in the
test. One of my students I considered
more ready to test; the other, I would encourage to watch. Grandmaster Garrison readily agreed.
At my next
class session, I took these two students aside and gave them this
information. I wanted one student to
test, and the other, who I considered
not quite ready, would watch the test.
The student who I asked to test replied, “I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t want to. I don’t think I’m going to test.”
I was very
surprised and puzzled by his response for a couple of reasons. First, it is not up to the student whether he
is ready for a certain test-- ready for any training experience, really. That is a teacher’s judgment. And second, it is a student’s duty to obey
the teacher. I told him to test, and he
basically said, “No.” How am I supposed
to remain his teacher then?
A few days
later, two days before the test, I shared this conversation with Grandmaster
Garrison after advanced practice. He
told me, “No is not an option for either of them. Have both of your students here on the mat,
in uniform, a half-hour before the test.”
I would not
see these two students before the test, as I had cancelled my own Hapkido class
in order to be present at Grandmaster Garrison’s test. I had to telephone them both the day before
the test. I couldn’t reach either of
them, so I left a couple of phone messages.
One got the message; the other didn’t.
The student
whom I considered ready to test was at my teacher’s dojang, on the mat and in
uniform by the time I arrived. He was
stretching out with the other testing candidates, looking pale and
nervous. The other student showed up just
before the test was to start without a uniform.
He had not been home nor checked his phone messages; he did not get the
information that Grandmaster Garrison wanted him on the mat. He had come to watch the test, which was the
last information he had received.
Grandmaster
Garrison told me to inform him that he was to be on the mat one way or another,
and handed me one of his own spare uniforms.
The only spare belt I could find was an old green belt, but I presented
these to my second student, told him to dress down, and to hurry. His eyebrow raised slightly, then he shrugged
and hurried off to the dressing room.
The long and
arduous test was run by one of our other black belts, an extremely athletic
young man who had been drilling the lower ranks in Hapkido basics for about a
year. Students were led through vigorous
sets of walking basics, forms, falling, one-step sparring, and Ho Shin Sul-- self defense techniques
involving grabs, throws, and take-downs.
My students performed alongside and with all the others, even though
they were not familiar with some of the techniques. It was clear that some of the techniques were
unfamiliar to all the students. At the
brown belt level, a student should begin to think strategically, and improvise
when necessary. How one deals with the
unknown is a major part of the mindset referred to as Warrior Mind.
My first
student’s performance—the student I had considered ready—steadily
worsened. He hesitated and faltered,
frowning and shaking his head. Halfway
through the test, I saw him at the edge of the mat, holding his head. He had apparently taken a blow to the back of
his head and was dizzy. He left the mat
and did not return. I left the judge’s
area to see how he was doing and examined his head. I could not find any area of injury,
swelling, or even tenderness.
My second
student—the one whom I had not considered ready—stayed on the mat. He could not do the techniques he had not
seen before, so he substituted techniques we had practiced in our class. He was awkward and nervous, but each time he
was thrown down, he jumped back up and entered into the action with renewed
vigor. He never gave up, even after I
saw him shake the pain out of his wrist after a wrist throw. He totally blew his form, but he began again
and moved slower, deliberately forcing himself to remember each step. And he finished.
During the
execution of one technique, this student lost his balance and was quickly
countered by his opponent; I closed my eyes in embarrassment for my
student. Grandmaster Garrison must have
seen me wince. He said, “Your student is
having a good test.” I said, “He looks
terrible!” Grandmaster Garrison replied,
“Oh, that’s just technique. You can help
him with that. But when he gets thrown
down he keeps getting up quickly, and he’s not giving an inch. He’s determined to see it through. You can’t teach determination. They have to muster that on their own. The
whole point of Hapkido is to find that intent. He’s having a fine test. Promote him to brown belt if you want; he’s
already got the mindset. You can improve
his techniques over time. But the other
one-- he will never understand the techniques until he toughens up his
mind. You should not promote him.”
When I held my
next class, I presented the second student with his blue belt with a brown
stripe-- officially, brown belt apprentice rank. This is one of the most difficult ranks to
achieve; many students are not prepared for the intense shift from focusing
primarily on techniques to being challenged on a mental and emotional level as
well. He had done his best, and had never
given up. “It was a challenging test,”
he said.
The other
student-- the one for whom I had gotten permission to join the ranks of those
being tested, and for whom I had rearranged everybody’s schedules-- I talked to
him in private. “I was not ready,” he
said. “I was nervous, and my back
hurt. I had never seen some of those
moves before, and I haven’t practiced judo.
I don’t want to learn Judo. I
don’t have the build for it. I just want
to learn the stuff I can use and adapt to my own ability and comfort
level. You should not have made me go
out there.”
Oh, poor
guy. Everything was bad, except for
him. No comment about his lack of
commitment, or about allowing a minor injury to be an excuse to quit. At one point, he said, “I wish I’d have been
injured sooner. Then I wouldn’t have had
to be stressed out for so long. It was a
horrible test. Very unfair.” Hmm, and the other nine test candidates did
just fine…
This is not a
warrior’s mindset. This is the mindset
of a narcissist victim-- a person who fails, but blames the world instead of
himself. This mindset does not pick
itself up and say, “I’ll do better next time.”
The narcissist victim is more likely to say, “I’m never going to do that
again. It’s too hard. It’s unreasonable. It’s unfair.”
In a real
fight, it is not the techniques you know that will save you; it’s your
determination to win. It will be at a most
inopportune time that life will choose to be the most unfair. The warrior who has nurtured his
indomitability will experience an automatic flow of techniques as the situation
requires. He will be practiced at
improvisation, at meeting challenges.
The person who
has practiced failure will be defeated, and it won’t matter whose fault it is.
We become what
we intend. The challenge is to be
conscious of our intent, and unwavering in our resolve. That is the heart of all martial arts.
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