Personal Narrative Essay: Brown Belt

It was coming from the upper-left; my hands were nowhere near my upper-left. Wham! It came from the right; I raised my arm to block, exposing my abdomen to another of his thunderous punches. He tried a pitiful roundhouse kick to my left, his blue gi crinkling as he raised his leg, but I blocked it easily. This didn’t matter though, as a left hook quickly cemented itself in my gut. I attempted to counter: a quick feint to the head followed by a powerful side kick to the belly. This went wrong quickly, only gaining myself another knock on the head. “He’s only a blue belt. I’m a brown,” I thought in disbelief as another shattering jab took me in the chest. Disbelief turned to utter frustration as my meticulously practiced maneuvers were nullified before me by such brute force. Of course, I wasn’t the only one on the losing side of a fight. There were six other pairs
As a result, my failing to beat Ashton made me feel unworthy of a brown belt. In fact, the pain did not bother me at all; it was the thought of falling short of expectations, to fail at the purpose I had naïvely set for myself. I had exercised this thought similarly elsewhere, feeling uncomfortable besting a better swimmer in a race, or scoring lower than a traditionally poorer student. As I grew from that fight, however, I realized that nothing is ever so definite, that to deal with life I had to stop locking myself into a certain level, instead viewing everyone on the same playing field. With this belief, the day soon came when I took on Ashton without the blinding frustration and anger ringing in my head. I was still demolished, of course, but only physically. I no longer saw him, or anyone, better or worse than me, only as a peer, one who I can have fun and compete with. I stopped limiting myself based on what should be, instead opting for what can