Taekwondo and the Making of a Man

“Put your hands up, Suraj,” my Taekwondo instructor said, circling the dojang—the training hall—where we were sparring. I was dodging a jab from a kid twice my size. My hands were trembling more from fear than effort. I hated sparring. The idea that someone could come at me, fists and feet flying, while I tried to block or retaliate…it felt chaotic and vulnerable.

I preferred the calm precision of poomsae—those set routines of stances, kicks, and strikes that felt more like dance than combat. I loved mastering the technique or the jump kicks in the air. It felt artistic, even beautiful.

As a boy, I enjoyed watching Jackie Chan movies. It wasn’t the violence that appealed to me, but the creativity. Watching him leap through the air or use a nearby object to defend himself felt less like brute strength and more like a genius. That’s the part of martial arts that spoke to me.

But my instructor didn’t let me skip the hard stuff. “The real world isn’t easy,” he’d say. “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to, but they will teach you important life lessons.” And he was right.

While I didn’t want to learn these lessons at the time, they ultimately shaped how I navigate life as a man.

Lesson 1: You will get knocked down, so learn to get back up.

Sparring taught me discomfort. It taught me to move through fear, not around it. And whether I liked it or not, it taught me how to take a hit and keep standing.

Why was this an important lesson to learn?

Life will knock us down. Sometimes it’s a health scare, a broken heart, a job rejection, or just a day where everything falls apart. In those moments, we don’t need to be the strongest or fastest, we just need to get back up however we can. That’s resilience.

I don’t say this in a “tough it out” or “don’t cry” way. As men, we heard those phrases regularly. Those phrases were used to dismiss our emotions and experiences, prioritizing traits such as emotional suppression, dominance, and power over personal health and well-being. To me, getting back up might mean seeing a therapist, journaling your pain, reaching out to a friend for help, making a difficult decision, or even giving yourself some tough love when it makes sense. Whatever it looks like, staying down doesn’t let you heal. Rising—carefully, painfully, intentionally—does.

Lesson 2: Power without restraint isn’t strength, it’s harm.

I recall a day when my Taekwondo instructor paused class and gathered us in a circle. “The goal,” he said, “is that we will never need to use what we learn in class.”

I didn’t get it. Why learn a martial art if we are not supposed to use it?

But over time, I understood: taekwondo isn’t about domination. It’s about discipline. It’s about focus. It’s about having power and knowing when not to use it.

The true goal of a fight, he explained, is to get to safety—not to “win.” The ideal scenario is to block or deflect just enough to escape without anyone getting seriously hurt. That takes more strength than kicking someone down. It takes awareness, precision, and an appreciation for humanity.

For me, that reframed what it meant to be a man. Not someone who reacts out of ego or anger, but someone who can stay calm, think clearly, and choose peace.

Lesson 3: Real power serves others.

To move up in rank, we didn’t just have to master physical techniques. We had to do community service. As a boy, I didn’t get the connection. “How random,” I thought. “What did volunteering have to do with martial arts?”

But looking back, the message is clear: with more power comes more responsibility. (Cliché, but still true!).

As our skills increased, so did our obligation to use that power for good. We weren’t just stronger, we were expected to be more generous, more grounded, more human. That shaped my view of masculinity in a deep way. Power, if it isn’t used for service, becomes ego. If it goes unchecked, it turns into destruction. But when paired with empathy, it becomes leadership.

Lesson 4: Cultural difference is not a weakness, it’s a strength.

Growing up in middle America as a kid with multiple cultural identities was confusing. I often hid parts of myself, especially anything that felt “too different.” Taekwondo, with its Korean origins, unfamiliar phrases, and unique uniforms, didn’t help. My classmates played baseball or football. I mastered poomsaes in a dojang.

I was embarrassed. At that age, anything outside the “norm” felt like a target.

But now, I see what a gift it was. Taekwondo taught me to respect traditions outside of my own. To learn words in Korean. To bow before entering a space. To connect with an artistic practice. It showed me the beauty in different cultures and that “different” doesn’t mean lesser.

As an adult, I see how often we’ve quietly integrated various cultural practices into mainstream America—yoga, acupuncture, martial arts—and rarely name their origins. We benefit from these global traditions without always acknowledging the cultures they originate from. While I may have started taekwondo to train my body, it served as an early lesson in cultural humility, respect, and curiosity. It taught me that being a man doesn’t mean holding rigidly to one’s own way of life—it means being open to others. Learning from and growing with them.

While I don’t practice taekwondo anymore, its life lessons never left me. When life throws punches, I remember to keep my hands up. When I feel tempted to prove my strength, I ask whether peace would be the stronger choice. When I feel powerful, I look for ways to serve. And when I encounter something unfamiliar, I stay curious instead of defensive.

Back then, I didn’t know that standing in the dojang, trying to dodge blows, I was learning how to stand as a man. But now I do.