Challenges
This was my Black Belt testing when I was forty. I had just broken my toe the week before, as I was taking my pretest for black belt. If you look closely in the photograph, you can see that my toes are wrapped. It was a test. It was a test on more than one level. It was a test that I was not willing to forgo. I had worked too long to get to that place. I wasn't the best in the room and I definitely wasn't the youngest. I was forty years old, at the time. It was challenging, to say the least. I was awarded my black belt that day. It was not earned that day. It was earned in the three years of preparation leading up to that moment. It was in the group training twice a week, the training on my own, and in the rising early, every day, each summer, for additional training. It was in the investment of someone else's time, who cared enough to make a difference. It was in the principles learned, the patience and endurance that developed, and in the lifelong fr...