The Sash

I have a good friend back in England that is getting married in September and I plan to head over for a long weekend to attend. Unfortunately it coincides with my next Kung Fu sash ceremony and the rules are that you can only progress to your next sash if you can attend the ceremony. It actually made me think twice about going to the wedding until I gave it some thought. The sash is an indication of how good you are as a student but does not define your skill level. In Maurys Kung Fu is thought of as an indication of the length of dedication to the training - though this is not the case if you are unable to attend the ceremony. So why does it bother me so much? Well mainly due to this last point - an indication of length of dedication to your training, though it is stupid to think that I would need a 'reward' every 3 months. The other aspect is that there is a clear 'pecking order' in a martial arts school as everyone wears an indicator of their place around their waist. There are certain formalities existing between lower and higher ranks, and after being at the top of the pecking order for so many years it has been challenging to be at the bottom again.

There was a large group of people that started in the same semester as me, though I was the first as I joined right at the beginning. As a consequence everyone in the group will be a higher grade than me. This really bugs me and the worst part of all is that it is purely down to my own ego, knowing I will be a step behind everyone for the foreseeable future in the school. I know that there will not be any feeling of superiority among the group, they have great respect for my skills and I have been coaching them to help them improve technique and improve their forms. So really it is a lot about me and my own personal desire to reach black belt as fast as I can so the real training can begin. Also my frustration in seeing my yellow stripe sash group all wearing yellow sashes in September apart from me.

There is an interesting phenomenon that I observed during my years of training in TaeKwon-Do; when someone puts on a higher level belt they can automatically improve overnight. It is amazing seeing it in action, and I have observed it in myself as well. It can be like a kick up the arse - you have observed people of that belt and how good they are and now you need to be performing at that level. So this does seem to counter my previous statements to some extent, the type of belt you wear can impact your skill level.

So Kung Fu will be teaching me another important lesson over the next few months to train and be the best I can be physically and mentally despite the frustrations that will be boiling up straight from my ego.

Nick
Yellow stripe sash
(The title of this - The Sash - is a little bit of an in-joke, it is one of the many names we call our dog)