3rd Anniversary of my Black Belt Test

Training for a black belt test while rehabbing ruptured disks in your neck is not an experience that I recommend, but I did it.

It was both one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and also one of my greatest joys.

The thing that made it work was everyone on my medical team agreed that my best rehab activity was training for my test. The thing I wanted to do most, training, was the thing that kept the pain in check.

It’s a heckuva thing to be wistful for devastatingly painful injury, but I actually really enjoyed blasting music in my garage dojo while working out 2-3 hours per day.

The test itself was the culmination of decades of starting and stopping my martial arts practice.

I would train for a few years, and then something in my life would blow up forcing me to stop, then a few years later I would be able to train again. I have something like 9 white belts, three blue belts, one brown belt, and this was going to be my first black belt. The pattern was the closer I got to black belt, the worse my life blew up.

And now here I was months away from testing when I suffered ruptured disks in my neck. While sleeping.

My sensei said I could take the test on time but altered to keep me safe while still making it challenging—like holding a horse stance for a long time rather than sparring—or we could wait until I got medical clearance to take the more traditional test.

I chose to wait for the traditional test.

Before you become too impressed by my integrity, my exact thought was, “I would rather get punched in the face than hold a horse stance.”

During my test, one of my judges asked me, “Given everything you’ve been through to get here, is this the beginning of your martial art journey or the end?”

After decades of struggle, it didn’t really feel like the beginning.

But I knew what he meant, was I going to quit like so many first-degree black belts do?

“The beginning.”

Three years later, I’m still training and I have earned my 2nd degree black belt.