What was to be an essay of sorts has managed its way into my blog only because its likely to wind up here anyway. Random thoughts about my life in and out of Taekwondo.
When I sat down to write this I was looking for a little inspiration. Inside myself here, the day before a big test wondering how I will perform I started thinking back to the time in which the journey began. As a youth I never aspired to participate in martial arts. Only by chance was I introduced to the art and sport of Taekwondo, yes, in that order. What literally started as an extra curricular activity after school turned into what I can only explain to be an addiction for perfection and a quest to become numero uno (or something really close). Over the next few years in between daily workouts, after hours training and tournaments the art, or the sport now as it turned out took on a whole new meaning .....living, eating, sleeping Taekwondo.
Looking back at that time I was very accomplished and so too were the people around me and more so, but somewhere along the line I missed the opportunity to become something selfishly greater. All the years, the waiting, the hours, the miles, standing still, the blood and sweat and broken bones, twisted limbs and bruises.. all of it faded into the background when life finally came along. I was destined to become something greater, but at that time it had nothing to do with what I had given my existence to and worked for so many years.
Fast forward 2005: Now living in Chicago and had just recently married I was no doubt out of shape, overweight.. you name it. All of the negative habits that I had been employing over the last 15 years were starting to catchup with me. I couldn't tell you the last time I had exerted more energy than it took to light a cigarette, but felt the real need do something about my physical well-being. My wife had remembered me talking about those yesteryear's of Taekwondo and set out on a mission to find a dojang I could maybe call home again. I was reluctant to do it myself and I'm still not sure why...maybe feeling jaded after leaving so much on the table 15 years before.
She didn't have to look far. Right around the corner from our house she stumbled on to Chang's Martial Arts and went in to get information on classes and schedules. In no time she was back home and all but had me signed up ready to take a class the next day, and of course I did. It was that day I met my new instructor, master, mentor. Ready to pull from experiences of years past when our paths could have, and maybe should have collided, but it was here now.
There were the days I was walking back out that door. Some of the hardest days I've ever had to endure and all I could do not to quit. He along with my wife was determined not to let that happen.
The ship eventually found some calmer waters and it was almost like I had never left.
So, today is the culmination of the last three years, but it represents much more than that. Its about what I left on the table, everything in between and life going forward and Taekwondo will always be a part of that. Today represents another new beginning for me an I can only hope to give back what was given to me by so many.
~To sound cliché ...it is about the journey, not the destination.
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