The American Martial Artist: Personal History: Part 4

June 21, 1969  was when I first started martial arts.  The style  that I studied was Kuk Sool Won.  The belt ranking system was white, blue, red, yellow, yellow with a black stripe, then black.  At the dojang that I trained at they tested for lower belts every two months.  I started on an off month and regardless of how hard I worked I wasn’t ready to test for my first belt, which was blue, the next month.  After three  months of training I was then ready for my blue belt plus I was very close to testing for my next belt (which was red). I had about 3/4 of the requirements needed.  During the  next two  months I practiced every day and completed the requirements for red belt plus I had all the requirements for yellow belt.  My instructor decided to let me double -test, probably because I was military.  Two months later I tested for yellow belt with black stripe.  After the test my instructor told me to have my own stripe sewn on the yellow belt I was wearing.  I went to one of the tailors and had a stripe placed all the way down the center of the belt. Afterward  my instructor told me that I was suppose to have had it sewn on one of the ends, not down the middle. He said that was different then intended but he would accept that.  Now a stripe going down the middle of a belt is common for several styles of martial arts.  Several schools use it  to make extra income for their schools.

My black belt test was to be a special test which followed about 3 months later.  When I tested I had been in martial arts for one day shy of 10 months.  There was no one on either side of my mother’s side or my father’s side of their families that was athleticly active or even exercised.  I don’t believe that any one in my family, including myself, had any natural physical ablility.  The two things that played a large part of my getting my black belt were desire and attitude.

Ten months earlier when I saw my first martial arts demonstration I didn’t realize that it placed the desire in my heart to achieve what I saw other men had accomplished regardless of what I had to do or how long it took.  It help mold my attitude to put myself through whatever it took to reach my goal.