Out of the Dojo and into the World: My Week as KJN Jeremy

Out of the Dojo and into the World: My Week as KJN Jeremy

            I know that not everyone who reads this may not be a Christian, but I felt that if I didn’t share the whole story it just wouldn’t be the same because for me my faith is deeply connected to my martial arts career. And no matter what you believe we should all live a life that helps someone else beyond our own wants or needs.

The children’s director at my church came to me a few months ago and asked me if I was planning on sending my daughter to Christian camp this year. I was a little hesitant because aside from visiting family, my daughter has never been away from my husband and me, so naturally I wanted to make an excuse as to why she couldn’t go so I wouldn’t worry about her all week.

            Instead of saying no right away I felt like I was supposed to think about it. I prayed that God would somehow take away any excuses that I had and a very short time later my children’s director came back to me and said “I forgot to tell you that the camp director asked if I knew anyone with a skill that they could teach to the kids at camp, and I told her that my pastor’s wife is a black belt. She was very excited and wanted me to ask you to come and teach some classes.” Well, it could not have been any clearer that I was supposed to go. And keep in my mind that I don’t like camping, sleeping away from home or being completely out of all of my routines.

            I started to wonder if I could count this trip as my community project, so I went to KJN and asked him. KJN said that I would be taking a whole week at my own expense to go and teach martial arts classes, so it definitely counted. (Even if it didn’t count for testing, I still would have gone anyway). KJN was even gracious enough to help me plan my curriculum.So I took a week off of work and a loss in pay to travel two hours to Mt. Hood and settled in to “camp”. I thought that I would get to hang with my daughter, teach some classes and take it easy. Not even close. I was up at 7am every morning and didn’t sit until bed time at about midnight every day. I also didn’t realize that I was supposed to come up with curriculum for six classes, not three. So I planned new curriculum every night, ran, swam, hiked and walked everywhere. And the most important thing to me was reaching the kids in my classes. The director had to put a cap on how many kids I would have because so many of them wanted to be in my classes, especially after my students started practicing in their free time and bowing to me every time they saw me around camp. Most of the kids came from broken homes touched by death or divorce and there were many foster children. My students were excited every day and wanted to work hard even though I had them warm up by taking the long way around every time we walked back and forth from the gym where we trained. I even took pool noodles, called them “ninja sticks” and played freeze tag with them. I took quite some time talking about bullying and ways to handle it. It turns out that most of them had experience with this subject and I am hoping that they are now feeling some renewed self-confidence.

            They asked me endless questions about my experiences, so I shared my struggles and my victories and by the end of the week I had barely even scratched the surface with the knowledge that I have been lucky enough to have bestowed upon me. They asked me to promise to come back next year and teach and they even made me sign their shirts. As my daughter and I walked around the camp during the week and all my students and their friends wanted to hang out with me so much that my daughter said, “Wow Mom, you’re famous.” It made me feel pretty good, but it certainly didn’t compare to what I hope the kids that I taught got out of it.

            Christian or not, I was called out into the world personally and by my instructors to share what I have learned. My experiences as a martial artist go hand in hand with my relationship with God and my calling in life. I am certainly going to always try to be the best that I can, even if the situation requires endurance for doing things that I might not want to do.

I know that in the end I need to give up my comfort for something that is bigger than me. And luckily right now at this moment in time that calling goes along with the opportunity to join this year’s “Generations” black belt test. And at the very least, I got to be KJN Jeremy Smith for a week and that is just fine.