monument

i can feel it. the end of the season is coming up fast, and the outcome will be determined very soon. this year the fight for the first ever ECTC cup will be epic. there will be no small victories - it will be a blowout on whichever side wins. and neither team can afford to lose.

i feel that the wild days of "the sport taekwondo club at MIT" are gone. today, our forms are a bit less thunderous, our competition workouts are a bit less hellish, our cheers are dimmer and our sweat and tears are a little more dry. but it's just because i am an old fogey whose nostalgia stems from memories that have faded and become legend. there will never be a documentary to remember the days we clawed our way to the INCTL cup, then again the next year. then a third and fourth time where there was less clawing and more bulldozing. but it's good that the documentary will exist only in our memories, because the truth is that we probably kick and kiyup just as loudly today. we tremble in the same way before stepping into the ring. we force down the salad and turn the treadmill up just as high to make weight. when we win, we feel pride also, but not the pride of a ragtag, wild bunch of up-and-coming taekwondo contenders, but of an experienced team calm with the experience of years of defeat and victory.

i am planning a documentary again, and this time i hope to capture the lives of mit competitors while they strive for the top. whether it gets made and put into our archived histories, that will depend on my ability to handle a camera and a storybook. whether it is a monument to our achievements and an inspiration to the posterity, that will be up to the members of mit sport taekwondo.