Val Grysko – What Black Belt Means

What the path to black belt means to me? Well, it’s simple. This path means to get better. Not better than others, but better than you was a year ago, better than you was 3 months or two weeks ago, or even to become better than you was yesterday. Become better in both ways, mental and physical.

This is not only about try to kick harder, or throwing a fast punch.It’s, also, about self confidence, self reliance, and self discipline. It’s not about how to fight someone, it’s about how to try to avoid the fight by knowing how to protect yourself. The black belt path is, also, about how to use your limits and get most possible outcome of it. For instance, I could not perform high kick by any of my legs. I was upset, angry and frustrated. Now, still,  I can’t perform high kick by my left leg. But once I realize that’s not the problem for me, I can do something else with it. So, as a result I am using it for something else. Burn kick, for instance. Still, I am performing a lot of stretching to be able to perform high kick.

The words that could describe my journey to where I got now are: fun, interesting, amazing, exciting, addictive, joyful and most importantly healthy and helpful. Also, I would like to mention, that I like every of the four schools I have visited so far, it’s not to say that I like one more than the  other. It’s to say that I like to train in different locations, meet new training partners, as well as, train with those people that I haven’t seen for a while. indeed I am trying  learn  a different training style, and get new partners for training. Also, I am trying to invite some people to attend my “home school”, and… learn, train and progress toward the black belt.