I pummel ceaselessly into the stooped mass in front of me. I scream with encouragement into the beaten body as I deliver one more blow, Get up, Jacob. Get up. He has fought four men before me and expended every ounce of his strength and more. With a roar, a Cry of the Spirit, I unleash two knuckles into his ribs. He is too tired even to groan.

On a normal day, this black belt martial artist could crush me, a blue belt, within a moment of any assault against him, but here, at his Second Degree Black Belt test, a panel of elders has purposefully driven him to the limits of his physical endurance. This is neither a test of his skill nor of his endurance but rather of his indomitable spirit: his capacity to pick himself up off of the ground and to fight after falling. Thus, each blow adds to the weight upon his shoulders, and, the more I add, the more I prove he can lift. Every strike is a pat on the back. I continue to strike, and I continue to cry, Get up. Fight me. Fight. By the power of God, you can lift this load.

I had always wanted to learn Karate when I was little. I wanted to be a warrior, to have the gusto, to have the brawn, but I was always too busy with other sports. From baseball to basketball, ice hockey to gymnastics, football to golf, I played everything. I’m not about to blame the frustration of my childhood years upon my father, but he really did love sports. He wanted me to love sports just as he did, and I wanted to be just like him. I started playing basketball and baseball because I wanted to be just like my daddy. Of course, at the age of four, no one is good at basketball. Bouncing the basketball is hard enough, let alone dribbling down the court. However, I did not get much better over the next couple years. I lacked the willpower to grow, but still I signed up every year because I didn’t want to let my father down. I figured that basketball just wasn’t the sport for me. Then it was baseball, then soccer, then hockey. I turned from sport to sport, costing my parents thousands of dollars in registration fees and equipment. When I finally entered the 7^th grade, I had no option. I played football. Everyone played football—that is, with “everyone” referring to all who did not fit the undesirable criteria of an utter failure and total loser. Needless to say, I didn’t like football either. The next year, I chose to run cross-country instead, and, before my first meet, I quit under the guise of having bad knees. In retrospect, I simply lacked the resolve to train myself, and I lacked the empathy to work with a team.

For the next three years, I stayed clear of sports because I had found a niche in playing the saxophone. However, at the peek of my musical performance, God turned my life around: He had other plans for me. I stopped obeying the mob mentality and my fears of society’s and parents’ expectations. In living under God’s will, I was freer than ever before. I joined the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme, the most demanding academic program in the state, and a new church, and I started a peer-to-peer youth ministry with my new friend and class mate Jacob. God showed me what it was like to follow him wholeheartedly—to decompartmentalize myself—so that I broke free of society’s expectations. I am no longer bound to being the Nerd or the Jock; whether I am at or away from Church, I serve Christ, and His will supersedes all other demands.

In need of exercise after a full three years without sports, I started to remember my dreams of being a martial artist. Jacob, it turned out, had earned his Black Belt the year before, but, after meeting his goal, he had stopped practicing the martial arts. So, after a little convincing, he brought me one night to his dojang, which, surprisingly, was a ministry at my church: The Christian Martial Arts Association. Learning under Jacob as well as the school’s three other instructors over the next nine months, I progressed to the blue belt rank that I hold today in a fraction of the time that it takes the usual student. Moreover, I encouraged Jacob to pursue his second degree black belt. Since Jacob was also an IB student, it was really easy for the both of us to slack in our training when schoolwork got tough. Whenever Jacob missed a class, I held him accountable, and he did the same for me. I got to be his sparring and self-defense “dummy,” and I even got chances to criticize him as he choreographed his techniques. Jacob and the other instructors showed me nearly every technique that I know to this day, but the greatest aspect of all in this martial artist, I had yet to see.

In Tae Kwon Do, sparring, or practice fighting, is a staple ingredient of a belt test. Participants gear up with padded boots and gloves in order to demonstrate their skills on eachother in two-minute rounds. After two hours of demonstrations—kata, weapons forms, self-defense techniques, choreographed fighting and exhausting hand- and foot-technique demonstrations—it was time for Jacob to get a little tired. The judges called me forward to pair up with the test-takers. For the next half-hour we gave all we had and more. The test-takers, already exhausted from the rest of the test, fought to keep fighting. I fought to exhaust them, and I fought to give them the opportunity to recover. In his last round, I bowed to Jacob. As he exhaled, a spout of blood issued from his nostril, leaving a fan of scarlet droplets on the chest of his white tobak.

The buzzer sounded, and another round resumed. We lunged at eachother in a flurry of kicks and punches, combining chains alternating strikes, blocks and fakes to increase our chances of striking the opponent. After the first minute, there were far more punches than kicks, as both were drained, and it take far more energy to lift a leg than to drive a fist. Our fists quit “stinging like a bee” and instead simply swung like rubber flails. As Jacob’s exhaustion caught up with him, he lost the strength to hold up his upper body. Unable to hold up his hands any longer, he had no means to defend against my attacks. I tired as well, but I knew that if I stopped, Jacob would have to reason to get back up. I kept fighting him until he fought me back.

I had the opportunity to shake the hand of a second degree black belt after the test, and as I drove home, I realized how far I had come since I was little. For all these childhood years, I lacked commitment and teamwork. I have shown both. Some people look down upon sports like Tae Kwon Do because they aren’t “team sports,” like basketball or baseball, but with Jacob, for the first time ever, I have been a teammate. Baseball and basketball didn’t show me what teamwork was. Neither did seminars, summer camps or a coach yelling at me to get my act together. God turned my life around. By His grace, I have love, empathy, kindness, perseverance and commitment: everything it takes for teamwork.