Before I ever stepped through the doors of Revolution Martial Arts Institute and learned my first

form or threw my first kick, Ralph Macchio, the teachings of Mr. Miyagi, and their Cobra Kai

adversaries were the only references I had when it came to karate. If you had parents that grew

up in the 80s, or lived through the 80s yourself, I’m sure this is a point of view that you can also

understand.

In all the times that I would practice Daniel’s infamous match point crane kick in my bedroom or

recite Cobra Kai’s “No Mercy” mantra…”we do not train to be merciful here, mercy is for the

weak,” you know where I’m going with this; martial arts training was not something I imagined

myself doing out in the real world.

For those of you that know me from class, or have recently seen me working behind the RMAI

desk, you might know a little bit of my story. For those that don’t, it is not my intention to make

this post, or any others in the future, an all about me rant. I’ll try my best anyway. Instead, I hope

that by sharing some of my experiences, I can create some sort of dialogue for everyone that’s a

part of this karate loving community; whether you’re a current or former student, the parent of a

student, or maybe someone like myself who having never had any previous martial arts training

now can’t imagine what my life would be like without it. That might sound a bit dramatic but I

am a writer at heart and we tend to have a flare for the dramatic.

I originally decided to try out karate as a way to get more active again. I was an avid field

hockey player throughout high school but being that I went to a division one college, I knew that

my playing career wasn’t going to carry me through the next four years of undergrad. I was

good…but I can admit I wasn’t D1 good. During college I dabbled with rugby for a semester,

played a bit of club tennis, started getting really into doing yoga in my dorm; much to my

roommate’s amusement, but nothing really stuck for a long stretch of time.

My mom actually brought up the idea for me to try karate. Now she always jokes that I should

quit with how banged up I come home after classes during the week. To quote the words of

Master Celona, “but did you die?”

Leading up to my first class on November 12, 2020, I was extremely nervous. Aside from

wanting something active to do, I had no real idea of what to expect outside of the karate kid. I

do remember taking a few after school karate classes when I was young but I think I was just in

it for the uniform at that point.

I was coming right from work that day so I made sure I had everything I could possibly need

ahead of time; contacts, change of clothes, water; not that we’re allowed to drink water during

class anyway. My fellow trainees know the struggle.

While I didn’t know this at the time, the classes during the week used to either be split up by

rank or by age. Since my first class happened to be on a Thursday, I would end up in a class split

up by rank, white to yellow belts. Now on the surface that seems fine, right? It’s my first day so

I’ll be in a class with all beginners like me. All the flying headbutts will be saved for the more

advanced classes. To my initial shock, however, upon looking around the room at the rest of my

classmates. I noticed something a bit peculiar. Everyone was about a whole two feet shorter and

at least 12 years younger than I was. Oh great, I’m the only adult in a sea full of children, this’ll

be so much fun. I hope my sarcasm here is pretty evident.

Now being a fifth gup with year and a half of training under my belt, haha karate joke; I can’t

imagine not having walked to RMAI on that fateful day; even with all of the initial

embarrassment that I felt not only due to the fact that I was the only student whose birth year

started with 19 but just being a new student in general in an environment that was completely

foreign to me.

While I still have so much more to learn and a long way that I hope to travel through this martial

arts journey that I’m on, a good enough time has passed for me to look back and see how far I’ve

come. It’s almost funny to think about white belt Maddie not knowing what a kihap was or what

foot steps and what hand does the block in line drills; those still trip me up sometimes to be

honest. The great thing that I’ve come to learn about martial arts is that it’s so multifaceted.

While most people see karate as being solely about kicking and punching, that only scratches the

surface. That’s honestly what I thought karate entailed, and was I wrong. So if you’re worried

that karate isn’t for you because you can’t touch the ceiling with your jumping front kick or do a

flying side kick over four people, do not fret, because I honestly believe that there’s something in

martial arts for everyone to excel at.

Anyway, I hope to have more conversations like this with you all. I’ll have to come up with a

catchy slogan for this blog in the meantime. Maybe Karate conversations with Maddie or the

Revolution of RMAI’s karate blog…don’t worry. I’ll work on it. For now, I’ll end this how we

end class. “Pilsung on three…one, two, three, PILSUNG!”