Move

Yesterday, I stumbled across the song Move by Thousand Foot Crutch. I hadn't listened to it in months but suddenly had an urge to. My love of art, especially music is no secret but this song in particular is important to me. I can't say it is an exceptional song to any real extent but I can't think of any more appropriate song. The only reason I even bother to remember the song's name is because I first heard it, stumbling across it on youtube, last year, the same night I found out Travis had died. In fact, I was listening to it when I read the email informing me of it. When ever I listen to it I'm compelled to stop and just listen, and reminisce. It's odd to me how well it seems to fit.
After listening two or three times I looked up from my laptop at the dark screen of my television and had to watch Kung Fu Panda, yet another thing which reminds me thoroughly of him.
I think the time around his funeral have over taken all others in defining and redefining who I am. It wasn't only his passing; two weeks to the day after his funeral a relative was buried, and two weeks following that my aunt lay before me in her casket.
Up until Travis's funeral my girlfriend (at the time) had always said I must be a robot, I didn't seem to have emotions. Before her, a good friend of mine said I have but one setting, mild bemusement and variations thereof. At the funeral though, she saw something rare, I cried. I don't mean that I let myself cry, in fact, I tried not to. Such a powerless sadness was something foreign to me. I cannot recall a time when my emotional controls had been so thoroughly demolished. They haven't come back up since, I'm not sure as to why, nor am I sure I want them to.
When I took off my belt that day something changed. I'm not sure if something was shed, gained, or simply changed but I did not leave the same person.
Before, I had been of the notion that caution was always the best path and that flying under the radar was a good doctrine to maintain. I thought it was caution, and wisdom, or such is what I told myself. Looking back, it was fear.
That day, standing up and stepping out of line, not singling myself out so much as doing what no one else happened to be doing, I learned to master my fear. In that moment there was nothing but the now, and as the seconds counted down I knew I couldn't delay, nor could I divine by any means the ramifications of my plan. I only had one chance and only seconds to consider it. At that moment, I was stepping off the edge to trust in the angels. I remember how hard it was to undo and fold the belt because of how much I was shaking. I expect most people thought my weak knees and unsteady hands were from pent up sadness; rather, it was terror.
I have never regretted it, in fact, I count it as being pivotal to my progression. The total realization that I am not a black belt because of some strip of dyed fabric around my waist, no I am a black belt because that is the colour of my soul and I should be demonstrating my rank rather than simply looking the part. If someone needs to see a belt to know my quality, that is already a failure on my part.

I'm not sure where I wanted to go in this entry, but I am glad of where it took me. I think I'll leave it here.

Ben Davies
Silent River Kung fu
Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
www.silentriverkungfu.com