Milestones and Rites of Passage

At RSMA, we celebrate milestones in many forms. Gradings are the most common, since skill development is easy to measure. First competitions or competing in an amateur fight are a couple more, as stepping onto the mats against someone outside your club can be confronting but incredibly rewarding. 

Some milestones are physical, like the ones above, but others are spiritual or intellectual. These milestones are harder to recognise because they’re difficult to measure. It’s easy to track when you can do 100 push-ups - but much harder to know when you’ve mastered a technique or learned to regulate your emotions better. Still, these deserve acknowledgment, especially from yourself. 

Having trained for over 20 years, I’ve had my fair share of milestones. My top three (in no particular order) would have to be: 

1) Training in Serbia with my Systema instructor, Alex Kostic. 
Having rarely travelled before, experiencing the culture where the martial art was born gave me a deeper appreciation of Systema. Seeing the history of the city and country added context to the techniques and philosophy I hadn’t realised I was missing. 

2) Failing my first grading. 
This happened at my first karate school when I was seven years old. My instructor, Josh, told me I could have passed but that I wasn’t giving my best effort. He chose not to pass me, so I’d have another chance to do it right the next time. In hindsight, it was harsh, and not something I’d do to my own students, but it taught me that only my best effort is good enough. 

3) Choosing to wear my Gold Bushido Cross. 
In Zen Do Kai, Muay Thai, and Krav Maga, students receive a Silver Cross (Bushido for men, Ishoa for women) at 1st Degree Black Belt. At 3rd Degree, your students present you with a Gold Cross. As is tradition, when I graded to my 3rd Degree in Zen Do Kai I was presented with my Gold Bushido, bought for me by the students who I was teaching.  

I initially chose not to wear it. I prefered silver jewellery and didn’t want to seem like I was showing off. But my students had pooled their money to buy it for me, and I felt I owed it to them to try it on. After wearing it for a day, I realised it wasn’t about status, it was about gratitude. 

Now, after wearing my Gold Cross for longer than I ever wore my Silver Bushido and my Family Cross (Tomodachi) , it’s become one of my most treasured possessions. Not for its value, but for what it represents: the sacrifices I make to teach, and the gratitude of my students who choose to learn from me.