“My mum is usually the biggest kid in any room…”
This I recently overheard from my exasperated, eye-rolling, just pre-teen daughter. The biggest kid…
Recently I re-entered the world of martial arts but in doing so, I chose to enter a formal dojo. It took another big kid, a globally respected Shihan (a highly graded "teacher’s teacher") to patiently entice, subtly coerce and encourage me onto these dojo mats ( he’d could've just used some chocolate covered hazelnuts and I would have sauntered on far quicker. Know your treats, I say. )
After training in martial arts on and off for almost thirty five years for the first time in this lifetime I’m wearing an actual “gi” (that’s the pyjama-like outfit you often see in martial arts). At first it was about as comfortable as wearing a pair of tin-foil knickers, however now, well “conditioned” and worn in, my gis (yes, I have a few different ones now) really are like pjs! So comfy!
Not surprisingly if you knew where I’d trained in the past, and the disciplines I’ve trained in, despite developing skills at high levels I’ve never been formally graded in martial arts before.
So in donning the gi, the question of what coloured belt to wrap around it came up.
When one is highly trained, a black belt equivalent or above in another discipline, the grey belt is common. But, no...
I had clandestinely observed (bloody well minutely studied) the wisely and cleverly amalgamated technique this Shihan had brought to the mats in this dojo over several months. It was as unique as it is one of the most purposeful and intelligent martial arts I’ve seen.
It’s new to me.
And as such, so am I. I’m new again!
SO! Hand me that friggin crispy, blindingly WHITE belt!
(And also, just quietly: how do you put it on?)
OH what ridiculous fun it is to be a new student in an awesome learning environment!
The freedom, the fun, the mischief (you can get away with a lot when they think you don’t know) and perhaps best of all
the license to make mistakes as you learn too.
Thank goodness for that last: the ability to make mistakes,
The unlearning I faced once I’d bowed onto this dojo was profound.
Those first 6 weeks challenged the mind even more than the body. Rest assured this body seemed critically uncoordinated, taking the hits and wearing the bruises as it moved in ways I’d long ago learnt in survival situations, almost opposite to what was being instructed ( one sensei still has to occasionally whisper as she goes past “Less “murdery”, Mel. Less murdery…” )
Within a few sessions upon those mats I knew ; I wasn’t even a White Belt.
I was an “inverted white belt”.
I was unlearning in order to even become a White Belt and make way for the new.
The reality often is that whenever you are learning something new, it often initially feels like you’re achieving the opposite of your goal.
When you’re learning something new you often feel dumb when in fact it is making you smarter.
When you start working out you feel weak, but each time you do it you grow stronger.
When you're digging through past trauma, you feel vulnerable and alone, but with it you are building a new strong and promising future.
Knowing that you don’t know (yet!) is where you understand that
humility has become your superpower.
From a place of humility you can create as never before.
The importance of consciously choosing the starter line, being a brand new student is profound. It keeps you young. It keeps you healthful. It makes life fun. It makes you richer.
If you choose it…
You can be as brand new, as open and full of wonder, as childlike and excited as you choose.
It’s almost irrelevant how long you've trained or how much you already know.
It comes back to that which nobody can take from you:
choice.
We are SO rich in that, aren’t we? In the power of that choice that we all have, no matter our circumstances.
I’m reminded of Elie Weisle’s powerful and devastating book “Night”, in which he involuntarily became one the great “shihan” in Auschwitz. He came to know the immense power of choice we all have, no matter what the horror of our circumstances.
Or what we think we know already.
An inverted White Belt
If you know me, you know my life’s motto has always been “Ancora Imparo”. The motto of my first infantry unit. And Michel Angelo’s famous last words upon his death bed as he resisted:
Ancora Imparo - “I am still learning”
Thrown upon the mats of a formal dojo, the beauty of this approach in life affirmed…what a gift :)
Keep being the student.
Keep humility close.
Play and Laugh and Love
despite the audacity Life throws at us.
Because you choose to.
I’m lucky enough over the years to have known several astounding shihan, even privileged to call some my friend. While they are skilled in varying disciplines, I can tell you one thing that is consistent in all of them:
they are all mischievous, fabulously intelligent and adventurous big kids.
They are, each of them, the very best of White Belts.
May you exasperate those close to you too. Choose to be "the biggest kid in any room" ;)
From my heart to yours
MHH
