Black Belt Essay by Colin Boisvert

What I Have Learned Since Getting My Black Belt

Sensei Colin Boisvert

To think that it’s been 4 years since I wrote my first essay for black belt testing blows my mind. Even more so, I first started karate around 8 years ago, when I was 7 years old. Since then, I’ve acquired two black belts, and am closer and closer to obtaining my third. Throughout the countless amazing years at the Amerikick karate school in Medford, I have learned so much about self-defense, technique and just about myself as a person. For these reasons alone, I cannot express the infinite amount of knowledge I’ve gained in my time at Amerikick, let alone since earning my black belt. But for writing purposes, it appears I’m going to have to manage naming a few of the most important things I’ve learned since getting my black belt.

    For one, because of achieving the rank of black belt, Ive learned a lot more about leadership than ever before. Almost every Thursday, I get up in front of the class and lead warm-up, in order to help boost the aforementioned leadership skills. By doing this, I believe that it has improved my self-confidence as well as my ability to control and help out younger classmates. During these classes, I also enjoy helping out other classmates, and assisting them with their weapons or tricks. In doing this, I believe that I am helping the younger belts improve as well as gradually building my trust level with the classmates. Because trust me, that takes a long time; even ten year olds have trust issues. But in all seriousness, leadership is an essential quality to have in real life, as it gets more people to respect you as a person and to work with you in a group. So for helping these skills reach an insurmountable height, I have Amerikick to thank.

   As for another, I've learned a lot about self-defense since achieving my black belt. All of the techniques and moves that I was taught before black belt are nothing compared to the myriad of attacks and defenses I've learned since then. I'm sure that for every move anyone could throw at me in a dangerous situation, there's about ten different ways I could handle that threat. In turn, I've learned about different methods of attacking an opponent, if the unfortunate occurrence of something like that were to happen. Regardless of this however, I have my black belt to thank for further teaching me how to keep myself intact through the rest of my years.

   And to add one final skill I've learned since accomplishing the fear of black belt, I have to have persistence throughout my life. After getting a black belt, some might discard karate from their list of activities to do, acting as if they're done. But as I've continued through these past few years, I've realized what persistence can accomplish for a person. After four years, I've expanded my library of tricks to include things like 540s and aerials (albeit an iffy aerial), and even back flips. These were always things I'd dreamed about doing for the longest time, and now I've finally added them to my arsenal. The same would apply to the aforementioned techniques, as there was so much more that I learned, that I honestly never could have thought of. I guess because of black belt, you could say I've completed some life goals of mine.

   So there you have it, those are some of the things I've learned since achieving my black belt. Throughout these past four years, I've learned so much, and being at Amerikick has made those years the best of my life. So to say the least, achieving my black belt changed me as a person, and I'll never forget it for that.

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