4est_4est_Gump
Run Forrest! RUN!
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2011
- Posts
- 89,007
On this page
I write my last confession
Read it well when I, at last, am sleeping
It's the story
Of one who turned from hating
A man who only learned to love…
When I was a young buck, I learned in the most brutal manner possible to defend myself from the whites and the blacks. I did not have to worry about the Hispanics; they had yet to appear. I rarely won, and even if I did, it was a fleeting glimpse, for that glory only provoked retaliation.
I took up Martial Arts in the Marines. I studied and trained for many a long year. I would no longer be a victim. I would no longer be a victim of my mother’s skin color.
When I got my black belt, I was a proud man and I wanted to prove myself as a warrior, as a person who would no longer be a victim. So, I took to competition. In match after match, for the most part, I did not prevail. When I did not prevail, I blamed the referees, I blamed my opponent’s reputation, I blamed my teachers and I blamed prejudice. I was very angry. I lashed out at my fellow competitors.
In my anger, a black man noticed me and offered me another path. He trained me and he taught me. Then I met a white man, an educated man and he challenged me to educate myself. I worked hard, but still I did not win in the way I expected myself to win. I was average at best. I hated, no that is the wrong word. I envied those who beat me. It went on like that for many years.
But during those long years, I began, through reading and practicing to accept another path, that of respect. It took a long while to swallow the pride instilled in me by the accolades of my youth when all adults were impressed with my “potential.” When I finally got over my own myth I did a really radical thing.
I approached the guys who were consistently beating me and asked them what I was doing wrong. To my amazement, especially from those from the blood and guts generation, they were more than willing to tell me what I was going wrong, but more importantly than that, to train me in how to beat them. And, eventually I did, to their delight. And that, is still, to this day, what I strive to do with my students, to make them better than I ever was.
However, there is another type of “competitor” out there, one who only takes his own council. One of my better friends through all of those years was of the same age as myself, had as many years, maybe even more, of instruction as myself and was almost unbeatable when it came to forms (for the non-martial artist, memorized patterns of movement that comprise a moving meditation), however, he never once managed to beat me in sparring. Once, when he paid Mike Stone to give a seminar at his school, he challenged me at the end of it to a one-point march to determine the “Champion of the School” and he even reserved the right to say, “Go.” As soon as he said go, I hit him.
Some time later, he asked me, “Why do you always beat me?” I told him, “You bounce. I time the bounce.” He informed me, “That can’t be it, bouncing makes me quicker.”
I find that attitude here every day.
I write my last confession
Read it well when I, at last, am sleeping
It's the story
Of one who turned from hating
A man who only learned to love…
When I was a young buck, I learned in the most brutal manner possible to defend myself from the whites and the blacks. I did not have to worry about the Hispanics; they had yet to appear. I rarely won, and even if I did, it was a fleeting glimpse, for that glory only provoked retaliation.
I took up Martial Arts in the Marines. I studied and trained for many a long year. I would no longer be a victim. I would no longer be a victim of my mother’s skin color.
When I got my black belt, I was a proud man and I wanted to prove myself as a warrior, as a person who would no longer be a victim. So, I took to competition. In match after match, for the most part, I did not prevail. When I did not prevail, I blamed the referees, I blamed my opponent’s reputation, I blamed my teachers and I blamed prejudice. I was very angry. I lashed out at my fellow competitors.
In my anger, a black man noticed me and offered me another path. He trained me and he taught me. Then I met a white man, an educated man and he challenged me to educate myself. I worked hard, but still I did not win in the way I expected myself to win. I was average at best. I hated, no that is the wrong word. I envied those who beat me. It went on like that for many years.
But during those long years, I began, through reading and practicing to accept another path, that of respect. It took a long while to swallow the pride instilled in me by the accolades of my youth when all adults were impressed with my “potential.” When I finally got over my own myth I did a really radical thing.
I approached the guys who were consistently beating me and asked them what I was doing wrong. To my amazement, especially from those from the blood and guts generation, they were more than willing to tell me what I was going wrong, but more importantly than that, to train me in how to beat them. And, eventually I did, to their delight. And that, is still, to this day, what I strive to do with my students, to make them better than I ever was.
However, there is another type of “competitor” out there, one who only takes his own council. One of my better friends through all of those years was of the same age as myself, had as many years, maybe even more, of instruction as myself and was almost unbeatable when it came to forms (for the non-martial artist, memorized patterns of movement that comprise a moving meditation), however, he never once managed to beat me in sparring. Once, when he paid Mike Stone to give a seminar at his school, he challenged me at the end of it to a one-point march to determine the “Champion of the School” and he even reserved the right to say, “Go.” As soon as he said go, I hit him.
Some time later, he asked me, “Why do you always beat me?” I told him, “You bounce. I time the bounce.” He informed me, “That can’t be it, bouncing makes me quicker.”
I find that attitude here every day.
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