Life on Top of the World
By Rich Hale
I opened my first Kenpo School in Anchorage, Alaska, in early 1981. By May of that year I had about thirty students; I was a karate teacher, I was living the dream, I was living on top of the world. Since that day there's never been a down-side. Every day since then has been a learning experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. This is a small tribute to my earliest students, who helped make the dream come true.
McHugh Creek, AK - May 23, 1981
Being an avid hiker since I was a little kid, I've always included hiking with my karate training. One of my most memorable "Kenpo" hikes was one I did with a small group of students fairly soon after I opened my school in Anchorage.
The location was McHugh Creek, just outside of town. The hike took about four hours of good hard hiking to get to the top, but when I got about twenty feet from the top I stopped, nestled down into the grass, told my students I had gone far enough, and took a nap. Why?
The first thing I noticed, when we started hiking, was how everyone was so focused on getting to the top of the mountain. The hike itself seemed to be nothing more than a struggle that each of the students were willing to endure, all because they knew they were eventually going to stand on top of the mountain. So I definitely surprised everyone, when about twenty feet from the top, I stopped and said we were as far as we need to go. Then I nestled down into the grass, ready for a nap.
Of course I was met with immediate disagreement. "But Mr. Hale we're only a few feet from the top. We can't quit now!" But I insisted we were done and that we need not go any further. The looks on their faces were amazing. They wanted nothing more than to reach the top, but they dare not disobey my instructions to stop. Not that they stopped complaining by any means, as they were unrelenting with their requests to stand on top the mountain.
Eventually I did give in, but with one condition. I said you can go to the top, but only if you stay there for ten minutes. Looking at me like I was nuts, they readily agreed. (Most likely thinking that after such a grueling hike, an hour at the top would be more like it.)
So, with my permission, everyone dashed to the top, where they could bask in the glory of their achievement. When they reached the top they were ecstatic. They thrust their fists into the air shouted out how great it was to be on top of the mountain.
Only I had been on top of that mountain before - many times in fact and I knew something they didn't know – it was freezing cold at the top. You see the front side of the mountain faced the sun, so the hike on the way up was relatively warm, for Alaska standards anyway. But the backside of the mountains dropped down into cold shadows that kept the air cold until the sun was higher in the sky and the wind from that cold valley would kind of roll up the backside of the mountain right to the top, before being pushed back down onto itself from the warm air coming in from the front. The effects of this was to basically freeze anything (or anyone) on top of the mountain until the sun got directly overhead. But if you were to stop, say twenty feet shy of the top, you could avoid all this cold air and take a much deserved nap in the comfort of the warm sun.
Of course within a couple of minutes, everyone on top the mountain was freezing cold. As if the cold and chill factor weren't enough, you have to remember everyone had just hiked for about four hours to get to the top, so they were wet with sweat and when the chilling wind swept through their wet clothes - teeth chattering set in quickly. As you would expect, within minutes of reaching the top, my students were begging me to let them come back down to where I was comfortably tucked in. My response, as should be anticipated was, "You still have eight more minutes." To this they cried, "But we're freezing." My response to them was, "Yes, I bet you are, but the good news is you only have seven more minutes."
When their ten minutes were up I called everyone to come on down and join me in the warmth of the sun and out of the wind. I think they accused me of leaving them up there for the greater part of an hour, but I distinctly remember it being ten minutes . . . or so. Anyway, I patiently waited for everyone to re-warm themselves by alternating curling up, stretching out, and rubbing their arms and legs until the feeling started to come back. Then I said I wanted to talk to them for a minute or two before we went back to the top. No one, of course, wanted to go back to the top, but I think they knew we weren't taking a vote.
I said, hiking is a lot like karate and a lot like life in general, for that matter. We all have a destination in mind and can only imagine how great it's going to be when we get there. When we're hiking we can't wait to get to the top of the mountain. When we're studying karate we can't wait to get a black belt. At work we want to have important jobs that make us lots of money and we all want to marry Miss America. There's nothing wrong with having ambition, but sometimes the top of the ladder isn't all it's cracked up to be. From the time you started out this morning all you could think about was making it to the top of the mountain. You gave little thought to the journey itself, so you traded four arduous hours of hiking uphill and three more hours of pounding downhill for what? Ten minutes of glory? Which by the way, turned out to be ten minutes of freezing hell if I'm not mistaken?
You see on the other hand, I enjoy hiking. Sure it's great getting to the top, but it's not the top that's most important to me. What's important to me is that I'm out here hiking. With all its effort, pain and difficulties my entire body, mind and soul enjoy the practice of hiking. I won't say I don't enjoy making it to the top, I do. I enjoy the achievement, the bragging rights, the pictures, everything, but if I didn't enjoy the journey itself do you think I'd hike this same mountain time and time again? Oh yes, I've been to the top of this mountain many times before. How do you think I knew you're going to freeze your asses off when you got to the top?
In the martial arts, getting your black belt is kind of like reaching the top of the mountain. It's a great accomplishment, but like the mountain, it's not always what you expect when you get there. In fact, today's mountain is a great example. Not only was it a lot of work to get here, not that great at the top and a long way down, but if you look in front of us you'll see the mountain isn't just a mountain, but part of a mountain range and we're on the lowest peak. To get to (what looks like) the highest peak we would have to continue hiking down the back side of this peak and up the ridgeline to the top of the next one. That alone would take us more time and energy than we have available, but don’t worry about it, because that one only looks like the highest peak anyway. If we were to get there you'd see that it's not the highest peak either, it only looks like it from here. I don't know why that is, but the next peak over always seems to look higher than all the others. Maybe it's God's way of keeping us going by tricking us into thinking we're almost there.
The bottom line is this; if all you want is a black belt then quit now, because if that's all you want I can assure you that it won't be worth the price you'll have to pay for it. And if you did get a black belt, what would you do then, keep studying, keep training? Why should you? After all you'd already have what you came for, so why invest any more time, or endure any more discomforts. If it's a black belt you want, you have to know belts don't get any blacker after the first one anyway. On the other hand if it's the journey you enjoy then let's get up, go back to the top of this little mountain, and take a few more steps in the right direction. And don't worry about getting cold, I'll personally make sure that don't happen.
