On 20 September 2019, I spent four hours at the dojo. I taught a private lesson, I did two separate hours working with black-belt promotion candidates on various things they need to know, and I had my usual Friday night fighting class.
This was appropriate behavior for that day, as it was also the fifteenth anniversary of the day I stepped into the dojo for the first time.
On 20 September 2004, at the age of 35 and facing myriad physical infirmities, and having spent my entire adult life not exercising anything but my futility, I decided to take up martial arts.
Fifteen years later, I’m a third-degree black belt, one of the senior members of the dojo, one of the regular teachers at the dojo, and if you’d told me sixteen years ago that that would be the case, I’d have thought you were talking to the wrong person. But becoming a karateka has been one of the best things I’ve done with my life. Besides the physical and mental benefits, it’s also turned me into a teacher, which I absolutely love doing.
So happy anniversary to my karate career. Here’s to the next fifteen years…..
Osu!
(The picture is the oldest one I could find of me doing karate, from my promotion to advanced green belt in 2007. I couldn’t find any pics of me from any earlier, sadly.)
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