Thoughts about being strong and martial arts

I am preparing and training for my red belt test which I hope will be in July. As a 50 year old female martial artist who started this at the age of 46 I can say that it has been a long road and not without its challenges. At my third brown belt test (we have four levels of brown belt in our school - 4 stripes, 3 stripes, 2 stripes and solid brown) I was sparring one of the red belt girls in my fight line and got three ribs broken. After I recuperated from that it took another year to train to take the same test again. I passed it the second time, but I could see that I needed to train really hard, and intensify my cardio and kata practice and sparring.

Let me describe our tests. We open the test by going through all the basic punches, blocks and kicks. Then we do our formal one step forms, with a partner we go through four or five formalized one-step sparring routines which are not contact, just to show techniques. Then, we have kata. In our system, between white and black belt there are 12 forms, sometimes called kata (the Japanese word) or poomse(Korean word). At this next test I will perform 11 forms.

After this there is the self defense circle. Everyone in the dojo encircles the person testing. Then each person in the circle attacks the one testing with a realistic attack and the person has to get out of that situation and take down the attacker. In our system we have incorporated techniques from jiu jitsu, aikido and judo as well as karate and tae kwon do, to enable us to fight from the ground. We also learn defenses against knives and sticks and guns. We do some of all these techniques in the circle.

Then comes the end of the test. We spar. First we spar one round, short exhibition fights. Then the person testing has to fight against a group of two, three or four attackers. Finally, the very end of the test, is the line. All the students and the black belt instructors line up from lowest to highest belt and commence to fight the person testing until the person testing cannot stand up. When it seems they are totally unable to continue, Master Downs (our Sensei or head instructor and the school's owner) asks "can you continue?" and if the answer is not "yes, Sir" then after all that, the person flunks the test. It is the way this system has done testing for 30 years. At my red belt test I hope to get through it and do a better job in my sparring than I have in the last ones. I also hope that by my black belt test I will be able to also break 3 boards using 3 separate techniques, a requirement for that test.

Many people ask me why I do this. After all, I'm 50 years old, and why do I want to put myself at risk for injuries and all this when there are so many other ways I could keep in shape? I've been a distance runner, done yoga for years and have been a distance swimmer. So why this, at my age?

Well this is my answer so far. It is because to do this, I have to reach deep inside my heart of hearts, and pull out the best that is there. I then take that best, and offer it to God with my whole heart. He can do whatever he wants with my pain, my sweat, my blood and my tears, and He will use it just as well as he would the offering of someone with cancer or heart trouble, or any other prayer that is from the heart. It is one of the unique ways that I can give God my best.

It also means that, if anybody tries to hurt my grandbabies, they'd better watch out!