Sunday 18 December 2011

Oh

In the beginning, karate had no belts of colour, no carefully ordered hierarchy by which to distinguish the beginners from the experts. All students wore a white belt, which eventually grew darker with every passing year, stained by experience--the original black belt. One of the yellow-belts told me a true student never washes their belt for fear of washing away her carefully collected experience. Oops.

2 comments:

Oscar Mejia Romero said...

Dont tell the kids or they will never shower :)

Matthew said...

Ninjas are actually wearing white, they are just filthy. True story*.

*Probably not a true story.