“Purple
Belt”
“I’ve
missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games.
Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
―
On the wall at the karate studio where I
train there is a poster of the levels of belts and their corresponding meanings. White: Optimism, Yellow: Integrity, Orange:
Action, Purple: Loyalty, Blue: Respect, Green: Grit, Brown: Leadership, Red:
Vision and Black: Health.
Karate is part of my life. Karate is part of my balance. I go twice a week and I tend not to miss it
if I can help it. If I have to miss a
class I generally make it up, missing something else to right the ship. I have taken a certification training to
teach karate to ninja sharks (the littlest of kids who train with us – think 3-to-5-
year-olds wiggling around on the mats and making me melt with their level of
cuteness) and am working my way to certified instructor.
Now I have never been athletic. The closest I got to athleticism was high
school field hockey and that was only at the JV level. I think I liked whacking the ball and the
opposing teams legs more than anything (we didn’t have half the amount of
safety equipment as they do these days).
I don’t like physical exercise as a general rule, but there is something
about karate that hits the right note for me.
I love the katas and the fact that I am learning self-defense. I feel as though I at least have a fighting
chance of defending myself now and at the very least can shock an attacker into
thinking “Well I wasn’t expecting that from her”. I love pounding away at the punching bags and
the fact that I have triceps muscles for the first time in my life.
I can tell you that I hate belt-testing
though. The belt-tests are hard. The work-out is intense and does not let up
at all for the entire time we are at the studio. We are constantly on the move and are being
tested on self-defenses and the katas in-between push-ups, mountain climbers,
sit-ups, squats and whatever else the instructor’s sadistic mind can come up
with.
I just recently achieved the level of
purple belt. I have been studying karate
now for a while. There was a break there
in the middle when I relapsed and I missed a belt-test or two because I wasn’t
prepared or I was too busy to have taken it as seriously as I am now. I can tell you that I have failed at it along
the way and I likely will again just like I have failed at other things in life
– like sobriety.
By failed, I mean I made mistakes. I didn’t get the right combination of moves
in a self-defense, or forgot a self-defense entirely. I might have remembered the self-defense, but
forgotten its name, or forgotten to bow when I should have. In the kata I may have gotten the combination
of moves correctly but not called it out how I was meant to or the moves were
not as sharp as they could have been. It
is taking me longer than I would like for me to earn my instructorship and the
simple fact behind that and that above mistakes or failures is that I need to
practice more. I need to dedicate more
time and energy to the moves and the intention behind them. In other words it takes more than just
showing up at class.
And isn’t that the same as
recovery? It takes more than just
showing up at meetings for me. It takes
going through the steps and then working them.
It takes practicing them in real life situations. It takes understanding the intention behind
them and passing on that information to others, or teaching them in a
sense. It also means that just like in
karate, when I make a mistake or fail in some way, I can no longer afford a
mind-set that tells me to give up. I
need to lean into a mind-set of failing forward. I must learn from past missteps, use them as
stepping stones to a stronger, brighter future.
So on I go working toward a blue belt in
respect - sober. Asah!
