How long is 8 Hours?

It was a question that had been asked often enough.  In the change room, during practise time on the floor, while sitting at the round table in the lobby, even when out having a beer and watching hockey or football. 

All of the underbelts knew that the final exam for black belt was an 8 hour marathon to be held at the Queenston club in Hamilton, and the closer one got to black belt the more often it came up in day to day conversation.  Considering how drained we usually were after one of Mrs. Kersey's regular hour or hour and a half gradings it was difficult to know how well we'd perform in an 8 hour exam,

Prep for the final exam consisted of three or four two hour pre-gradings, depending on how many schools were sending candidates.  For my black belt group it was three pre-gradings.  At the end of the third pre-grading Mr. Flood broke down the 8 hour exam so we'd know what to expect.

He told us that the exam would start with a timed run which I seem to remember being 2km, then we would move into the dojo for warmup and stretching.  From there, we would do standup basics, then routines, kata, sparring, self defense, grappling, then more basics and finish the test off with calisthenics and fitness.

It was one of those moments where you look at other members of the group and think "what have I gotten myslef into?"  That was a fleeting thought however, lasting only long enough to be trumped by the confidence built up on the road to shodan and reinforced by the pre-gradings.


Running was never my strong suit, and I was a little trepidatious at having a measurable result relying on my run performance on the final exam.  So I started running.  I didn't do so well at first, as I'm a little bit like a dwarf.  Very dangerous over short distances.  Every morining I would run for 15 minutes, turn around and run back, and every morning I ran a little further.  I think it might have been more about building confidence and proficiency in an area I wasn't strong than anything else. 

In classes between that last pre-grading and the final exam, Mrs. Shearer made it perfectly clear that she felt that we had fielded the strongest candidates for black belt out of all the other clubs, and she also made it clear that we needed to live up to that reputation in the final. 

I took the day before the final exam off and loaded up on carbs.  I packed my sparring gear, two uniforms, four t-shirts, two towels, two power bars and three staminades the night before the test.  I even slept well, which is uncommon for me the night before a big event.

The autumn morning of the test broke bright and sunny with light winds and big puffy clouds in the sky, my favourite kind of day.  I felt strong, confident and prepared for what lay ahead.  I left myslef plenty of time and got to the Queenston club about 40 minutes early.  I said my hellos and plopped my bag down in the hallway and leaned against the wall to watch the class on the floor while trying to look as calm as possible while my head buzzed and my stomach tightened with exited anticipation.

Finally, the class ended and Mr. Flood told us to put our gear on the floor and then join him in the parking lot for the run.  He gave us the route to follow asked if everyone was ready, and then told us to start.  I wasn't the quickest off the line, preferring to slowly accelerate and let my breathing settle before I started to push it.  By the time we were 1/4 of the way through I was leading the group, and finished about a minute ahead of the first person behind me.  As I crossed the line I asked him what my time was and he said "Why do you care what your time was when you finished first?"

Rather than have us wait around for everyone to finish in the parking lot, Mr. Flood told us to go inside and get our uniforms on, stay warm and stretch out.  All the parents and relatives were mulling about inside the club, so it was a little noisy and busy inside, and once out of the change room I sought the refuge of the floor where I spent about 10 mintues stretching.  I felt strong and full of energy and ready to give it my all.

Once everyone was changed and on the floor, Mr. Smith (one of Mr. Flood's resident black belts) stretched us out and then Mr. Flood took over.  He asked all friends and relatives to leave the club, and to return that night.  The test was to be just us and the grading panel.  For the second time, we looked at each other and thought, "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

Once the club was clear, Mr. Flood started us out on our basics techiques.  For the most part, they were stationary traditional basics.  One was Shuto in back stance, reverse punch in front stance rear leg roundhouse kick landing in shuto back stance facing the other direction.  We repeated drills as such for about 20 minutes or so with pushups, situps, squats, running on the spot, touch and jumps, skis and etc...

After about 45 minutes of this we got our first drink break.  I towelled off and changed my T-shirt, then we met back on the floor for our routines.  Together the entire group did every routine; white belt, yellow belt, orange belt, green & green stripe, blue belt, blue stripe, brown belt and brown stripe repeatedly.  The higher belt routines had rolls, flying side kicks and tornado kicks in them, and I was starting to get well and truly warmed up.  Once we had spent about 45 minutes on those we got another break, then Mr. Flood sat us down and started talking about what it takes to be a black belt, but only just long enough for us to catch our breath before moving on to our Katas.

Mr. Flood had us do Takioku Gedan multiple times, then he said "Now do all the Katas you know".  Being members of the Black Belt Club, the three of us from Mississauga knew quite a few;  Dan Gun, Heiyan Yondan, Geksai Ichi, Geksai Ni, Won Hyo, Seiyunchin, Saifa, Hwa Rang, Sansei Ryu, and Chung Moo.  Having so many Katas, we were the last to be finished.

It was late afternoon by then, and Mr. Flood gave us 15 minutes to have fruit or a power bar, a drink, and to change into our sparring gear.  I put on my second fresh T-Shirt, had a drink, a quick bite, and geared up.  I was getting sore and tired as we had been at it for over four hours by then, but I was eager to continue.

As it usually did in normal classes, sparring started out with drills.  The blitz, the kick blitz, the blitz fade - away kick and defensive drills.  after about 20 minutes we started free sparring, which continued for another 30 minutes or so.

Another break, another T-shirt and a fresh uniform too.  We paired off for self defense work.  No instruction as to which techniques to use were given.  All Mr. Flood would say is stuff like "Defend yourself from a double lapel grab." and we'd go back and forth doing so until he gave us a new attack to use.  I had to use one of my Mississauga partners to demonstrate Tominagi, a kind of Captain Kirk move where you grab someone, sit backward and kick them over your head, then continue to roll backwards and end up on top of them on the ground.  It seems the other schools weren't teaching it.  From there we did all our grappling drills; escaping the mount, passing the guard and escaping the side mount.  I was looking forward to some free grappling, but again, the other schools hadn't done much of it wasn't part of the grading.

The self defense had been a nice relaxing pace.  The hardest work was getting back up off the ground, so it was almost like a 45 minute break, in retrospect, the calm before the storm.  Now I didn't know that at the time, and my T-Shirt wasn't that bad, so I didn't bother changing into my last one.  Mr. Flood sat us down, and talked more about having a Black Belt attitude, and that a good Black Belt would never, ever quit.  Then he stood us up.  I noticed that there were friends and family members waiting outside to get back into the club.  I also noticed that the windows were dripping due to the moist air which got that way from our exertion and effort.  I took my spot in the line, and it began.

What followed was the hardest 25 minutes of my life.  Non stop kicking, punching, jumping, pushups, situps, squats, and combinations thereof.  I stayed strong and continued even though every breath I took remined me how sore I was - I had been breathing so hard and deeply for the duration of the test that the muscles between my ribs were even sore!   Every now and again my leg would spasm as we were kicking, then, Mr. Flood asked us to find a line on the floor, and jump from one side of it to the other non stop.  About a minute and a half into that drill, my right calf muscle started to cramp up.  I let it slow me down visibly, and my jumps were much lower.  Mr. Flood noticed this, walked around behind me and whispered, "Jamie, you're giving up.  I didn't think you would."

What a moment of clarity.  I thought about how all of the training I had done since the day I walked into the Mississauga club as a nervous bartender would mean nothing if I gave up then.  I'd like to say that this made my cramping ease up, but it didn't.  I didn't let that stop me from jumping though.  I used more quadricep and less calf muscle, and finished off the drill with everyone else.  Lastly, Mr. Flood sat us down and had us recline and lift our feet off the floor, and cross them one over the other.  Some rested when it got too hard, but I'm proud to say most of us continued on to the end of the drill no matter how much it hurt and how hard it got.  When the drill ended and Mr. Flood asked us to gather around and have a seat, I sat with my head bowed and tried to recover while I waited for the next drill.

Mr. Flood spoke to us calmly and quietly about the value of being able to stick to something and not quit, about how this was another step on a long journey, and how we were now considered serious students.  I didn't quite understand... was the test over?  I sat there, breathing and dripping sweat, every inch of my body begging to rest but mentally prepared for the next drill which never came.  It wasn't until the doors were opened to friends and family that I realised the grading was complete, and I was overcome with emotion.  I had set a difficult goal and achieved it, and I didn't give up even when the going got hard and money got tight.  I finally felt I was living up to the words that were above the mirrors when I first joined the Mississauga club:  Respect, discipline, confidence, integrity, perserverance and self-control.

To answer the question, 8 hours can pass in 37 seconds!

For the next month, I floated around on a high while I wore my red stripe belt until the black belt award ceremony which was to take place in December.

My Road to Shodan

Dave and I were getting along famously.  I worked with him three days a week while working nights at the Mississauga club teaching the cardio Kickbox program and helping out Mrs. Kersey.

Tyrolit was a good place to work.  When it rained, it poured and we were both busy throughout the day.  There were some quiet periods however during which our creativity ran amok.  We invented a game called "Warehouse Ball" which involved a super ball, a cricket bat, and a warehouse.  Many hours of fun followed.  Also, on a recent trip to the states I got my hands on some shuriken and throwing knives, so we set up some targets and had fun with that as well.  we even had did some kata in our spare time.  Idle hands and all that.

One day I was breaking down boxes for recycling, practicing punches as usual.  As I punched through the tape on one I felt a sharp pain on my right index knuckle.  The box had very strong cardboard separators inside which were also very sharp and had cut my index knuckle wide open.  I could see the bone whenever I made a fist.  "Crap... I guess I need stitches." I thought.  Two stitches later they started calling me "Cardboard Ninja".  Great...  just great.

Much to our advantage, Tyrolit shipped us a load of three foot grinding wheels without the timber safety cage.  Dave and I took a couple of days to secure them with Timber in our own time and got paid $2000.00 a piece for having done so.  I used that as a down-payment for my first brand-new car, a Kia Rio.  Woohoo, I know, but it was mine, it was new, and it was fun.

Unfortunately, the Millcreek club had run its course.  Brandon and the manager had a man to man one day, and decided to close it since the business wasn't attracting enough membership.  In retrospect I am entirely sure it was the location.  We were much too well hidden.  Every cloud has a silver lining however, and so I got to go back to train full time with Krista at the Mississauga club where I attained the rank of red-stripe, which was the black belt grading rank.  Once you were a red stripe, it was expected that you would be training diligently for the rest of the year to do well in your black belt exam.

The program was quite gruelling, every month leading up to the black belt exam would include a two hour grading.  Since our school was sending three red stripes to the grading we would be hosting one of these two hour gradings.  Our pre-grading was run very similarly to our normal rank gradings by Mrs. Kersey.  Fitness, basics, routines and kata were the order of the day. 

Unfortunately, I have no memory of the second pre-grading.  I don't remember if it was held at Stoney Creek or Brantford, and I have no recollection of what we did.  I'm sure I performed satisfactorily however since I was invited to the next pre-grading.

The third grading was held at the Queenston club which was our Honbu or main dojo.  Again, fitness and basics were required and then we got into sparring. 

I was able to dig up some old video and convert it to some still shots of the Queenston pre-grading:

Working with a partner on our Blitz

A partner and I getting some strategic instruction from Mr. Flood

It was a heck of an experience doing those pre-gradings.  I got into the best shape of my life and the prospect of a long black belt grading became much less daunting.

It was just after the Queenston grading that I took a bit of a holiday.  It would have been early September 2000, and I took my dog Panda and went up to Algonquin provincial park for some interior camping.  We hiked the trail on the map below.  Uphill and downhill, through mud, dirt, over rocks, moss, though bogs and green grassy fields.  Poor Panda fell in a river on day one and has been leery of water ever since.  We covered a grand total of  60.5 Km over three days, her with her 15lb doggy backpack, me with my 60lb person backpack.  When we got home on the third night, we slept for 17 hours straight!

Boy did we have fun - we saw a couple of moose, a cow and a calf near the end of the first day.  We just stood there for five minutes and enjoyed watching them in the distance.  We drank from rivers, sat by the fire rubbing our sore muscles and enjoyed just being alive.  Whenever it would get hard and I wanted to give up, I'd chant "Black" with one step and "Belt" with another.  I was ready for my 8 hour grading.

Opportunities Present Themselves

There I was, somewhere around blue belt, working three days a week at one club and two at the other.  I had sold my car and was using public transit or my push bike to get to and from work.  I had found a new training partner that had a similar commitment level and rank as I had, and who wasn't afraid of a little hard work and even better, hard knocks (giving and receiving!).

One day Krista, Brandon and the manager decided it was time they get some help with the cardio kickboxing program, thus opened an entirely new facet of training for me.  Though I was a regular participant in Krista's cardio classes, I never thought I'd be teaching them.  In fact, the manager decided to purchase someone else's branded program and launch it in both clubs.  I'm not saying it didn't work, but for the life of me I can't fathom why one would pay for a something you could do in house that was the same if not better quality.  When I think of the energy we wasted on that program... well, hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

In any event the new program was well structured and very easy to learn and a few of our better students and Reema our receptionist also learned how to teach the cardio portion of the class.  It was good training as all of the cardio was done with the class.


Things were going well at the Mississauga club.  Enrollment was up, Krista was getting the help and advertising she needed and a few of the students from Gerry Watson's old club were getting ready to grade for black belt. 

Somewhere around then we held a grand opening for the Millcreek club.  Brandon and I taped off a large area in the parking lot out in front of the club the night before.  The next day, the area would have a stage in front of the club, music, a bouncing castle, other fun kids stuff (don't quite remember the details) and the Harvey's mobile restaurant - kind of like a big BBQ on wheels.  This was thanks to Mr. Tay, one of our student's father who ran a couple of Harvey's restaurants.  Unfortunately, there was a car parked in the area we wanted to tape off - so we put the tape around it hoping it would be gone by morning.

It wasn't.

So we did what any group of guys who think they're tougher than they probably are would do.  Seven or so of us grabbed that car by the front end, lifted so the weight was mostly off the front wheels, and moved it right out of there!  It became a great conversation piece during the celebrations.  We got to see Brandon do a musical bo kata which was a rare and awesome treat.  There were kids doing katas too, and I got to do Seiyunchin with a little trancy Enigma in the background.  It was a really fun day, unfortunately we were so well hidden that we didn't really generate any new members from it!

Training continued and I dug myself out of my debt hole slowly, I even had a little bit of cash in the bank.  All that cheap living!

Around then I decided it was time to take drastic action.  Please let me explain with pictures:

In 1994 my hair was awesome.  Captain Kirk, eat your heart out!

In 1998, not so much... combover  before 25 years old?  I don't think so.

So in 1999, I did this.

I graded a few more times and I was a brown belt.  That's about when my parents rang me up one day and said they'd be moving back within a year.

I grew up in Montreal, in the same house for 16 years.  When I was 16, my parents and I moved to Mississauga since Dad couldn't find work in his area of expertise.  Some old contacts from the 80's had work going in Toronto.  My two older brothers had lives and serious girlfriends, so they both decided to stay in Montreal.  I lived with my parents a few more years until Dad, who was always looking for a better job, found one in the U.S.A. working for Pirelli's high voltage power division.

Dad was back and forth between Mississauga and somewhere in New Jersey for the better part of a year, and then the California job came up.  Long story short, I decided to stay in Mississauga, and moved out just after turning 19.

Imagine my surprise five years later when Dad told me he'd be back in town to start looking for work, staying at a cousin's house.  So I got together with him and he asked if I'd move back in with them when they found a place.  Having struggled for as long as I had, I jumped at the opportunity.  I moved back in with my parents on December 31st 1999.  Oh, and the world didn't melt down by the way, which everyone was worried it would.  My parent's went out with other people from their generation, so I stayed home and mopped the floors.  After all, if the world is going to end, you'd want to have clean floors right? 

The new house was in Brampton, about a 35 minute drive from the Mississauga club.  Room and board would cost me $200 less a month than just rent had at my old place and Ma also gave me her car as Dad had bought her a new one.  It was an old Pontiac 6000 STE, and it served me well as long as I kept it.


One night after a great session of training at Millcreek, Dave came up to me and asked if I might want to work a few days a week at the Tyrolit Abrasives warehouse.  I took a while to think about it, and decided it was another great opportunity, a little extra money wouldn't hurt, and I'd be working with someone I knew and liked.  I'll tell you the story of how I earned the nickname "Cardboard Ninja" from the upper management next time!

Yours on the journey,
J.

A Heavy Lightweight?

About a month after I'd first heard Mr. Kersey mention Millcreek, the new location opened.  While Mr. Kersey could handle the fledgeling club alone, Mrs. Kersey had a club with somewhere around 250 members strong, and the loss of Mr. Kersey as an instructor made her job much more difficult.

Enter Mr. Ben Gallant, a sharp talking nidan (2nd degree black belt) who had studied under Mr. Craig Munn from the Brandtford United Martial Arts location.  Mr. Gallant was young (weren't we all!), boisterous and charismatic, and he made it perfectly clear early on that he wasn't going to take any crap from anybody.  He earned my respect very quickly and still has it to this day.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gallant had always worked in Martial Arts, not the best earning industry in the world, and so he didn't own a car, and was only able to find a place to stay about 20 drive from the club.  By bus I'm sure it took him much longer.  I would often give him a lift home as his place was closer to mine than anyone else's, during which time I'd like to say I got to know him well, but we never became close friends.

Up until Ben (Mr. Gallant) joined the club I had been training extensively with Brandon (Mr. Kersey) - especially in sparring and weapons.  Being a lightweight, Brandon moved like lightning which I thought was completely normal at the time.  To stand any chance with him when sparring, one had to move equally as quickly, so though I didn't realise it at the time, Brandon turned me into a heavyweight who fought like a lightweight.  I relied on strategy, timing and speed rather than power and momentum like most beginner heavyweights.

When Brandon dissapeard to go run Millcreek, I lost my sparring guru.  I remember training a few times with Ben in the afternoon before the first kids class as we were often both over an hour early, where one of his remarks was "you're pretty quick for a fat guy."   ... er... thanks... I think! 

Ben changed my fighting style a bit, he was a thinking fighter, and I tended to kick alot, so he fought me as you would a kicker and usually won.  That's when I stopped relying on kicks so much and started striking alot more.  I developed a very fast counter reverse punch which then became my mainstay, and kicked about 10% of the time instead of 50% or so.  His training helped me win the first provincial tournament in sparring to qualify for team Canada in the WKA.  (unfortunately I later placed third and fourth respectively in the next two tournaments, and therefore didn't qualify for the national team)

Shortly after winning the first tournament the club manager thought I should split my time between the clubs as I was the membership salesman, and membership was lagging at Millcreek.  So, that's when I started spending Tuesday through Thrusday at Millcreek and Friday Saturday at Mississauga.  I was having a grand old time and happy to be back with Brandon, but also a little unhappy at having a reduced role at the club I knew and loved.  I missed Krista's (Mrs. Kersey's) guidance and commraderie, my old friends, and Millcreek was always literally colder and darker than Mississauga (the ceiling was way too high).

I had a few interesting jobs at Millcreek,  painting, cleaning up the computer wiring, and one particular job that that I look back on and say "what was I thinking?".  I was to climb up to the ceiling and secure the chains of the hanging bags to each other so they wouldn't hit the support beams.  Our ladder extended to about 20 feet, but the ceiling was about 30 feet up.  Through clever use of the roller door and supports I was able to make it to the ceiling and do the work I needed to do.  I did this a few times over a couple of days, and in retrospect it was a pretty stupid thing to do.  No safety harness or support, and no one was at the club while I did it.  Thankfully I didn't have a fall (no less than three limbs on an anchor point at a time) and things kept going smoothly.

It was when I was at Millcreek that three major events that shaped my training occured.  First, I lost my car.  Second, I met Mr. Dave Evans.  Third, my cornea was injured.

Regarding the car, you might remember from the last blog that my old Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was over 10 years old.  I had replaced the windshield once, the driver's side window twice, (now held up with duct tape as the electric window mechanism had failed) and there was body work and mismatched paint on the hood and roof of the car.  Inside it was nice, but it was loosing its "Get up and Go".  Unfortunately I knew alot less about engines than I know now and I realise that it probably just needed new gaskets or maybe new plugs or something.  I wasn't making any money, and was slowly getting into increasing debt, so push came to shove and I decided to sell the car.

With the money I received from the sale, I got out of debt (momentarily) and bought new wheels for my push bike (Road Bike for you Canadians).  It was spring or summer, and so sometimes I rode to Millcreek, or would take the bus to Mississauga and Brandon would give me a lift up to his club.

Secondly I met Dave.  I didn't know it when I first met him, but he would become one of the best friends I'd ever have.  It was something like a Wednesday adult's class at Millcreek.  I had been giving a few prospective cardio kickbox members my sales pitch as the class started.  I got onto the floor sometime after the stretch, and there was this blue belt I had never seen before.  It was a little like looking into a mirror.  Large in stature (taller than me), bald (I wasn't bald yet, but had a really high hairline and was contemplating it), easy smile, easy going, strong in Kata.  Of course, testosterone kicked in and I picked my training up a notch - nothing like a  little friendly competition even if the other party doesn't know there is one!

Dave Evans

Dave and I became fast friends, and guess what?  Much like Guy who started this whole thing off in the first place, Dave was from a city called Saskatoon in the province of Saskatchewan.  (They grow 'em big out there!)

Thirdly, between the first and second provincial qualifier for team Canada, I was sparring with Brandon one night.  Training with Ben had slowed me down a bit as he was bigger and had more reach than Brandon, and one of Brandon's backfists caught me easily.  Unfortunately, I didn't even flinch it was so fast, and something scratched my left eye.  The pain was incredibly intense, I'd never felt anything like it before.  I had to stop training for the night, and I couldn't open my eye as it hurt too much.  Every time I blinked it was as though I had sandpaper on the inside of my eyelid. 

I would later find out that I had scratched my cornea, which heals very quickly, but takes a long time to smooth out.  Months later I would still occasionally notice the pain as I blinked if I was a little dehydrated.  As a result of the eye injury I became very leery of sparring, and insisted on buying a pair of goggles before I would spar properly again.  It took me a while to find the right pair (Oakley Water Jackets), and the lack of training led to my losses in the provincial qualifiers.

Still, Karate is Karate, and one of the most important lessons Krista ever taught me was to never give up, so I kept training diligently.

Yours on the journey,
J.

A Fork in the Road

There I was, working full time as a Bartender/Supervisor at Jack Astor's Bar and Grill on Dundas in Missisauga, and training as a green belt at least 5 days a week at United Martial Arts Mississauga with Mrs. and Mr. Kersey as my instructors.  I was starting to find my feet as a fighter thanks to Friday night's sparring sessions and sparring seminar invitations from Mr. Kersey.  He also taught most Bo (staff) classes and I was very exited to be learning not only traditional but also more modern Bo techniques.

I was getting in decent shape too, pushups and situps were no longer a problem and I often thought about or even practiced martial arts when I was not at work or the club.  A few months had passed since I had dropped my resume at United, so I was very surprised when the club management called me up one afternoon out of the blue and asked if I'd still be available to work for them.
What an opportunity!  I was elated at the prospect of working in the arena I loved and with people I respected and wanted to learn from!  All silver linings have clouds however, and when I sat down with the club manager I learned that I would be taking a severe pay cut.  While bartending wasn't the most glamorous job, it was a good way to earn quick easy money.

I took some time out to think about it.  This was a fork in the road.  One path led to the same thing I had been doing for a couple of years with a carreer as a restaurant manager and a comfortable standard of living.  The other path led to improved fitness and immersion in an atmosphere that would help me become the best black belt I could possibly be and financial cutbacks.
 
What helped me make the decision was an interaction I had a few weeks before the club offer.  I was supervising the floor at Jack's one night when a waitress asked me to visit an unhappy table.  Long story short, the grandmother of the family wasn't happy with the meal, and the son made it his personal mission to ruin my night.  The offer of a free round of drinks and buying the grandmother's meal wasn't enough for him, and he did the whole, "What's your name, position and the name of your boss."  routine, threatening to write a letter to head office if he didn't get a better offer.  With my manager's backing at the time we bought the whole table and they still left unhappy.  I knew we had been taken advantage of and blatantly disrespected, and was very frustrated at the injustice of it all.

With that experience fresh in my mind I called the club and asked when they wanted me to start.  As it happened, I would be working Tuesdays through Saturdays doing the intro sessions and signing new members up to the program.  I stayed on at Jack Astors part time for a little while, until I went on holidays for a long weekend to visit my parents who had a beach house in Massachusetts.  Though I had booked the time off, the new bar manager put me on the schedule anyway.  So, that was the end of my Bartending stint!  It was real, it was fun, it was real fun, but I was glad it was over.

Back at the club, I was doing about two intros a day, and whenever there weren't intros Mrs. Kersey welcomed me on the floor to be a "Leader" - a kyu belt teaching assistant.  I had also started helping out around the club as a handyman, hanging wall plaques, changing neon lights, repairing holes in the walls (the Kerseys often did high school self defense courses, and of course, boys will be boys) and the like.  I was getting to know other club regulars that didn't attend the classes I normally did.  Reema, our Receptionist, and other students, Abe, Cliff, Lindsay, Ryan, Scott and Steve as well as the Mullings family.  These people would stay on with the club for as long as I did and longer, and though I didn't know it at the time, I was lucky to be surrounded by such quality individuals.

Krista and Brandon Kersey

Head Instructors of Mississauga and Millcreek respectively

Sometime around then I had progressed from Green to Green Stripe, which can be thought of as a senior green belt.  The curriculum was similar; Won Hyo was again our Kata, the routine (spinning hook kick, shuto, jump front kick, a couple of blocks in front, horse and back stances) was the same but done on the other side, and instead of self defense drills we had sparring drills, all of which I already knew thanks to my early start.

I recall Mr. Kersey starting to talk about "Millcreek" when I was a green stripe belt.  I didn't know what he was on about at first until it became apparent that He was going to be leaving the Mississauga club and opening another United Martial Arts with the same club manager.  It was to be about 15 minutes away (depending on traffic) from the Mississauga club. 
It was shortly after I graded for Blue belt that the Millcreek location opened.  I would be there Tuesday through Thursday and at the Mississauga club Friday and Saturday, and I'd often go to  the Queenston club (our parent club in Hamilton, Mr. Flood's club) for sparring classes on Sunday.  The clubs also introduced a new Cardiovascular Kickboxing program that the manager had purchased from one of the well established Martial Arts clubs in the Hamilton area.  This meant that we all became significantly busier learning to teach and promote the new program.

Things were not going very well for me financially at the time.  I was sinking too much money into my car, which was going on 11 years old and in need of constant repair, plus the cost of upkeep, insurance payments, ahhh! It was all getting to be too much.  I noticed the car was really labouring to get up the big hill on the bridge in Hamilton, but I had absolutely no spare money or even room on the credit card to fix the problem.  This was going to come to a head, and soon...

Yours on the journey,
J.

Early Days

After the introductory session, my first official class was on my next day off work which was a Sunday.  The chief instructor Krista Shearer (now Kersey) had the day off, so Gerry Watson was teaching classes.

Being a Jiu-Jitsu man, Mr. Watson had a different teaching style and focus to other instructors in the United system.  When you say "Jiu-Jitsu" nowadays, people usually think you're talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the grappling system that has gained such noteriety thanks to UFC and MMA.  The type of Jiu-Jitsu Mr. Watson specialised in can be thought more of as self defense with joint locks and strikes to vulnerable positions, so while there are ground fighting components, it is usually done from a standing position.

After the warmup and stretch we paired off and began to work an entirely new concept for me, self-defense.  I was much too stiff and unwieldy, but Mr. Watson was very patient with me, he even used me as an Uki (can be thought of as "guinea pig for demonstrations") in that very first class!  What a privilege.  I was quite visibly nervous so he held out his hand for a handshake.  I took it and the next thing I knew I was on my knees looking down at the ground with pain shooting through my thumb.  I had to learn how to do things like that!

Mrs. Kersey's classes were structured differently.  They were very demanding physically, more specifically, cardiovascular stamina, flexibility, strength, good technique and co-ordination were all expected.  Of course it took me a few sessions to get my windbags working (some say now they work a little too well!).  I would go to the day classes whenever I didn't have to work lunch and the night classes whenever I could get to them.  Basically, if I wasn't at work and there was a class I could attend, I was at the club.  In retrospect, it's a good thing I was single at the time!

As a white belt I also had the esteemed privilege of being able to spar early (again, usually reserved for orange belts and above).  Guy loaned me his sparring gear for a Sunday sparring session since he wouldn't be around.  I had never sparred properly before.  The only experience I had was tying on old straw-filled boxing gloves with my brother when we were boys and getting the stuffing knocked out of me in the back-yard one summer.  This Sunday session was much the same!  The class started off with drilling our basic blitz attack, Backfist reverse punch.  Since this was the only technique I knew I did it repeatedly and with increasing intensity when it was time to free spar.  Being of larger stature than most and not the prettiest face to look at I did quite well against the lower belts with even those two techniques.  Then I lined up across from a gentleman about ten years older and a little bigger and taller than me.

I went in hard and he easily side stepped my attack.  A few more times.  He paused for a second and said something along the lines of "try to relax a bit, you don't have to aim to take my head off.  We're sparring partners, here to help each other."  While I heard what he said and nodded, I'm not sure my body wanted to listen.  On the next technique I went in hard again and saw stars.  It wasn't until a few seconds later that I realised I had just been kicked in the head - and hard!  I glanced in the mirror and saw a little red splotch forming beside my right eye - This guy was so good he kicked me in the head and gave me a black eye in no time flat!  I looked over at him and he gave me the most disarming smile and said "Sorry about that!"

I didn't realise it at the time but I had just sparred with the head of United Martial Arts at the time, Mr. Jim Flood, and he had taught me one of the most important lessons I've ever learned in Martial Arts.  When it comes to training, we're here to help others, not dominate them. 

Mr. Jim Flood, head of United Family Martial Arts

I continued to train diligently right through from White belt to Green Belt.  I was always happy to train with Guy as we were friends from before martial arts.  Sadly, when I was a yellow belt Guy had a falling out with the management of the club. He was very bitter and I haven't seen or heard from him since. He was a talented and enthusiastic martial artist and I must admit that the atmosphere of the club was a little less jovial without him there, but in retrospect his absence encouraged me to seek out other friends inside the club.

Between yellow and green belt I attended a couple of tournaments, I won my division in Kata and in Sparring.  Mrs. Kersey asked me to write an article for the newsletter on the subject of intensity, which I had plenty of.  My Katas were always strong and almost savage as though I was in a fight.  When I did partner work I went at about 80% intensity if I thought my partner was up to it, otherwise I started slow and worked my way up as the drill became more familiar.  I was developing my style as a martial artist and was quite comfortable with how I was progressing by green belt.

I had met Mr. Kersey and had participated in his Weapons and Sparring classes.  Sometime around my green belt, Mr. Watson and Kyoshi Steve left the club as instructors.  Sundays now saw the club closed and my training diminished slightly, as I always had Sundays off. 

I became little disheartened at green belt because it took me a month to go from white to yellow, the same to get to orange, and two months to get to green.  As a green belt a month had already passed when I wrote the newsletter article and I didn't even have one grading stripe! (three, sometimes four required to be eligeable to grade).  Still, I perservered and kept my nose to the grindstone, and I kept reminding myself to be disciplined and have a good attitude whenever my ego tried to fight its way out of the neat little cage I was slowly building for it.

I was around then that I started getting sick of bartending.  I was a supervisor at Jack Astor's on my way to becoming the bar manager and I felt I was at a crossroads.  I felt like I was living a double life, bartending, which was in my opinion promoting unhealthy habits, and martial arts which was promoting healthy ones.  I decided to apply for the postiton vacated by Guy at the club.  I was politely told that they would love to have me, but the club didn't require it at the time.  Mrs. Kersey was able to to both her job and Guy's with the current customer load.

So, I continued to train dilligently and work at Jack's in the short term.  Little did I know what was around the corner...

Yours on the journey,
J.

Where it all started

My fascination with Martial Arts began back in '97.

I was working full time as a bartender at Casey's Grillehouse and Beverage Company on Dundas St. in Mississauga.  That summer a guy from Saskatchewan (named "Guy" no less!) joined the staff and had a bit of trouble finding his feet - as an already old hand at table and drink service I helped him out whenever I could and we became fast friends.

The restaurant business wasn't for him and he faded away after a couple of months.  Coincidentally, all that summer my eyes were drawn to a new shop across the way that had the coolest looking purple neon lights that were like a beacon in the night sky.  I had no idea what kind of shop it was, and kept promising myself to check it out the following day.

It wasn't until sometime in September that I went to find out (I wasn't too big on integrity back then).  As I walked across the parking lot on a split (lunch/break/dinner shift) I was surprised to see it was a Karate club by the name of "United Family Martial Arts".  There were neons around the door glowing dully in the mid-September sun which read "Karate, Tae-Kwon do, Jiu-Jitsu".  Though I admit to feeling a little intimidated by what I might face inside, I decided I was tired of reverting to my two handed chest push I had learned as an offensive lineman in high school football whenever things got out of hand at the bar.  I wanted to learn something useful and get in shape, and have something in common with my oldest brother Chuck who was at that time living in Japan, teaching english and studying Shotokan.

So, I walked through the door, and there was Guy sitting behind the desk!  After paying $30.00 I had an intro session and a lightweight white uniform with a brand new and very stiff white belt.  As I think back, my martial arts skill really was well represented by that thing.  Way too stiff and needing to be worked in.

I was hooked immediately and decided to sign up without even meeting the instructor.  I was allowed to sign up to the BBM program (unlimited classes for $90.00 a month) right away - usually only reserved for orange belts and above.  I guess it really is about who you know.

Then I met my first instructor.  Miss Krista Shearer (Now Mrs. Kersey).  She was already a world champion in Kata and Sparring in the WKA.  I hadn't yet met Mr. Brandon Kersey, her fiancee and also world champion in Kata, Sparring, and Weapons in the WKA.  We also had the special privilege of learning from Sensei Gerry Watson, a rokudan in Jiu-Jitsu, and Kyoshi Steve, also in Jiu-Jitsu (I wish I had more information about him!)

Krista Shearer and Brandon Kersey

From that day on, I trained a minimum of four times a week, more often five or six, but more about that part of the journey to come.

Yours on the journey,
J.