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Simon Brea ’23

Hand chopping wood and a samurai ship. Credit: Emma Reid ’20

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Throughout my life, I was not regarded as an athlete. The only real sport I did was karate, but I was always viewed by my teachers, and myself, as an underdog. Music was my main passion; I was heavily involved in my high school’s music program, participating in musicals, concerts, and other performances that would help build my reputation as an aspiring vocalist. I had sung for several different elite student choirs, both in and out of school. However, despite all of these musical accomplishments, I still wanted to be an athlete.

In the fall of 2018, it seemed my wish would be granted. My sensei had announced that he would be forming a competition team, and invited a handful of students, myself included, from the dojo to compete across the state of New York. As soon as I heard the news, I was ecstatic; I felt like I could start a new chapter in my life, and become a legitimate athlete. I had great faith in myself, and believed that in addition to being an opera vocalist, I could one day become a reputable competitor.

Unfortunately, I felt that dream start to crumble as the first few months of the season began. My first tournament was in October of 2018, and I was competing in the 16-17 Black Belt Division, against some of the best in the country. I was excited, and somehow convinced myself that I could win first place. I donned the red belt, and my opponent wore the blue; there were three judges, and I needed to pull at least two red flags to advance. Well, that didn’t happen, and I lost my first round by only one flag. I was disappointed since I was so close to the final, and received a bronze medal since there weren’t enough people in my division.

However, I was satisfied with the results, and knew that there was a lot of improvement to be made with my stances and strikes (and it was my first tournament too, I really shouldn’t have expected to win). A month later, I competed again, the venue a large indoor basketball court which had five rings running at once. You could hear competitors shouting and whistles blowing from the other side of the room.

I arrived at 9:00, and waited until 4:00 to compete. I was tired and hungry, but was still determined to win a round. I stepped onto the mat, this time wearing the blue belt, facing five judges. By the end of my first round, I felt like I had won the match with ease, and expected to breeze on to the finals. Instead, I only pulled one flag, and received another bronze medal, for showing up.The rest of that season, for the most part, was incredibly difficult and full of disappointment.

Four months later, I traveled to the biggest tournament in New York, and despite all of the doubt I was feeling from my previous matches, I was still excited—I was now competing in the adult division. I was anxious to find out who my opponent was; I was hoping to face my sensei, even though I knew there was no way that would happen, since two competitors from the same dojo can’t face each other in the first round. Or, maybe I would be paired up with an easier opponent, so I could finally catch a break.

Out of twenty-five competitors in my division, I drew the current national champion, Ariel Torres, in the first round. Torres has been my role model, constantly offering me words of encouragement through social media, and I’d looked up to him for the longest time. But by the end of the match, losing by unanimous decision, I felt robbed, almost angry at him, even though I knew he had no control of the bracket. I felt honored to have faced such a talented competitor, and I knew that I wasn’t going to win, but I was also frustrated, thinking “why me” over and over again. I thought that the fates had conspired against me, forcing me to question myself and my abilities. At first, this was something that I never wanted to give up; I enjoyed karate, and wanted to be invested in it as much as possible, but at that moment, quitting seemed like the only viable option.

However.

I needed motivation to work harder, so I searched for it. Motivation came in the form of a book I read years ago, Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford. This is a riveting tale of a young English boy, Jack Fletcher, shipwrecked in Japan, who learns the training of the samurai to avenge his father’s death. My mother first introduced me to this book when I was about thirteen, thinking that I could draw some similarities between myself and Jack since we were both martial artists. She was right. When I first read this book several years ago, I was mesmerized by Jack’s martial arts journey, but failed to draw any deeper connections other than we were both martial artists. Somehow, I was able to pinpoint all of the physical challenges Jack faces, but I missed several of the mental obstacles he encounters throughout the book, obstacles similar to those that plagued my thoughts. When I started to reread the book, I paid close attention to the moments where Jack questioned or doubted himself, and paid even closer attention to how he grew from them.

The book starts off with Jack, his father, and the rest of the crew on a ship. Jack is looking at the sky, the thunderclouds roaring, the boat swaying from side to side. Jack felt true fear in his heart, the same fear I felt before a match. That same “I really don’t want to be here right now” feeling. Jack’s father approaches his son and tells him to not “be afraid of storms in life…we must all learn how to sail our own ship, in any weather,” which spoke to me in terms of controlling my mental state. Before a match, I would feel several emotions running through me at once, fear, excitement, and confusion, allowing them to get the best of me. Much like Jack at this moment, I too realized that I needed to control my own ship and actually believe in myself, rather than going into a state of panic and hysteria. Taking confidence in myself was the first, and most crucial, step, and it was the step that I was ignoring this whole time. But attaining that confidence wasn’t so easy; there were still outside forces preventing me from doing so.

Those outside forces were the other competitors that I faced, who doubted me to begin with. They did not really see me as a worthy opponent because I was new to the competition world, and that almost threw me back to that land of uncertainty. Almost every time a competitor saw my name next to theirs in the bracket, they would say, “Oh, I got this.”

If there was one challenge that Jack and I faced the most, it was trying to earn the respect of others. While he is training with his friend, Yamato, he is repeatedly referred to as gaijin, which, in Japanese, means barbarian or outsider; it was a term used to explicitly demonstrate a lack of respect. Jack challenges Yamato to call him by his real name, to which he replied, “Your name is gaijin until you prove otherwise.” This brought me back in time; being perceived as an underdog made me feel like I was incapable of being a true martial artist. My head teacher always played favorites, and anyone who wasn’t on his list, myself included, would constantly get belittled until they graduated from high school or decided to quit. Either way, they wouldn’t come back. I realized that I only felt this way because I allowed myself to, instead of working harder to improve my craft. Both Jack and I were outsiders to the martial arts world, and that unwelcomeness Jack felt was the same feeling I experienced. At first, I decided to treat this as a sign that sport karate wasn’t a path I should’ve taken, but then I realized that doubt is a factor every athlete faces. At this point, I said to myself, “I was already maltreated by my former teacher, I won’t get treated like that again.” I had to accept the fact that I was a gaijin in the world of sport karate, and because of that, other competitors did not believe I was on the same level as them. With that, I had two choices: allow that doubt to knock me down, or fight it and get back up.

Perhaps the most important phrase in the book, “seven times down, eight times up,” comes as Jack participates in his first Taryu-Jiai, a dojo versus dojo tournament. Jack is knocked down by his opponent early on in the round. As the official begins to count, he hears this mantra right before he gets up, and uses it as motivation to continue fighting. He ultimately wins the match, shocking everyone by proving that a gaijin is capable of such an incredible feat.

This mantra hit me almost as hard as Jack’s opponent hit him during his fight; it was a short and generic saying, but it propelled me to get up and continue to train harder. From there on out, I started training on a daily basis for weeks, putting hours into working on my technique and athleticism, and wouldn’t stop until I was satisfied with each training or until I was on the verge of blacking out. My technique improved as well as my confidence. I was finally in the mindset of pure focus and relaxation, concentrating on my personal performance rather than the result, instead of a mindset full of fear, excitement and anxiety. I needed this calm and collected perspective of competition in order to bring out the best in me, and to say to myself “Hey, I can do this.”

When I finished Bradford’s book, I felt like I had gone from white belt to black belt all over again. Despite the season being halfway finished, I started a new personal season for myself. Using this new mindset, I said to myself, “You are a gaijin in competition, let’s change that.” I approached my next tournament relaxed and confident, believing that I would do well by my own standards, and not worry about the result. Despite a loss of balance, which definitely shook my confidence a little bit, I performed well and still won the match, pulling four red flags, competing for my first gold medal. However, earning the respect from other competitors was still a challenge; my opponent didn’t even bother bowing or shaking my hand after the match (which is considered a huge display of bad sportsmanship in karate). From there on, I would face some opponents who would do the same.

The challenges I faced before reading this book are still prevalent now, but to a lesser degree, of course. However, the book has still helped me overcome several obstacles on the path to being a successful athlete. Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior served as a guide to my competition career, which quickly turned from constant disappointment, and always asking “Why me?” to reaping the benefits from my hard work at almost every turn. Ever since then, I’ve been heavily invested in competition, now more than ever, I’ve made several friends on the national team, and have made myself and my family proud. I even began to document and publish my karate journey on YouTube, in hopes of inspiring other martial artists to follow their passion, and I have gained quite a following. Finally, I was no longer a gaijin in sport karate; I was finally becoming the athlete that I always aspired to be, whose goals grow every day.