PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

When people conquer they tend to take a souvenir, be it a scar from battle, spoils from war, the head of an unfortunate animal, etcetera... Mastering an art is a way of conquering, this definitely applies to martial arts, which in most cases take an enormous investment of time and effort. In the olden days there were only two colors for a belt in any martial art, black and white, master and apprentice, there was no yellow, green, blue, purple or red belts, the blue came from your tears, the green, yellow and purple from your swelling bruises, and the red from your blood. Eventually your blood, sweat and tears stained your belt until it became black. Hers hangs right next to all my family’s pictures in that big white wall in her living room. Most kids in elementary school would go around telling other kids “My dad could beat up your dad.”, when this happened to me, I’d tell them my grandma could beat up their dad, which was most likely true. ¨Be like water¨, she´d tell me, for Aikido, the martial art she managed to conquer, isn´t about crushing your opponent with brute force, like the red nitroglycerin coated dynamite sticks used to tear pieces of mountains apart and gather concrete from them, but rather, like the natural, persisting flow of water that eventually overcomes the mountain. She had quite a reputation back at the dojo. Usually she´d tell her sparring partner not to go easy on her just because she’s an old lady (her words, not mine), yet I could see in their eyes that they were hoping that she would go easy on them. She´d counter all and any of their attempts to attack, getting a hold of them and taking advantage of their momentum in less than the blink of an eye, sending them flying away with that same force that came originally from them. They´d land somewhat gracefully most of the time, but when they didn´t she´d help them to their feet, she didn´t want to be feared after all. I’ve always admired her, and she was one of the reasons why I started training in several different martial arts since I was four years old. When I was younger she’d take me to my Tae Kwon Do tournaments and cheer me on whenever I had a fight. Nowadays, she’ll go root for me in my Muay Thai free fights against apprentices from rival dojos, the same way I used to root for her when she had her 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th degree black belt exams.