My Oldest Belt

This is a picture of the oldest belt I have.
And yes... my last name is spelled incorrectly, but this was a belt brought back from Korea while my instructor was over there and spelling my name in general is difficult, but over an international connection back in the 80's... Well, you can just imagine.  I didn't care.  I was a 1st Dan and my instructor was bringing me a special belt back from Korea!

This wasn't my first Black Belt though, I passed that one on to my first student to test for Black Belt - Amit Banerjee.  This is the belt I wore exclusively after that for many years.  Sometime in the early to mid 90s I quit wearing it.  It had become too comfortable, and I was afraid of getting lazy.  It looked old and worn and as if it had been through a lot - and it had no doubt.  Heck, at one point, one of my students, Susan Bryant, even had to throw some hand stitching in there to help keep it from just disintegrating!  If you look closely you can still see those stitches.  For all these reasons and more I really loved wearing this belt, but I did not want to rest on what had been done... so I put it away and started over with a new plain one.

Since then I have had many belts most of which I have passed on to others.
Lately, most days, I'm wearing a soft (and getting more and more so each time) plain belt.

The belt in the picture in fact, I had at one time given to my student John McGee - who had been like a son to me.  He held on to it, and when I had my own son - graciously let me have it back to perhaps pass on to him some day - not to wear... but as a piece of his mom's history. 

After the flood in which I lost so many tangible reminders of times and events past - it has more meaning to me now... but ... it is still just a belt, and I've learned over the years that the best place to wear your black belt is around your heart.

Respectfully,
Kathy Wiz