I earned a black belt at age 56

For me, this represents 10.5 years of continuous training with my primary teacher, Sensei Brad Schultz, exposure to a variety of high-ranking teachers through weekend seminars and approximately 4000 hours of on-mat training.

The black belt in martial arts stands as a testament to a practitioner’s dedication, skill and journey in their chosen discipline.? From its roots in Japan to its global adoption, it remains a potent symbol of mastery and achievement.

?In aikido, a black belt is really a threshold to studying the art at a deeper level.?? Mastery at a black belt level is performing movement with precision while being free and natural in your movements.?? A calm, poised mind and body, and free, powerful movement is a marker of the beginning of mastery.In our club, while a black belt represents a lot of training, it is really is a beginning place to study what is possible in easy, free movement, responding to incoming forces from a centered, expansive and poised self.?? ??

?I live with asthma and allergies, managing them well enough to stay active.? As the pre-test training intensity increased, I often found ?I couldn’t breathe well enough to keep going.? Forest fire smoke and heat waves made air quality conditions worse; I had to face the possibility that I might not be able to breathe well enough to make it through the test.

The black belt test itself taught me something unexpected.??? It taught me how to embody tenderness ?for myself and for my test partners in the midst of challenge.? Initially, I found it really difficult to accept my limitation.?? I invested in strength and cardio training for months before the test.?? I invested in allergy shots.? I talked with my Sensei.? He gently guided me to acceptance.?

?In aikido, intention is the front-runner of movement.??? My intention before the test was to be tender and to focus on meeting the demands of the test.? ??Looking back at video of the test, ?I see that my intention created a kind presence – there is no hurry, no forcefulness in my movement, no aggressiveness on the takedown of my partner.??

I did have to pause in the last 10 minutes of the 90-minute test and use my inhaler.? I did not respond to a full-speed attack with 3 attackers; my teacher toned this down to a medium speed attack.?

While I cherish the belt as a symbol of the milestone, I look forward to practicing not only aikido but living from this place of embodying tenderness under challenge.?? As a celebration gift, I am trying out adult parkour for 2 months at a local gym.? Parkour is the sport of traversing environmental obstacles by running, climbing or leaping rapidly and efficiently.? I intend to bring that tenderness forward to this challenge.

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