Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Giri

A few weeks ago I got a text from Coach on a Friday night, asking me to contact him.  It's been about three and a half years since I stopped fighting, and I haven't actually seen Coach I think in about a year, but when he texted me my response was the only one it could have been: "How can I help?"  Coach's name is Juan Moreno, although I'd never call him that to his face.  I think I'd just as soon eat a cockroach.  He is a three-time Olympian in the sport of taekwondo, having won silver medals in Seoul '88 and Madrid '92.  Furthermore, he coached two athletes to bronze medals in the London Olympics last summer, both of whom I am proud to say were my teammates when I trained.  He is, as Don Corleone would say, a serious man, to be treated with respect.  Here's why I jumped to help him when he contacted me out of the blue....

In the spring of 2005 I was scraping along the bottom of a nine-year battle with drug addiction.  Some of the lowlights included an overdose, a divorce, and even a ten day stint of homelessness when my mother kicked me out of her house for stealing her bottle of vicodin (she had recently been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma).  Pretty scummy.  Whoever came up with the old cliche "you only really regret in life the things you didn't do" clearly was not, or never knew, a junky.   By the end of that summer I was just starting to turn the corner.  I had sorted myself out enough to move back in with my mother, I had a job, but I was still doing hard drugs.

So in the fall of 2005 I realized that I wasn't going back to New York as I had originally planned when I left a year ago before, and that I wanted to give the sport of  taekwondo another try.  You see, I had begun doing taekwondo when I lived in New York in an effort to take the reins of my life, which was spiraling out of control.  It didn't really work out at the time, but a seed was planted.  In January 2006 I made the pivotal decision to seek Coach out and started driving up to Miami from Key West (a three-hour drive, give or take) twice a week to train.

Coach took me on, and took me in, and something finally clicked.  As my body got into shape I had a slowly unfolding epiphany: I couldn't keep doing both drugs and this sport. I had to choose, and I wanted to do taekwondo more.  It still strikes me as absurd that none of the other crazy shit I went through, including the lowlights mentioned above, got me to quit drugs and get my life straightened out, but training at this sport did.  When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as the old saying goes.  I eventually moved to Miami so I could train six days a week.  I stopped fighting in 2009 and completed a transition into yoga.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Through Coach and taekwondo I learned tapas, I learned courage, and I learned the unflinching patience that it takes to do a thing for a higher goal week in and week out even when it sucks.  These things, obviously enough, have been absolutely crucial to my yoga practice.  It wouldn't be exactly accurate to say Coach saved my life, but I will say unequivocally that he helped save my happiness, and helped me become an actualized adult.

Giri is a japanese word meaning duty, or obligation, or even burden of obligation.  If you are indebted to somebody worthy, then that debt is an honor.  I have been born under a lucky star vis-a-vis teachers in my life, and I am happy to fulfill whatever obligations to them I can. 

5 comments:

  1. Ah, another former Tae-Kwon-Doist... (is this the correct term?) I used to practice TKD as well, and although I never competed at the level that you did, I really hear you when you write that TKD training teaches Tapas and courage.

    Btw, I hope Coach is alright. And also (and I'm know I'm being a smarty-pants here), did you mean to say "Seoul '88 and Barcelona '92", instead of "Seoul '88 and Madrid '92"? I just don't recall the summer games ever having been held in Madrid in recent decades...

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    1. hi nobel, thanks for replying. coach is actually fine, he was asking me to teach yoga to one of his athletes. the rules of the sport were changed recently to incentivize head kicks more than ever, so flexibility is that much more important. and yes you are being a smarty-pants catching my mistake, but that's ok. i quickly sent coach a correction message. i hope you have a great workshop with kino next week. i'll be missing her

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  2. Thank you Patrick for your honesty,i really identify, things are different now, not without its troubles..for the past 15yrs yoga has been my foundation,ihave been to mlc many times and practice ashtanga in providence,r.i...always enjoy your blogs...om shanty,steven

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    1. thank you, steven. i'm glad you're doing better too. let's meet up next time you're down.

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  3. So important that people who have been to the scary places become teachers. Thank you for sharing a bit of your story. I hope to practice at MLC again, while you are in the room. Respect from CT.

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