To this day, I don't fully understand why he did it. We were waiting - the whole class - in the assembly hall for our PE teacher to arrive. From there, we'd be going to the local swimming pool. Maybe he was bored, sitting there. He decided to relieve his boredom by launching himself at me and trying to wrestle me to the ground. It didn't go quite how he had imagined it would.
I was always the quiet one. Consequently, I was always mistaken for an easy target. Later, with a puzzled look on his face, he asked how I'd been able to pin him to the ground. Stephen had a reputation in the school, you see, and may have been concerned about how being pinned in front of so many witnesses might affect that reputation. I've learned in the years since that such reputations are often built on willingness to fight, rather than ability. When I replied that I had been learning judo for a while, he asked what belt I had. The answer caused him to feel even more confused because, as he said, he had a belt of a colour which suggested he had been training for maybe a year longer in judo.
Some time after this, I had just walked out of the door at the end of the school day, and heard my name called from behind me. I turned to see a punch heading in my direction. It was only after I'd applied a standing arm bar that I realised who owned the fist that had nearly connected with my face. Rory? As far as I was aware, we didn't have a problem with each other. As we shuffled around - him trying to escape a standing arm bar, and me determined to keep it locked on - I asked what was going on.
Apparently, hearing of my interest in a girl on whom he also had a crush had enraged him. Having been dissuaded from further attempts at aggression, he decided we'd walk part of the way home together and talk about it instead. At one point, he asked for another demonstration of the lock that had been applied on him. I obliged, knowing he would have little or no opportunity to practise and perfect the technique, and would probably soon forget it.
The thing is, I never wanted to achieve a black belt in judo. It may sound strange to some, but it's the truth. At that time, a black belt represented at least seven years of judo training; for most people, it took around ten years to earn that belt.
There was a practical aspect to all of this. My father insisted that my brother and I missed some of the gradings for the next belts. His stated reasoning was that we would both be much more experienced than those of the same apparent grade. The real motivation was that we weren't particularly well off financially as a family, and he was starting to think of judo as an expensive hobby for his sons.
When I started doing judo, it wasn't with the wish to gain a black belt. As a novice, I wanted to earn a white belt. As a white belt, I wanted to earn a yellow belt. As a yellow belt, I wanted to earn an orange belt. If I had concentrated on the black belt, my motivation would have been something that seemed far in the future. The satisfaction of gaining a white belt, a yellow belt, an orange belt and so on would have been lost. It was better to learn appreciation for what I had, rather than become dissatisfied because there were things I didn't have.
"I'm doing judo to earn a black belt" is a poor motivation anyway. We should do judo to do judo. If I hadn't enjoyed the process of learning, and hadn't felt that each belt earned was valuable in its own right, it would have affected my practice. The incident with Stephen, and his insistence that a coloured belt should have been a reason for him to have escaped the hold in which he had found himself, suggested that he didn't really get it. His training wasn't the problem. The incident with Rory showed me that convincing others not to cause harm was a great motivation.
When it becomes possible to attend martial arts classes again, I'm going to join a new class as a novice. It may happen that I gain a black belt eventually. It might not happen. All that matters, really, are those hours I may spend each week practising a martial art, for no other purpose than practising a martial art.
I hope you understand.
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