Sensei's Corner
Veteran's Day
By Anonymous
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: The soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking.
What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.
He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.
He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose Presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the
nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".
Remember November 11th is Veterans Day
And that, really, is what karate training is all about: creating positive experiences that allow us to learn and grow as individuals. Tournaments are simply an extension of that training. Just as the color of your belt is not as important as what you’ve learned so, too, the points in a tournament are not as important as the experience itself. Kata divisions often end with the competitors scoring within a tenth of a point of each other – and anyone who has experienced kumite can tell you that there are always plenty of points made that the referees never see. A thousand tiny factors can influence the outcome of a shiai competition – which is why it’s important to keep the points and the places in perspective.
A few years back, my teacher stopped awarding trophies at his tournaments and instead began awarding medals to the participants. The difference, he explained, was that all participants would be recognized – not just the top three competitors of each division. Everyone who performed a kata or fought a match would receive recognition for it. After all, it’s not easy to perform in front of colleagues, judges, and a crowd of spectators who may or may not know anything about the martial arts. Hanshi Bernard has stated, and I have to agree, that just getting out in the spotlight and performing is a victory in itself. It’s a victory in the battle against fear and self-doubt. It’s a victory of self-confidence that is expressed by acknowledging that we each have something positive to contribute to this larger community of martial artists. It is a victory in simply declaring that it doesn’t matter whether we come in first or last place, so long as we are out there trying and supporting each other and sharing in the experience that is the martial arts.
And so, in closing, I would like to pass along something that I have always tried to tell my own students about tournaments. Don’t worry about the points. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Don’t worry about what place you come in. It doesn’t matter. It is much better to strive for three simple things:
If you can keep these things in mind, then you will make the tournament a positive experience for yourself and others. And, at the end of the day, that is what it’s all about.