Pressure is a Privilege

I just came from my nine-year-old son’s Taekwondo promotion test, where upwards of a hundred males and a sprinkling of females (from five-year-olds to adults) voluntarily exposed themselves to pressure of an extreme sort—that which you confront when you battle with yourself and your own fear.
He has been learning this Korean martial art and combat sport since he was five and is now a low red belter. He will have to pass that promotion test to be accelerated into the high red belt category. We anxiously await the results, which officials say will be out in ten days.
“Did I pass?” he asked me as we exited the testing venue: a basketball court filled with uniformed Teakwondo gins in their white dobok, all initially hopeful and pumped with adrenalin but were now spent and quiet.
“We’ll know in a week or so. But you did good; real good,” I answered him. I let him walk ahead of me. He looked like a completely different person from a few moments ago. Now his flip flops slapped noisily against his feet as he playfully dragged them across the floor. He swung his water jug to and fro in time with his stride like he had no care in the world. Well, not anymore.
Earlier, when he had his full armor on: torso, shin, arm and crotch pads, and helmet, he looked mean and menacing and formidable, like he couldn’t wait to beat someone up. But I knew from his clammy hands, from the sweat trickling down his forehead and his far-away gaze that he was under pressure—lots of it! He kept retreating back and forth into the dug-out to practice his patterns: precise offensive and defensive moves—kicks, blocks, punches, and open-handed strikes—strung together to flow into smooth combinations. He kept coming up to me to drink water and dry up with his towel. And each time he approached I saw the pressure in his eyes.
My first instinct was to try to protect him, to believe that it was all too much for him. Then it occurred to me that he had gotten there because he was good enough and fast enough to have hurdled everything else that came before then. He had worked hard; his body had responded in spite of all the distractions. The pressure he felt was a privilege.
“Champions take chances, and pressure is a privilege." Billie Jean King, a pioneer in women's tennis, reportedly responded with this quotation when asked how it felt to be playing in her first U.S. Open. It was also the very same text message that she had sent Maria Sharapova on the morning of her Australian Open tennis championship match against Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic just days ago, which Sharapova went on to win.
Pressure, as defined by Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is the burden of physical or mental distress and the constraint of circumstance. When faced with pressure, the brain switches to a primitive, instinctive defense mode. The body produces the stress hormone adrenalin, triggering a fight-or-flight response that overrides all logical processes.
It is important to differentiate pressure from stress because nowadays, these two words are often used interchangeably. Stress happens when one is contemplating failure, when one is threatened or perceives himself to be is danger. Pressure on the other hand, is an indication that one is hopeful. It happens when one is contemplating victory, when opportunity winks and propels him forward. There is a world of difference between the two. In Billie Jean King’s words, “Pressure is when you have a shot at winning when you’re not supposed to.” To be in such a position is a gift. So, yes, pressure is, indeed, a privilege.
How, then, does one deal with pressure? Being highly in tune with the body is crucial in such situations. One must know when he is about to lose his head in fear or panic and then stop the onslaught of adrenalin dead in its tracks. It is about not letting panic and emotions take over. Instead of giving in to the overwhelming urge of losing composure, one must take a deep breath, calm down and let reason dictate the next course of action—all these, of course, to be achieved in a matter of seconds.
It does sound daunting on paper; impossible, even. But maturity plays a huge part. Most of the time, people who are put under a lot of pressure draw from previous experiences to successfully tackle such situations. Children, who are exposed to pressure early on, be it in sports or academics, learn to cope with it faster.
But coping comes in a variety of ways. During the Taekwondo promotion test I had command view of men of different shapes and sizes and how they dealt with pressure. Somehow, the little boys, those younger than seven, seemed oblivious to it all. Oh, the bliss of innocence! Everyone else was caught up in their own tempest of hope, fear, anxiety, and anticipation.
During the execution of patterns, a couple of boys completely froze; it could have been mental block or a total shut down of the muscular system but whatever it was, they were pinned to their spots, motionless. Who do you think were jumping up and down in a fit of panic along the sidelines mouthing off loud but unintelligible words of advice, verbal prompts and violent threats? Their mothers, of course!
There were two: a man and a woman, both grown up, who went in the opposite direction that the entire group of examinees headed for. If the group proceeded to the right executing their string of moves, these two faced left because of nerves. And as though they were in complete delirium, they continued the wrong way bumping bodies in the process.
There was a little boy who, just as the test was about to start, shouted, “Yaya, wee wee.” Another still, around seven years old said to his mom, “I’m tired na, I don’t want na. I want to go home na.”
There was one man, in his twenties I would say, who couldn’t stop himself from shouting. In Taekwondo, there are specific parts in the patterns, usually to punctuate key steps, wherein one is taught to shout. This man, driven by adrenalin, just couldn’t stop shouting and with animated facial expressions to match. Imagine Bruce Lee doing his famous “What, what, whataah,” shout-outs—that sort. The examiner had to ask him several times to stop but he couldn’t seem to shut down the impulse. It was quite the comic relief.
There was a tall and lean fellow, who must have forgotten his pattern, so he ended up kicking around indiscriminately, moving aimlessly in circles and with a big smile on his face as if to tell everyone, “Don’t mind me. I’m a little lost here; carry on with whatever it is that you’re doing.”
Most, however, completed their routines flawlessly.
When it came to the sparring part of the test, my son was pitted against a feisty high red belter. He was smaller in build and height but higher in belt and skill. Immediately after the go signal was given, my son’s face, squeezed inside his helmet with cheeks bursting out of the sides, turned as red as a ripe tomato. From where I stood, he either looked like a madman ready to eat his opponent alive or someone about to explode at any moment because of fear. He squinted so that all that remained visible of his eyes were the black irises. The only things missing were flames from his nostrils and smoke from his ears to demonstrate how fired up he was. He truly looked like he wasn’t breathing and that he was about to collapse any second. And then kicks from both sides were unleashed…
He reverted back to his old fun-loving and carefree self as soon as it was all over. It was as we were walking back to the car, me behind him, watching him skip and skedaddle all the way, that it hit me: pressure doesn’t just build character; it reveals it.