April is Prevent Child Abuse Month, I want to highlight the fact that martial arts not only teaches children to defend themselves if necessary, it instills a level of confidence that will ensure they will be far less likely to be a victim to such abuse.
Personally I have always been drawn to martial arts. As a teen I took Kung Fu, then as a young adult I found my way to a Taekwondo studio. But, it took until I had children to fully investigate what it would take to see the study of martial arts as a life style choice. When my children were much younger, I enrolled all of us into a local studio that promoted family values, character, discipline and many other favorable traits. We attended regularly for about 6 months before I had a knee injury that forced me to quit. My oldest son was just 6 and the others stepped down in age to just over 2, therefore when I was no longer the motivating source of our attendance it was easy to put it on the back burner. After a year of jumping around from activity to activity, we received a postcard mailer from a different Taekwondo studio promoting a special invite for children to come try classes for a month. I was intrigued and re-inspired to try again. We went to the intro class and decided to sign up. Our two boys went into the older group of kids and my older daughter started in a preschool designed program to develop the skills she would need later. Things like body awareness, confidence, eye contact, answering questions and how to deal with bullies. Our youngest was still too young but watched every move attentively.
As I sat there watching for the first two months I realized that it was me that had always wanted to study martial arts, so why was I sitting in a chair watching. The school was very family oriented and I could take the same classes as my kids which was very appealing to me. I worked hard to catch up and promote into the same level as my boys. Over the next year the lessons learned became priceless. Their attitudes have always been good, but this new endeavor was solidifying many qualities and traits we were also expecting outside of the studio. As homeschooling parents this also became an additional social arena for our kids and their P.E. for school. By the time my youngest was ready to join, we had steadily promoted to higher and higher ranks. A very admirable expectation within the martial arts community is to serve, therefore at a certain belt rank you are asked to learn to be an instructor and give back that which you have been given. It was a fantastic opportunity to grow. At this point I became the instructor in my youngest daughters class.
This was a very rewarding time to really focus on her and the achievements she was earning in TKD. I was able to help her move past shyness, stubbornness and an unwillingness to learn from any other instructor. I watched her mature from a small child into a strong confident young woman who has spent most of her life taking martial arts. Her very countenance exudes confidence.
Half way through our second year I lost my resolve and let my oldest son "take a break" from the program. He had developed a vision problem we did not know about, it made 12 inches of his central vision disappear. He would work so hard in class and grow so frustrated from the sheer amount of over movement he was doing to compensate for be completely uncoordinated. It was very hard for me to watch how difficult everything was for him, he would be soaking wet and in tears every time we got in the car after class. He would beg me to stop. I truly felt it was just a stage, that he would get over it. He grew worse and I grew tired of worrying about it. Three weeks after I let him have his "break", he was diagnosed with a rather common eye muscle condition that affects 1 in four boys, but it would need about a year of physical therapy to correct it. When sitting in the Optometry office discussing symptoms and issues with both the doctor and therapist, they were both amazed at his mental resolve to have done anything at all, especially Taekwondo, learning to ride a bike (although he crashed it at least 5-6 times everyday) and most amazingly to hit 8 out of ten pitches in baseball. It was determined that he was far above average but that it was all being lost in his inability to make his eyes work and the overwhelming frustration that causes. We only looked into the possibility of a problem because he stopped reading. He had taught himself to read a 4 and was whizzing through more books than I could provide until he turned 6 and then over the next year he went from excelling to digressing at such a rapid rate, we had to do something. It was such a tremendous blessing to find exactly what was wrong and what to do in a matter of days. It was truly a miracle. After the condition and behavioral issues that result from contending with eyesight difficulties were relieved, I didn't think to get him right back into classes. He had had such a negative experience that he would not even consider going back. I decided to try a little experiment in positive affirmation. I bought a new uniform and placed the package in his room, the next day I found it in the kitchen. I did it for another week and he finally confronted me with the fact that he was not doing it and to stop putting the uniform in his room. I smiled and did not say anything, I unwrapped it, washed it and continued to place it neatly in his room again. After another couple of weeks of moving the thing back and forth, he asked why I was trying to drive him crazy with "THAT" uniform. Again, I smiled and told him that on Monday of next week he would start classes. He emphatically told me, "NO". Nine days later on the designated Monday I asked everyone to put on their uniforms, including him and low and behold, he did it with a smile.
What I learned? I should not have waited so long, but more-importantly I should have been communicating with him all along that he would get back into the swing of things as-soon-as his eyes were strengthened. His therapist was such a gem, he taught him to ride a bike again, to tie his shoes and to be able to see all the triggers that he had learned to avoid being so uncomfortable. Although the battle was won, the war will go on for his whole life. His self talk in those 12 months became so negative that he rewired much of who he was before the issue started. Because I did not know why he was digressing and believed it to be 100% behavioral, I could not have been a worse enemy. Although I did not try to be negative or mean in any way, he knew I was disappointed and as frustrated as he was. It has been a process for me to understand that there was nothing I could have done differently but my compassion for children in general, has grown beyond anything I could imagine.
To seek understanding before I jump to my own conclusions is the greatest piece of wisdom I took from the circumstance. It was not until after the experience that I realized I should have looked at this situation as any lesson in mastery. How many concert pianists tell of hating to practice their scales, or brilliant leaders who despised school, or Olympic athletes who did not want to do drills everyday, as children? There are countless stories of them telling how they were glad for an adult who helped them stay the course even in the midst of their pleas to quit. I do not regret the lesson I learned and I hope that someday he will also be thankful for the diligence I expect from him. Every time he speaks of goals, his black belt is in the top three, he wants it. Now, he just needs to believe he can earn it.
With our allowing him to quit, our older daughter also started vying for a similar break. I was exhausted from the whole trial and did not really say she could stop doing class but in my distraction, she did. I was much quicker on the uptake this time around. Although she did not have any good reason to stop, there was an even more rewarding lesson in store for me. After only a couple of months, I realized that I was doing a great disservice to her by not ensuring she saw this goal through. I know this all may read as ridiculously militant, because really our society has become famous at tasting a little of everything and never mastering anything. We had decided early on that our children would learn to finish any endeavor to the end, within reason. It just so happens that a first degree black belt takes almost five years, so this journey has been chalk full of triumph and trial. As she started coming back into class I saw her trying to find her place, her confidence and it was truly difficult for her to settle in and feel good. Our master instructor is really gifted, but at well over 6 feet and rather imposing she would crumple under his attention. He never raised his voice or intimidated her at all, but her hyper sensitivity at being noticed in any capacity would get the best of her. She would immediately drop to the floor in a huddle and cry at the smallest of instruction. I would pick her up in her pill bug pose and place her on a chair to the side. Several weeks of this transpired before he had the brilliance, whether planned or not, to take my four kids with him and one other boy for an entire day of fun. At our next class she was transformed.
Later I asked what had changed her mind and she told me in her little six-year-old voice, "well, he's just a dad...and he's funny." That was that, her shyness and insecurity was gone. She is still very sensitive at 10 but everyday her confidence and resolve strengthen. She told me recently that she looks at her black belt, that hangs on the wall waiting for her to test for it, everyday and that it makes her feel like anything is possible.
As for the son I have yet to mention, he has always been laser beam focused on the idea of a black belt and any other goal for that matter. But his struggle is of the opposite from what I have written thus far. He is very capable and naturally athletic. He can work half as hard and still get very good results. For two years he simply went through the motions in his training and "appeared" to be better than many students.
I would have to put him behind my sight line in class just so I would not become frustrated at his lack of effort. I knew he could really do a great job if he would actually care to. His gross motor skills excelled very early, maybe too early in some cases. He was dropping into a full size half pipe on his skate board and competing in competitions at just barely five-years-old. He learned to snowboard, ride a bike, ski, swim, mountain board, rock climb and swim all in one year. Yet he could not write his name, would not learn to read and did not want to conform to any system we put in place. He was a free spirit who wanted to explore, run, jump and hang from cliff faces. Applying himself to anything that was not his idea was not in his plans. He raked lawns until he got just enough money for a certain purchase, then switched gears and wanted to learn to play guitar, then juggle, then yoyo, then gymnastics, then hip-hop dancing, then acting and so on. He was quickly becoming a jack of all trades, but not really learning anything fully. Then, one day in class he noticed a woman student who always worked far beyond the average student. She had always been there, but this day was different for him. He absorbed her effort, he modeled her movements and he transformed overnight. From that very day he has fully put his all into every class. He matured that afternoon into a student of Taekwondo, into a person who wants to master his art.
These years striving toward what has seemed impossible at times, been overwhelming others and completely fruitful the majority of time, have shown me the importance of mastery. If I had to sum myself up, I know I am a jumbled combination of all of my children. I am stubborn and willful but full of joy like my youngest daughter. I am easily frustrated and overwhelmed but unhurt by what others think of me like my oldest son. I am hyper-vigilant and a perfectionist but willing to help anyone like my oldest daughter. I am reckless and lazy with my potential but truly loving like my youngest son. What has Taekwondo really taught me? It's taught me to see people clearly, to love my children and others for exactly how they were created and to absolutely give my all in every situation, because when I leave here, I want to have exhausted every cell in my body, to have lived this life to it's fullest.
