I
have been privileged to have taught many Canadian Forces personnel and their
dependents over the decades. As a Base club, we started off in a long narrow mat-covered
room with a solitary window at one end where one either stuck one’s head out to
breathe in some much needed oxygen or hurl the contents of one’s stomach onto
the lawn outside. In mid-summer, the air became so thick a puddle of sweat
would form on the surface of the mats – in fact, I recall one excited newcomer
slip on the sweat and fall to the mats as he quickly made his way back to the lineup
at the end of class.
That’s
where we first held our Sho-Dan-Ho test, the six hour preliminary exam we threw
at any Brown Belt who wanted to eventually attempt a Black Belt exam at the
association level. Six hours was the
benchmark time frame; I remember a teen who later was to become a pilot crawl
off the floor after eight hours.
We
weren’t trying to impress other clubs or other associations by trying to be the
toughest and most demanding. Other organizations demanded similar stringent
requirements in order to move on to the Black Belt level. The Sho-Dan-Ho narrative,
if I can call it that, came naturally out of the environment we trained in and
the quality of students we were lucky to have. In fact, the students themselves
expected a strong finish line to that point in their training. We had loads of
pilots and other flight crew members, search and rescue techs and the important
folks who looked after the planes and made them safe to fly. We had cooks and air
traffic controllers, military police and medics. Corporals, sergeants, majors…they all shared
the same hard core training.
And
we had the many dependents, from the hundreds of little people to the teens who
pushed their way up to the level of sixteen years of age and the Sho-Dan-Ho.
So
many names, so many faces. I was impressed early on by the quality of the
Canadian soldier. One of the first that woke me up to the fact that these folks
are extra special was a gentleman who made it up to Orange Belt before he was
posted out. He was friendly, solid and calm. He used to take five hundred mile
canoe trips in places across Canada. He was smart and dependable. Most of all,
he had a quality about him that quietly spoke to you: “I will always watch your
back.”
No
matter what the rank, the Canadian soldiers, male and female, that I’ve come
across infuse their high standards of professionalism and their everyday
conduct with this quiet assurance that they are there to watch your back.
I think the club is a great idea! My friend took martial arts a long time ago but abandoned it after an accident. She is looking forward to resuming it. I would love to show this to her.
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