Wisconsin notes:
- Last Friday at the Ledge this week
- PR day and Xmas party next week
- Yoga Friday’s start next Friday
- Great Skate- February 4th, 2018
- Guest blog
Great workout this morning everyone. We have a special guest blog for you today! This one will leave you feeling like you can climb a mountain or wrestle a grizzly bear. We are super proud of you, Sara.
Hi Friends! It’s been a little while. Seeing your smiling, bundled up faces warmed my heart so much this morning. First winter workout back at NP? Check. Maybe this year I can tough it out through a -31 workout and actually earn my weatherproof badge.
I’ve been gone for a while, but for a good reason! This past weekend I did something kinda cool. After years of training, and months of some pretty intense preparation, I tested for my Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. I am so excited to be able to say that I passed! The test was brutal, you’ll have to ask me details sometime! It included board breaks, doing a flying sidekick over a bunch of people, and fighting against National champions in the sport until I could hardly stand up straight.
My journey to black belt started when I was first able to walk. My Grandfather opened up Tae Ryong Park Academy, a Tae Kwon Do school here in Winnipeg. Naturally, as soon as I was old enough, I started Tae Kwon Do classes along with my sisters. By the time I was 5 years old, I had progressed up the belt system about 6 stages (Blue belt with a red stripe)
Both my sisters (ages 8 & 9) had already earned their black belts by then and my Dad figured we’d had enough of Tae Kwon Do. He stopped bringing us there and we all started up in more typical suburban activities. My sisters played soccer and I went into gymnastics and the thought of ever earning a black belt drifted from my mind.
17 years later, my Grandfather has now seen every single member of my family test for their black belt… except me and my much younger cousin, Katrina. Three years ago she tested for her black belt, and then there was only me left. I went to the test to cheer her on and was in total awe of the agility, coordination, and dedication you could see was needed for the test.
In terms of athleticism, I would say I am pretty confident in my abilities. In regular life, I am about as clumsy as a person could possibly be, but when it comes to sport, I can typically hold my own, and progress quickly in new activities. Often, when I watch a sport, I think it would be fun to try it and see how good I would be at it.
But that day was different. The level of endurance they had was crazy, the confidence they needed to get beat up in front of everyone was huge, and the combination kicks were so technical and physically demanding. You could tell it took a lot of thought and coordination to remember the proper leg to kick while you’re turning in the air and alternating sides. Watching those athletes kick, board break and spar to earn their black belt, I remember specifically having the thought “I genuinely don’t think I could do that”
So, I decided that I was going to try.
At 22 years old, I decided to brush off my old belt and return to training. Going back as an adult was not as easy! Since I had been gone for 17 years, I basically had to start from scratch and re-learn everything. My body wasn’t quite as resilient as when I was a child. Districtions, stresses, my schedule, and trying to ‘adult’ definitely kept me busier than I was a 5 yr old.
I’ve now been back to Tae Kwon Do over 3 years and taken 5 more belt tests leading up to this one. The past 6 months especially have required a lot of dedication, hard work, and sacrifice. Hours of training every single day meant I had to give up some things in my life. I love volunteering, gymnastics, being with friends, and of course, NP workouts, but the grueling training, extended hours and potential for injury required me to put things I love on hold to keep my eye on the prize.
You know how people say “love the process?”… I definitely did not. I wanted to quit SO MANY times. Getting a black belt may not be this intense and grueling for everyone. Every person, academy, school. dojung, etc. will be a wildly different experience. But with that being said, it means so much to me that I earned my black belt at my family’s academy. All of the tears, the times I have wanted to quit, all the sacrifices were tough, but they have made this black belt mean something to me.
On top of that, I get to train with (and get beat up by) some of the world’s greatest athletes and coaches in the sport. That is something I do not take for granted. If getting kicked by 3 national competitiors at once doesn’t teach you how to block a kick to the head, I don’t know what will!
Were the years of training and the past recent months of blood, sweat & tears easy? Definitely not.
Were they worth it? The jury is still out (But I think so!)
Although it feels damn good to have achieved this goal, tying this black belt around my waist isn’t the true measure of this test. The true value comes from all the things I have learned about myself through the past 6 months. This journey has helped me to understand that my mind and my body are capable of so much more than I ever thought. It has taught me that you can’t be everything to all people, and that’s okay. It taught me that sacrifice is important and neccessary to achieve anything of value in life, and it taught me that hard work will either pay off, or it won’t… But if you stick to the goal, focus, reflect and live with intention, it will make you a better person. And that is where the value is.
Megan asked me if I think I’ll get something similar to the post-marathon blues. I might. It is pretty funny to train so hard and for so long for a day that’s over in a few hours. It felt very anti-climactic once everything was said and done, and it is hard to say if I will start to feel a void moving forward, but I know for a fact that things like NP and other goals I am setting for myself will always push me forward. So what’s next?
-I still have items to check off my 25 Bucket List before May 8th!
-Go back to training at gymnastics
-Sub 2 hr half marathon
-Learn a new language (Whether it is spoken, or in computer programming)
-Get on the Amazing Race Canada (Please nominate me as someone you’d like to see on the show!)
-Earn my -31 badge
Honestly, from an outside perspective, it’s easy to see how people think all you 6:14am extremists are a little wacky to get out of bed in the morning to run around outside. Even being away from NP for a month, life stayed busy and it felt suuuper nice to stay in my warm bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep on Wednesday and Friday mornings. I knew I missed it, but I didn’t realize just HOW MUCH I missed it until I returned today.It is easy to slip away from things that you love and find other hobbies. But coming back to the workouts and seeing the magic of the tribe from the inside is something I will never be able to put into words. Thank you for your energy this morning. Thank you for welcoming me back with open arms. Thank you for being a part of this amazing community. It feels great to be back.
This shit is good.
-Sara Shimoji
