Blue Belt

Chapter 3

                                                                            III.

    The dojo was a large room.  Probably fifty feet by thirty feet or so.  It was in the lower level of the white building.  At the bottom of the stairs which led to the dojo was a small area with a black floor that had a couple of chairs, a Gatorade and bottled water machine, a phone on the wall, and a large group picture.  On the right and left were doors for men and women's locker rooms.  Then, across from where the stairs came down there were two large wooden doors which led into the dojo itself.  As one walked in, on the right was an open area with a small set of indoor bleachers and a sizeable trophy case, and on the left there was an office with glass on all sides.  Then further in was the dojo itself.  The dojo had a mirror on the right side as one was walking in.  The mirror extended all across the wall and was about seven feet high.  On the left side of the room was a railing that I assumed people could hold on to for stretching and such.  The floor itself was a dark blue with white lines in places.  On the far side of the room were a few stand up circular cushions, and two that actually were dummy torsos that were for practice kicks and punches.  On the far left corner was a large encased stereo system.  On the left wall, closer to the office, was a very large banner which said "Dojo – place of the Way" in a bold black type.  I had already known from my previous knowledge that a dojo was simply a place where martial arts are practiced.  But it is actually derived from the Korean root word "Dojang".

            Tomas, Charles, and I were sitting there on the floor not too far from the bleachers waiting for Mr. Vargo to arrive.  Our orientation was to start at noon.  Jed had shown me a few more places in the building, along with taking me to lunch with him.  This was still just one day after arriving here.  Tomas and Charles were already in the dojo when I arrived.  Charles again had his bandana on, only this time he was wearing a pair of black cloth cut off shorts along with a thick red shirt which had the sleeves cut off.  It was not too long before Mr. Vargo came into the room.  This time he had a white tee shirt under his dark blue uniform.  It looked like he had just ironed the uniform because I could not find so much as a wrinkle.  He had three white binders in his hand which he set on one of the bleacher chairs.  He then walked in between the bleachers to where we were sitting and faced us. 

            "Okay.  As you can see from the sign this is the dojo."  He stated.  "This is where most classes are conducted here at the institute.  You will bow just before that first white line."  He pointed to a white line just beyond where the bleachers ended.  "Dojo, in Japanese, literally does mean place of the way."  He pointed at the banner as he continued, "We take that very serious here.  Any martial art work that is done on this floor should be done with 100% effort.  It would be disrespectful to do otherwise."  He paused.  "Understand?"

             We all nodded.  I already could tell that Mr. Vargo had a much more serious tone here today.

            "These are your OKI handbooks.  Don't misplace these or you will be charged $100."  He then grabbed the white binders and gave us each one.  As we began flipping through ours he went into the office and grabbed a copy of his own, only his binder was red.  These things were huge.  The cover had that OKA symbol on it with a large font.  I flipped my cover open and there was a glossy page with a picture of some OKA students doing some kicks in unison.  I then flipped that page and it started in with some kind of welcome letter signed at the bottom by Aaron Reeder and a Ben Finnegan.  Following that was the table of contents.    

            "Okay.  You guys will learn this book inside and out by the end of this year.  It will be your guide, a reference manual to what goes on here.  If you have a question regarding training, you start with this.  If you ask me a question and the answer can be found in this book, then I'll refer you to this book.  Got it?"  We nodded as he said that.  "Your roommates should be the ones to introduce you on how to get around here.  If you have a problem with not knowing where something is, you talk to them.  They should be showing you where we eat, where specific offices are, and all that.  I'm not going to repeat what they should be showing you.  Don't ask me those types of questions."  He paused.  "And if you do I might just not answer you at all."  He paused again.  "But at the same time no question is a dumb question, got it?"  Again we nodded like robots.  "Okay, open up to appendix A in the back of your binder."  We started searching.  "Your binder does not have dividers like mine, so you might want to create some using post its or whatever you want to use.  But for now you can get some idea as each section is separated by a red page."  We kept searching and finally found appendix A.  "This deals with policies here at the school.  Like, Charles, no smoking here."  He went right up next to Charles as he said that.  Charles did not really react.  "It also talks about who to talk to regarding different problems you may have."  He took a walk past all of us.  "You don't always come to me."  He paused.  "Got it?"  Only Tomas nodded this time as I did not figure he needed any verification from us that we did, in fact, get it.  "I'm not going to go through each and every policy here, but they are important, so expect your roommate to quiz you on these things at some point."  He paused for ten seconds or so.  "Now, turn back to chapter one."