Written by It was my pleasure to spar with some of the black belt candidates on Saturday. Elan, Lucas, Jake, and Matt all demonstrated the heart, skill, and willingness that black belt candidates should possess. I enjoy being pushed myself and they did that. As a coach this year, I feel some of the same concerns I read about in the posts. Age, time, and scheduling are all concerns of mine. I’m not required to put up the same number of pushups, situps, etc. But I need to make myself available to the candidates, and my home base is in the Bay Area. So, I try to keep up with blog posts and am slowly figuring out a routine that works for me.
I am feeling my age too. A few years ago I started getting arthritis flare-ups in my hands. Since then it’s crept into all of my joints. After sparring with those young guys on Saturday all of my joints hurt. Thank you Lucas for all of your sidekicks, LOL. There is no magic formula for overcoming challenges. But this is true for everyone – find your why. It’s a bit of cliche advice but it works. My why is that I enjoy helping people become the best versions of themselves.
During your sparing rounds with the team, I kept glancing over and getting flashbacks of you whooping on me when I was a brown-belt! Everyone is very lucky to have your coaching help!