A Black Belt - It's Only the Beginning - Article 2

In our last episode where I said that the Black Belt was only the Beginning, I hinted that there were changes afoot. That achieving the black belt and creating a library of the katas was only the beginning.

As I earned my blackbelt, there was a part of me that said it was time to take a bow and retire with dignity. I thought about posting my new black belt pictures and then embalming the blog. Instead, I'm trying to relaunch my blogging and my training with new vigor and focus.

So here's the deal. I'll try to tell an interesting story, you try and follow it. Yes, I tend to jump around and I spell unevenly and and I sometimes leave out words. OK, my sentences are sometimes too long and I poke fun at myself so much that the self-deprecation gets a little tiring... And yes, although I have a shiny new belt and gi to wear to class, there's still the same 50 year old body underneath. But, I'm searching to talk about questions that I think we all wonder about...

• How to transform self-expressive writing into a story that is readable and interesting to others? Haven't we at some point kept a journal or diary but then, in rereading it, realizedin despair that the writing was depressingly bad and boring....


• How to balance exercise, my career, my hobbies, and my relationships?


• How to do something professionally which is invigorating, meaningful, and lucrative?
  

My plan is this. To find a few examples of story telling styles to emulate. I'll learn from them and then adapt them to my own needs. I might also get some instruction. Two examples that I recently came across:

The Blog by Black Belt Mama, one of my online friends. I've found her story gripping and I'm glad that her surgery seems to have gone well. Although I'm not sure her writing about training can be as enthralling as her writing about going thru the medical treatment world.

The Mom on a Mission Story by/about Mylene, a friend from my dojo. She seems to have spent most of her adult life trying to get a black belt with a career, a marriage, and some kids just being little obstacles along the way....

Can I create a voice as enthralling as BBM? Can I create a voice that is half as enthralling as hers?...But, since I do NOT intend to ever say anything about my underwear and who might see it, I probably should only shoot for being 35% as interesting as her. (Check out here concerns about surgery and underwear - I particularly liked her underwear that she was planning to wear for surgery which has the caption: "This is my butt, not my knee. Get back to where you belong.") But still, there's other sorts of dirty laundry....