Whatever your ambitions are, whatever goals you're working toward, and whatever challenges may be in front of you today, remember—you only have to live the moment you're in. Bring your best to this moment. Do something that moves you forward, strengthens your spirit, or brings you closer to the human being you're working to become. Then take that strength with you into the next moment. One moment at a time. One choice at a time. Keep moving forward. Keep becoming. Live Strong today.

This morning didn’t go according to plan. I had planned to be outside at Laurel Acres Park for my Saturday Tang Soo Do training, but the weather had another idea. So I moved the training inside to my Black Box Studio. Different location. Same training. Somewhere during this morning’s session, I realized that this is becoming an important part of what Living Strong means to me at 65. For many years, martial arts training meant going to the dojo. There was a place, a schedule, students, instructors, classes, and a familiar floor beneath my feet. Right now, this chapter looks different. I’m a sixth-degree Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan practitioner with more than five decades in martial arts, but at this moment I don’t have a Tang Soo Do school that I call home. So I train from my corner of the world. Last Saturday, that corner was outside. Today, it was my Black Box Studio. Tomorrow, who knows? But I can still train. This morning I went back to fundamentals: center punch, palm strike, low defense, high defense, and something I’ve been fascinated with for decades—the role of the hips in generating power. And that brought me back to something much bigger than technique: Yong Gi. Courage. When we hear the word courage in martial arts, it’s easy to imagine fighting or standing up against some enormous challenge. But courage can be quieter than that. Sometimes courage is accepting that life has changed without deciding that your life is over. Sometimes it’s adapting. Sometimes it’s starting again. And sometimes it’s simply putting on your uniform on a Saturday morning and continuing to practice. That may be one of the biggest lessons martial arts is teaching me at 65. I’m not attempting to recreate the martial artist I was at 25, 35, or 45. I’m interested in discovering the martial artist—and the human being—I can become now. Evolution, not comeback. From the Book to the Training Floor One of the things I’m especially excited about is beginning to connect this training directly to my book, Living Strong Through Martial Arts: A Lifetime Journey of Martial Virtue. When I wrote the book, I wasn’t writing a martial arts instruction manual. I was looking back over a lifetime of training and asking what martial arts had taught me about living—about courage, perseverance, relationships, responsibility, aging, and becoming more skillful at being human.

I’ve been working on something over the last several days that I’m excited to finally share with you. I’ve put together my Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan curriculum and made the PDF available free to anyone who wants to study, train, and continue learning. This is more than a list of techniques and requirements. It represents the Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan that was passed down to me and that I’ve spent decades learning, practicing, teaching, and continuing to understand. It also works alongside my book, Living Strong Through Martial Arts, because I want the physical training and the deeper principles of martial virtue to remain connected. For those of you training with me on Saturday mornings, this curriculum will become part of the roadmap for what we’re doing together. And inside the Living Strong Community, I’ll continue developing the classroom with training material, videos, discussion, and opportunities to ask questions. You can download the PDF free here: https://www.peterliciaga.com/tang-soo-do-moo-duk-kwan-curriculum/ Take a look through it. And if you have questions, post them here. That’s part of what I want this community to be—a place where we can continue learning together. The training continues. The learning continues. The becoming continues. 🥋

I’ve been thinking about something this morning: Growth doesn’t have an expiration date. At 65, I’m still learning. Still training. Still creating. Still asking questions. And lately, life has been reminding me that sometimes growth doesn’t look like adding something new. Sometimes it means adapting. Sometimes it means letting go. Sometimes it means beginning again with what you already have. So here’s my question for you this morning: What are you still growing into? It could be something physical, personal, creative, professional, or simply something about the human being you’re becoming. Drop it below. I’d love to hear where you are right now. We’re not finished. We’re still becoming.

Professor Pete McHugh looked a little surprised to see me. It was 6:30 on a Monday evening, and I was standing inside McHugh BJJ getting ready to train. In all the years I have trained there, Monday night was never my time. Monday night belonged to work. Not anymore. "I have a new schedule now," I told him. Pete smiled and said, "Great." It was such a small exchange, just a few words between two people standing beside a jiu-jitsu mat, but it meant more to me than he probably realized. A couple of years ago, during a time when I was struggling with some of the changes taking place in my martial arts life, Pete had said something else to me: "You've got to follow your path." I've thought about those words many times since. I don't think either of us knew where that path was going to lead. I'm not sure I do now. But Monday night, I was on it. I am 65 years old. For almost 30 years, one martial arts school occupied an enormous part of my life. I taught there. I worked there. I watched children become adults and white belts become black belts. I became part of families, and families became part of mine. That chapter recently ended. There is sadness in saying that. There is also truth in admitting that for the last few years I had increasingly felt restricted. I didn't always feel that I had the freedom to teach, contribute, or express what I believed martial arts could be. At times, I didn't feel particularly valued. I don't write that to blame anyone. Life changes. Organizations change. People change. Sometimes the place that once fit us no longer does. And sometimes we don't realize how tightly we've been holding our wings until there is suddenly room to open them. Monday night, as I looked around the room, I began seeing people from different chapters of my martial arts life. The Giampietro family was there. I had taught them at Dinoto Karate Center, and they have been part of my martial arts world for years. I introduced them to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and now they've been training jiu-jitsu for a couple of years while continuing their Tang Soo Do training.