Dear Leke

Dear Leke,

We're not as close as we used to be, but that's on me. We've drifted apart because I've stopped training and competing in Jiu-Jitsu, and Jiu-Jitsu is your life. I understand that.

I'm writing this letter to you because I want you to know that I will never forget you or the lessons you have taught me. See, I still remember the first time we met. It was ten years ago, and I was only 16 years old. God, I remember that beautiful time. I remember being so young. But of course, as a man often does when he's fast approaching his 30's, I am looking back at my youth with rose-tinted glasses.

Truth be told, my teenage years were a difficult time. I've never told you this, but I come from a broken family. My mum went mad when I was a child, and my Dad had to fight tooth and nail to keep me fed, and to pay for the roof over our heads. He succeeded at the former but failed at the latter. So from a young age I had to bounce around from one run-down place to another, trying in vain to find a forever home, to find a purpose in life and a good strong figure to look up to while my workaholic father worked.

All of this changed when I walked into a martial arts gym.

Like I said, I was only 16 years old; a young, scared, skinny kid, positively quivering in my slippers. I was scared because everybody in the gym looked so tough. You know as well as I do that martial art gyms back then weren't the all-inclusive, welcoming place they are now. Ten years ago they were more akin to an underground fight club, full of rusting chains and sweat-stained mats, populated almost exclusively by shirtless, sweaty, hyper-testosteroned men.

So imagine my surprise when one of these macho men came up to greet me. My surprise was compounded by the fact that he was actually friendly.

That man was you, Leke.

I remember that day clearly. You greeted me with a smile, asked for my name, and shook my hand in yours. You then proceeded to take me through the hardest class I've ever been put through in my life.

There were about twenty people in that class, and all of them, with the exception of myself, were full-grown adults. Most of them couldn't make it through the warm-ups.

Your class was filled with push-ups, burpees, and various other calisthenics I was sure were invented in the ninth level of hell. As the minutes passed, people dropped out slowly but steadily. They lay on the floor, they leaned against the walls, they went for a water break and never came back. I remember somebody had to go to the toilet to go throw up. He only made it halfway before the urge overtook him. We mopped up the vomit and kept on going...

I wanted to give up more times than I could count. Then I happened to look up and into your eyes. What I saw there gave me pause. There was a glint in there, a bright look that spoke volumes. That look seemed to say, "All of this is not senseless torture, but a test. I want to see what each and every one of you are made of. I want to see how bad you want it."

I gritted my teeth and kept on pushing.

I surprised myself by making it to the end of the class. Out of the original twenty, less than half were left. And to this chosen handful, you had a gift. You awarded each of us with a smile and a small word of commendation. You said, "Congratulations, guys. Well done."

That 'well done' from you sounded to my young ears like honey, like the singing of ten sweet and sinful sirens. I had to have more. I had to hear more.

So I started training every day.

The classes that I struggled with now became easier. I began to enjoy training. My fitness levels improved, and—miracles of miracles—I even began to get better at Jiu-Jitsu. I improved so much that one day, you pulled me aside and asked me in a thick and conspiratorial whisper, "Alvin, there's a competition coming up in a few weeks. Would you like to take part?"

I felt as if Christ himself had asked me to be one of his twelve disciples. "I...I..I..." I stammered, not quite sure how to respond.

"Don't worry," you said. "You don't have to give me an answer right away."

"I mean, coach, I would love to compete, but I'm not that good yet. And besides, I don't even own a gi..."

A 'gi' was a kimono, the thick training uniform that all Jiu-Jitsu athletes wear. At the time they cost a couple of hundred bucks each, and as broke as I was, a couple of hundred bucks was well beyond me.

I didn't say another word. You instinctively understood, and so you said, "Your Jiu-Jitsu is okay. Not the best, but good enough to take part in your first tournament. As for the gi, let me handle it."

And handle it you did. The very next day when I came to class there was a fresh new gi waiting for me. Now when I say new, I mean it was new to me. I wish I could say that the gi was brand new, store-bought and pristine, but that would be a lie. The gi was old and black and faded, patched multiple times around the seams to hide the holes that had been put there from many years of hard use. You handed me the gi.

"This is my old gi." You said. "I wore it when I first started training back in the favelas. It doesn't fit me anymore...so I'd like you to have it. You can make better use of it now than me." Wordlessly and with both hands, I took the gi from you and pressed it tight to my chest. It was the best gift I had ever received.

From that moment on, a Jiu-Jitsu competitor was born.

I didn't medal in my first competition, but I did end up clinching a gold medal in my very next one.

I also won my next tournament.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.

All in all, I would win ten gold medals in the span of two years. My rise was, if I may so say myself, meteoric. It got to the point where I was making a name for myself, so much so that you were prompted to promote me to blue belt.

I'll always remember the exact date you tied that piece of blue cloth around my waist. It was the 6th of November, 2014. I remember it well because it was, and still remains, one of the proudest moments of my life.

I, however, after receiving my blue belt, started to drift away from the sport of my youth. Part of it had to do with the pressure of constant competition, but most of it had to do with the fact that I became interested in something else: entrepreneurship.

See, throughout my time traveling and competing around South-East Asia, I found that I really liked competitions. The feeling of winning was great, but what I liked most about competing was the camaraderie. People often mistake competitions for brutal, cut-throat affairs, but what these people forget is the word 'competition' was derived from the Latin word competere, which means “to meet, to come together.”

More often than not, the competitions I attended were a place where people could mingle around and get to know—really know, one another. There, I witnessed hotshot lawyers going up against professional athletes, police officers competing against former drug offenders, and aspiring politicians from old and noble houses trading chokes, throws, and laughs with teenagers who have yet to graduate from high school. I would, through those experiences, come to a proud and profound understanding: martial arts isn't about violence. Martial arts is about unity. And to build upon my newfound knowledge, I realized that martial arts tournaments were a place to facilitate such interaction, a place where people from all walks of life could come together and meet as equals. And I loved that. I wanted to play my own small part in unifying the human race.

And thus, my sports event business was born.

It was slow going at first. My first tournament only saw 70 sign-ups. My next, even less. I lost what little money I had and fell into despair. But in my darkest moments; moments where I wanted, more than anything, to roll over and give up; the lessons I learned from you so long ago would come roaring back, and I would grit my teeth and push on, remembering that first class I took in the sweat-stained mats of an old gym, and the glittering look in your eyes promising that every hard time in life was just a test.

Your lessons paid off.

My third event proved to be a hit. It attracted 300 Jiu-Jitsu competitors from all over the world. After that, my reputation was set, and for my subsequent competitions, more sign-ups poured in. Fast-forward to today, I now run one of the largest Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in Singapore. Even more unbelievably, owing to the dubious clout my event-hosting prowess brought me, I even made it to the latest season of The Apprentice.

None of this would be possible without you, Leke.

What you did for me was invaluable. You took a frightened young teen and filled him with confidence—confidence that was not false and spoon-fed, but hard-won and earned. You, without let or lien, literally gave me the shirt off your back. And for that I could never thank you enough.

As I am writing this letter, I realize that I have never; not once, throughout our long years together, told you in so many words what you meant to me—what you still mean to me. I want you to know that now. I want you to know that without you, my life would've turned out very differently indeed.

I want you to know that even now, at 26 years old, ten years after our first meeting, the lessons you instilled in me still resonate strong. Times are hard now, and despite the outward glitz and glamour of my life, I am struggling. The pandemic has crippled my once-successful business, and I've had to take a job I didn't want to take in order to feed myself.

I've had to take a job as a martial arts coach.

I didn't want to coach not because I hate to teach, but because I felt like I wasn't ready. I didn't want the attention, the adulation, the roomful of wide-eyed students looking up at me like I was a bearer of secret answers. It wasn't that long ago that I was a student myself.

But yesterday, something happened that would change my mindset entirely. A young boy walked into the gym, and he was wearing slippers. He was skinny, and although he was trying to be brave his bony knees were shaking so much the sound of them knocking together could be heard halfway across the room. When I saw him, I felt a strange and powerful sense of Déjà vu. I crossed the room in large strides; and when I reached him, I put a wide, welcoming smile on my face, took his hand in mine, and said, "Welcome to the gym."

I then put him through a tough and challenging class, full of push-ups, burpees, and various other calisthenics I invented not in the ninth circle of hell, but right there on the spot. He, along with a handful of others, made it to the end of class. And I, to reward them for their effort, had prepared for them a small gift. I gave each of them a warm smile and a small word of praise. They, in turn, smiled up at me, and those smiles were bright and hopeful. At that moment, I saw in their young eyes the child I had once been, and I realized, deep in my heart of hearts, that things have come full circle.

And that, I suspect, is the best way I can repay you, Leke. Not with sweet words of honeyed praise, but by becoming a teacher; a real teacher, and passing forward the lessons you have taught me, the lessons that have helped me so much in life.

I'm still new to this coaching thing, but I will, as I have always done, seek to learn and grow and improve. I will, as I have always done, do my best to do you proud.

So thank you, Leke. Thank you for taking me in, for giving me my first gi, for teaching me all you know and instilling lasting discipline into my life. My successes, henceforth and always, are your successes as well, and the good that I do for others are but a ripple effect cast from the friendly way you treated me, back when I was a young kid with nothing to my name.

You mean more to me than you will ever know. You have been, and always will be, my friend, my mentor, my coach.

Thank you for everything, Dear Leke. This one is for you.