Here We Go

Sixteen years ago I moved to Alexandria with my wife, Holly.

I opened the Kingstowne dojo — first painting the walls and laying the tile by hand, then standing outside handing flyers to potential students. A few years later, we opened the Old Towne dojo, which Holly ran until our first son was born. Then we then opened some more dojos. Then we had some more sons. We have grown to three kids, four dojos, and more than 400 students — not to mention the thousands of former students that have happily passed through our doors all of these years.

It has been an engaging, fulfilling, and humbling journey, and now I’m going to take a break 🙂

This spring I will begin a sabbatical with my family. We will start by traveling across country by car, visiting museums, national parks, and friends — as well as presenting at two martial arts conferences, attending a third, and testing for rank in another branch of Kempo. We will then fly to Russia, travel down through Mongolia, and into China where we will learn the language (we hope!), see the Great Wall, and train at the Shaolin Temple. Then, when it gets colder, we’ll continue down towards Thailand (home of Thai Kickboxing), Vietnam, the Philippines (home of Kali), etc. You get the idea.

This journey is, of course, only possible because I have been honored to have the most amazing teaching team ever assembled. Our full-time staff, consisting of Renshi Cassie, Senseis Gary and Mark, Senpais Geof and Jess, as well as Jonathan and Kai — not to mention our roster of volunteer teaching corps, too expansive to enumerate — are amazingly talented and dedicated, both individually and collectively. The Senpais, Senseis, and Renshi each have more teaching and martial arts experience than I did when I opened my first dojo and I have extreme respect for — and faith in — their abilities. I will be in contact with them for support, and I will travel back regularly (ask your instructor about the student training retreat planned for June, and look for me at tournament, etc.), but regardless, these fantastic people will carry Potomac Kempo’s mission forward no matter what time zone I’m in.

It is, of course, sad to be taking time away. We have so many friends here, so many people with whom we share this space and this life. As I write this letter, it is hard not to think of Robert Frost’s lament:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

And so each of us chooses a path in life.

People often ask, understandably, why we are taking this trip. Socrates told us that the unexamined life is not worth living, so it is perhaps natural as we grow — and watch our children grow — to ask questions about how we are living our lives. This journey is many things for us. It is, of course, a chance to meet people from around the world, learn about their cultures (and martial arts where applicable), but it is also a chance to step out of our normal routine to grapple with these questions and, hopefully, better understand ourselves and the world in which we all live.

I could go on; I could talk about how we are giving away almost everything we own and trying to figure out how to live out of one backpack each. I could wax poetic about Russian and Chinese visa requirements. I could confess that I oscillate between being excited and terrified. But I’ll save that for later.

In any case, we will miss you all, and we know we will miss out on so much.

But, well, Mr. Frost, take it home. . . .

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Chris Santillo
Five Backpacks Family