I'd be lying if I said I only talk about the analytics of the martial arts. I have been told that I sprinkle my own opinion in to my posts enough to give them a proper amount of flavor, but tonight, I am going to talk about something a little different. There won't be a lot of analysis, no theory breakdown and no talk about technical accuracy or the science of the martial arts. Tonight, way too late to be starting a project like this, I'm going to just share some thoughts on taekwon-do.
Tonight my class was visited by a Grandmaster that I always enjoyed working with. He travels a lot, but training in my youth, I always looked up to him. Tonight, he watched me teach, and paid me all the praise an instructor could hope for. It was good, as it always is. Compliments from people like him, people with those last three bars that alone equal almost all of the time I have dedicated to the art telling you that they enjoyed my class is a tremendous honor and a hell of a compass calibration.
I can't help but feel a great deal of melancholy though. I was telling my wife a story about how he and I sparred one night, and how, it was a total mind game. I was a 2nd or 3rd dan, and still at the top of whatever fighting game I had (I was no slouch, but was never the best fighter in the school). He must have been 7th dan at the time. He could have bludgeoned me to victory. He didn't though, he took me right to the extreme limits of my fighting and kept me there, in a desperate back and forth, scoring points and getting scored on. He was never in any danger of losing, but I felt the entire time I was on the verge of winning. It was always a rare state to find a sparring partner like that - one that didn't exert their will on you, but held you at the brink of your limit, so that you could surpass yourself.
God I miss sparring like this. Maybe nostalgia and memory make these things into fishing stories; you know, the kind where a minnow caught turns into a shark? Still, anymore, my sparring matches are completely one sided one way or another. Either the person I am sparring is no match for me, or I'm simply out of shape and too injured to stand any kind of chance. It can be hard, but I keep my ego locked up pretty tight anymore. I mean, I've been there, and I've done that all before, right? Sure, I have...doesn't make the nights where you miss the old days any easier though. This grandmaster and I sparred twice that night, and I learned so much, moreso than 100s of other matches I had, with people of the same rank, lower, and even higher.
The match was a game of finesse, and of making the other person do what you wanted so you could score at will. Good free sparring is a game of dirty sleight of hand, and we were Penn and Teller that night. Feints, posturing, setups - no points scored on exploiting a slow hand, or with a blind sided attack; rather, every point was scored by causing an opening that simply couldn't close. It was magnificent.
Today's students are so different than I was when I was a 1st dan and up. I won't devolve this blog post into a "get off my lawn," rambling, but none of us had the potential that some of my current students do. They are so very talented, but because of that, their work ethic can be fleeting at times. I love teaching them, because my hope is that some day, they'll experience the glory, and the epic-ness like I have. That at least in their heads, if not on paper, or digitally they someday write of an amazing sparring match shared with a classmate or instructor.
Tournament glory is nice - and I've had my own small share of it. I can tell you though, even the best tournament matches I have fought don't compare to matches I've had in certain classes. The time Master Young cut me down with a spinning hook kick sweep and kicked me in the face before I fully hit the ground (when I was literally at the top of my fighting game); the endless matches with Master Pease, who frequently turned me into jello, or the time he spin hook kicked me in the face hard enough to blow the entire top off the "bottle cap challenge" and was shocked when I shook it off smiling; the time I made Master McCarthy nearly puke, or the time I impaled Oaks with my side kick; the time I tried to dive roll between Farrington and Barr, and they beat me to a pulp for it in a 2 on 1 match. Then there was the time Grandmaster DeStolfo told me what he was going to score on me with (a jumping backfist), hit me with it right in the face, laughed at me, and then told me he was going to do it again, and then did it again, and laughed some more - are memories I will cherish forever. I remember sparring with my man Jerry from NYC for hours and hours after classes, looking like a dalmatian from all the bruises on my arms. God, what a time to be a martial artist it was!
Now the price I pay for even throwing a kick above mid level too many times is 3 days of hip pain, some limping, and a lot of advil. I'm not, throwing a pity party though, it was worth it all - and if I had to do it again, I would, because at the end of the day, those sparring memories are some of the best times of my life.
So work hard, enjoy the art, and live for the moment. If you have potential, stop effing around and unlock it. Listen to the old heads, because they walked a different road and can tell you so much.
