One's Character

"If it is still in your mind, it is worth taking the risk."

-Paulo Coehlo

This post is going to be a little different. While it might not seem like it, this story is about struggle, it is about violence. It's about style, and it's about character. And perhaps those last two are what make martial arts the most worthwhile.

I will relate this story as best I can. I tried to look it up for someone who might have written it beautifully. Having been unable to do that, or at all actually, I suppose it's up to me to communicate it instead.

I find it inspiring, I hope you will too.



One day as part of his initiation into a gang a young man, no older than sixteen was part of a robbery that resulted in the death of another person. A young man who had just started college and was working part time.

At the day of his hearing in court he was sentenced to three years in prison in front of the man's monther. Sobbing, as he was taken away in handcuffs, she stood and shouted,

"I WILL kill you for taking my baby! I will KILL you!"

It was three weeks while in prison serving his time when that mother visited him. They would talk, she was always respectful, but always warm. She would bring him food, though when he asked for cigarettes he never got a one from her.

Over time she encouraged him to start reading, to enroll in the prison's education system. To complete his high school diploma.

When he turned 18 she encouraged him to apply for the prison work program- so he could have a job when he got out.

Finally the time came when he was to be released. He was 20, and the woman shocked him by offering him a place to stay with her as long as he worked and continued to strive for an education he could be proud of.

He stayed with her for awhile. Three months became six, and then finally a year. And then two years. He had been working steady in that time, and was saving to enroll into community college. They still spoke everyday.

One day the women called him into her study.

"Do you remember that day in the courtroom?" she asked, her hands hidden from view behind her desk. Her normal smiling demeanor was gone, and a very serious look was drawn across her face.

"Yes," he replied.

"And do you remember how I told you I would kill you?" she asked. 

His eyes widened with the realization,

"Yes." he said, barely audible as a whisper. She looked him up and down,

"Well I have. I have killed you." she responded. 

"What?" he asked, not comprehending.

"I. Killed. You." she repeated, and then paused before continuing.

"That person you were; a thug, someone who murdered my baby. Now, you have a dream, now you work, and help. Who you are now is not who you were then. That person is dead. I killed you." she repeated.

The young man started to cry. She stood from her desk, her hands until then hidden, were empty and open. And she embraced him in a hug, and together they cried.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she nodded, still holding him.

"I know." she answered.



Alchemy isn't real in the medieval sense, or even in the real outside of arranging electrons and protons within an tom, but it is real in taking something awful such as mercury or lead when a person's soul consists of such quality, and changing it into gold or diamonds.

I like to liken it to skipping rocks across water. We all start martial arts as a rough stone that only sinks, and never skims the water to move ahead. With practice and training, and the experience not unlike how water treats a stone smooths it until it can move ahead. That in a way is alchemy, the transmutation of something into another.

As a martial artist it is a good question to ask, could you be as strong as this woman and do as she did?

"The true alchemists do not turn lead into gold, they turn the world into words."

-William H. Gass

"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

-Paulo Coehlo