OMG! I’ve been hit by the green belt curse and it took a while to figure out I had it. I first learned about the curse after we got our green belts. My daughter was having a bad day in class and got frustrated with herself. When Master Landry came over, she said that it was the Green Belt curse. You know what you are suppose to do now, but don’t have enough practice or skill yet to act upon it and you get discouraged.
The curse snuck up on me too. It started when I was having trouble with forms 6 ( Pyung Ahn Sam Dan ), 7 ( Pyung Ahn Sa Dan ), and 8 ( Pyung Ahn Oh Dan ). I was annoyed that the forms weren’t that easy to remember and now that we had so many of them, they were starting to blur together. Then worst of all, I stopped painting my toe nails. This may not seem like a big deal, but I have this thing about painting my toe nails before each grading to the color of belt I want to get. Green toe nail polish just didn’t inspire me. I tried to do a light pink instead, but that didn’t work either. For months now, I’ve gone to class with no polish.
During class, one of our instructors asked us, “Who wants to be a Black Belt?” Not only did the question catch me by surprise, but I didn’t know if I wanted to raise my hand. I did the hand half up and half down thing. That’s when I knew that I had the Green Belt Curse. I realized the excuses for not going to class came more easily, the Karate Fever was long gone, and my toe nails were without polish.
This set me to thinking. Is this curse really just caused by the lack of colors changing around my waist at each grading? (In Tang Soo Do, we go through 3 gradings of being a green belt which usually accounts for about a year’s worth of time.) Was this an American thing, where if we don’t see instant results we're dissatisfied? Or just a case of pure laziness? I may never know the reason for the curse, but I’m tired of it.
You start to question whether you are ever going to get better, is there something else that they can teach me, and on and on… You question if it is worth all of the effort and contemplate quitting.
I’ll admit it. I thought about it, but then a funny thing happened. I started remembering the forms and the really difficult one, Bassai Dai (form 9), was beginning to make sense. A new set of students joined the school and were asking us questions about how to do things, and I knew the answers! And I actually think I’m getting a little better in sparring. Of course, I’ve accidentally hit my husband in the face once while sparring which we’re not allowed to do as Green belts, but that was just pay back for him hitting me in the nose while sparring. See if I quit, then I would miss out on all of the cheap marriage therapy. So, I figure if I want to keep my marriage happy, then I need to stay in karate.
So, I still don’t know the answer to whether I want to be a Black Belt, but I do know that I don’t want to quit. And in the meantime, my toe nails are now painted a bright red.
- Wendy Austin
This blog is dedicated to Paul Sudol who passed away this past year. My husband and I can easily say that the first word to describe Paul would be Mentor. He showed us that you don’t have to be the fiercest competitor or the best fighter to be a great Martial Artist. We would often run into him at the library studying and learning different aspects of karate and martial arts. My husband and Paul would often share their knowledge after class and swap books with each other. For myself, I have learned courage from Paul and despite being quiet spoken and a bit of a nerd, Paul demonstrated that a good martial artist comes in all shapes and sizes and should still be respected for what they bring to the art form. When I get my black belt (which I now realize I want to eventually achieve), I’ll have put in the effort to get it, but it would have been Paul’s example that showed me how to achieve it.
Paul, wherever you are, please know that you will be missed and each time I go to the library, I look over at the computers and smile while I think of your dedication and studiousness.
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