Friday I was finally able to promote my son Forrest to yellow belt. If you follow us on social media, you know we do a lot together. When Covid hit and we were forced to shut down the gym’s, Forrest helped me make videos to continue to teach, and even taught a few himself. As the gym reopened, he has come back and really helped me instruct at WNYMMA. So Forrest is now Integrity Martial Arts first yellow belt.
Forrest started martial arts at a young age. When I first saw him train, I was so proud. He started with Alexis Davis and Master Dave, then under Keith and others, when we moved to WNYMMA he was under JJ and Bayo and then Coach Matt. Finally, I took over teaching the kids classes with coach Matt.
To understand what he has gone through you have to understand what the gym has been in my life. It has been my passion, my mma career and my job as a coach. Forrest has had to deal with pressure at home when his parents clash about the gym, (long hours away from home cause tension in any relationship husband or father) Feelings of the gym being more important then him (missing his events for either my training or someone else’s) as well as a general fatigue of training all the time. We have often been in spots where he has felt unloved or neglected by my commitment to martial arts.
He has also dealt with the pressure of having the coach be his dad. I have always expected him to be the best in class. Coach Matt’s son Matt Jr. is as natural to Jiu Jitsu as Forrest is to striking. This has always made Forrest a little less confident in himself and started a bit of a rivalry between the two of them. They would go after each other hard and almost always Matt would win. It built a lot of Anger and resentment in Forrest even if he was too good of a kid to show it.
Forrest was injured at a tournament and had a breakdown at another where he didn’t want to go back out and compete again. He failed a belt test because he walked off the mat in anger and embarrassment while Matt Jr. passed. In a normal kid this might mean the end of training forever. There isn’t one quitter in our household though. Mom took him to Buma a while to train with Keith and their son Dylan. Eventually Forrest started coming back and training with me. First stand up and then grappling. Forrest and Matt decided that they were both not going to let their parent’s expectations of them dictate how they feel about each other of themselves. They became real friends and really cared about each other.
Forrest at this point has started getting a bit old for kids’ class and only came for special days. Then Covid hit and we started doing these video’s on YouTube. It felt so great to finally be the father and son team I have wanted to be since he was three. The things I have written were only the start of the bad feelings there was so much more, but we learned how to deal with it. To be able to wrap that belt around his waist Friday meant and much and having my black belt wrapped around mine.
