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One of the first students that enrolled in my dojo was a young boy named Ricky. Ricky came from a troubled home where there was a lot of strife. He came to us as a shy, timid individual. He was so shy that he wouldn’t look you in the eye when you spoke to him, and his eyes were always downcast. When you asked him a question you had to lean close to him to hear his answer because he spoke so softly.

Part of our training involves point-sparring, and when it came to that he was very bashful. I don’t want to say that he was afraid, but he was reluctant to engage in the matches. As time when on, with a lot of encouragement, his confidence grew. I can still remember the first match that he won and how happy he was with himself. He went on to become  pretty good at karate point-sparring, but where he excelled was with ju-jitsu techniques. I still talk about him to my classes even after all these years. I wish I could say that Ricky got his black belt with us, but as I mentioned, he came from a troubled home and he had to drop out shortly before his black belt test.

This young man will always stand out in my memory because of the transformation I saw in him. He reinforced my belief that martial arts can change people’s lives!

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