The Journey Begins

There are two ways to spread light. By being the candle, or the mirror. -Edith Warton

 This is my all time favorite quote. I use it as the motto of my martial arts studio. Because to ME, life is all about BEING THE CANDLE. If you have ever seen the original Karate Kid movies, you may remember Mr. Miyagi always referring to the bonsai tree in some way. Or if you ever heard a Bruce Lee interview, he discussed the lessons of water. Well in my "Trento Teachings", I use the candle metaphor.

I began training in the martial arts August 31, 1998 under Master Fred Bargiacchi. Two years later at red belt, I was learning how to teach martial arts to all ages. At a very young age I KNEW I was born to be doing this, and I was extremely disciplined and dedicated to my training. At the age of nine, when other kids my age wanted to be POKEMON masters, I was the odd kid out and wanted to be a "karate" master!

I knew very young that all people had a bright light within themselves. And as a teacher of the martial arts it was my purpose to get people to shine their own light! Just like a candle. Don't reflect other people's light like a mirror! I knew my life's purpose then! Can you imagine?

Let's set the record straight: I do not do KARATE. Most people associate martial arts to karate so that is what it will always be called when we train. We conform to society, I guess. But it's minuscule.  I studied traditional and Olympic Taekwondo, which is one of the most popular martial arts, and most modern of the martial arts. In this blog I will portray to you the pros and cons to this art. But I am very well versed in other disciplines as well. Mostly Korean style arts, but I am looking to broaden my horizons.

Why am I doing this blog? Well three years ago I met a very good friend of mine, Lisa Sargese. She is a professor of religion and psychology, and I will be mentioning a lot here. She has an amazing story and on a fantabulous journey herself. You can find her blog HERE. I never heard of a blog before, so I started reading hers and kept up with it as best I could. I found it amazing how she reached so many people with her story, and the impact it had on so many people.

Then a year later, I saw one of my favorite movies, Julie and Julia (don't judge- =P). It was a movie with two true stories and one was about a young woman named Julie Powell and how she blogged through Julia Child's cook book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Again, I saw the amazing results Powell had by blogging her year of cooking and what an awesome project it was! I thought, I could have really done this during the process of opening my own school!

Well to reflect a little on this past year, on a personal level, it was very rough. Randy Pausch said "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." But he didn't mention how much life experience can really hurt. OUCH! Yes, it was very very rough, and I will discuss some of it here. But it put me in a really bad state of depression. One challenge led to another and I have not handled them as well as I could. In trying to search for a solution, one came to me.

I want to be a martial arts master! And a true martial arts master could accomplish ANYTHING and get through ANY challenge, despite the circumstances. Like a samurai cutting through bamboo with his sword! So that is what I plan to do. I am on a spiritual journey to enlightenment and to bring myself to an entire new level of my life. This is my way of HOLDING MYSELF ACCOUNTABLE. So you can say the real goal is to become a true candle, that could never ever be put out! That's the real mission. To BE THE CANDLE.

I have several goals and dreams to accomplish in ONE YEAR. Why one year? In June 2012, I am testing for 4th Degree Black Belt, and for Master Instructor Certification! A dream I have had since I was 9 years old. However, I don't want to be your regular 4th Degree Master. I have high expectation and standards for myself to truly earn that title. Mr. Trento will become Master Trento, but only once I achieve these goals, which I will share in another blog.

So as Julie Andrews said "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...." and this is the beginning. The beginning of what's going to be quite the adventure this year. Are you up for the ride??



Yours in service,
A TRENTO