What makes “Beginner with a Black Belt” a great read?
When I published “Beginner With a Black Belt” I was certain that nobody — other than some martial artists — would find it interesting. I could not have been more wrong, and the messages I keep receiving from readers prove it week after week.
The book is not really about Bujinkan, although the dojo is where every chapter begins. It is about the three questions that decide whether we grow or stagnate: Who am I when things get hard? What am I actually practicing every day? And who is watching me lead?
Readers tell me the chapters they highlight most are not the dramatic ones. They are the quiet ones — about showing up to train when nothing is improving, about being a white belt again at forty, about the discipline of small, boring, repeated actions.
If you have read it, thank you — and if the book asked you a question you are still answering, write to me. From all the beginners out there: the belt was never the point. The beginning was.