Black Belt Blog - Pendekkar Gerry
APRIL 2025
As a kid, I was bullied ceaselessly. I didn’t go looking for bother, but somehow it always found me. Although the perpetrators carried themselves with a swagger informed by ignorance and unearned confidence, I nonetheless spent most of my school years fearful of these paper brutes.
Why was I subjected to such routine humiliation? I was different. I was skinny, non-athletic, had a haircut by mom, enjoyed Dungeons & Dragons, and preferred reading alone to the company of others. Thankfully, as time went on, I was able to find my tribe, but these friends were not always able to insulate me the verbal and physical beatdowns I was subjected to regularly.
Flash forward to college—senior year. I’m staring down the barrel of a PE requirement standing between me and graduation. I was always interested in studying martial arts, and I had two options: Aikido or Pukulan. I had never heard of Pukulan, so I went into the Aikido room. Seated amongst the thirty or so beginning students was my recently acquired bully (adulthood doesn’t automatically provide refuge from them). He also happened to be a housemate. I decided I was not going to study a martial with someone whose first words to me were “I could probably kick your ass”. So, I left and went into the room teaching Pukulan.
This was thirty years ago.
In the intervening years I have learned that if you have strength, the best way to flex it is by empowering others. Not just improving yourself but improving the world. What I have discovered through my training is that strength is not dominance, and that empathy and kindness are not weaknesses.
This is why I teach. I want every interaction I have with students to leave them feeling empowered to face a world that will test their resolve and disorient their moral compasses. I want them to use their strength to lead by example, and to follow the impulse towards compassion. But most of all, my hope is that, through their actions, they can be the signal of integrity that stands out from the noise of predatory behavior that is a feature of this current era of performative cruelty.
My guidance to Black Belts, and all students really, is to find ways to be of service to others. Put your ego in the service of your strength. Not the other way around. It doesn’t require much effort but will bring unimaginable rewards.