Freya, Goddess of Love and War and Marital Arts Training

When I discovered I was going to have a girl, I decided to name her Freya.  It's a beautiful name in itself and an unusual one, but beyond that, Freya was the Goddess both of Love and of War, strong and independent, a woman who was willing to do almost anything to save her race, the Vanir and one desired by all creatures.

When Freya was quite young, I enrolled her in a martial arts school.  Tae Kwon Do was my own discipline and I therefore looked for the best Tae Kwon Do school in our area, hoping that we could train together.  When I was a young girl, there were very few if any martial arts schools in the West and certainly there were very few girls who studied unless they were Asian.  I studied fencing and specialised in sabre fencing rather than the epee.  I loved being able to slash as well as thrust.  I loved edged weapons and, drunk upon tales of warriors like the Three Musketeers and Cuchulain, considered a sword to be an extension of the soul.  I never was a violent person but to me, the sword represented perfection.

When I went to University, I discovered there was a Tae Kwon Do club and joined it at once.  One joins far too many clubs in the first couple of weeks at University.  Many girls joined the Tae Kwon Do club at that stage, but most of them simply did so in order to meet guys.  After the first rather grueling lesson, they all dropped out apart from two.  I was one of the two who stayed and the other girl was Sue, who became one of my closest friends.  Both of us found the philosophical aspect of martial arts as seductive as the idea of honing ones own body into a perfect weapon.

Although I loved the concept, it was not in order to fight that I wished to perfect the art, but for the sake of perfection itself.  For some reason, martial arts always appealed to me far more than dancing, although I felt they both had the stame essential foundaton and structure.  Both were physical art forms, but martial arts had the additional component of being practical and of giving the practitioner power.

I was not a 'tomboy' by any means as a child.  I loved dolls as much as I loved swords and daggers.  It was when I saw Angela Mao Ying explode into action, however, in cinema, that I realised how utterly feminine and still deadly a great martial artist could be.  She was beautiful and dainty and yet an incredible force.  

So why did I want Freya to study Tae Kwon Do?  Well, for a start, I wanted to share something that gav me intense joy and satisfaction.  There have been few activities in my life that allowed me to experience what is sometimes called 'bliss'.  One was riding a carousel and another was Tae Kwon Do.  I hated team sports in school.  I loved fencing, almost every sort of folk dancing and tap dancing but I never liked ballet.  In school, I was a bit of an outsider, different from the others and therefore subjected to cruelty.  I was much younger than the other children in my classes.  I graduated from school ultimately at the age of 15.  While other girls were able to go out with guys, I still was treated like a child.  It was only when I went to University that, despite my age, I was treated as an adult and the difference in age became irrelevant, apart from my own naivete.

In my academic circle, I often was resented, even at University for being too articulate, for having been a child prodigy (and still a bit of a prodigy on occasion).   There was an edge of hostility often in the behaviour of guys who tried to chat me up.  At Tae Kwon Do, however, I experienced a sense of belonging.  The guys were my comrades.  We struggled together and triumphed together.   I always longed for a brother as a child but it was only when I joined the Tae Kwon Do club that I finally had brothers.  It was wonderful.

Freya was an only child.  I did not want her to be awkward with boys.  I wanted her to be able to have friends who were boys as well as friends who were girls.  I felt that Tae Kwon Do would give her the opportunity.  That was another reason I wanted her to study martial arts.

Many women either study martial arts themselves or enroll their daughers in martial arts in order to give them a source of protection from attack.  I myself experienced abuse at the hands of men but that was not part of my reason for studying martial arts or for wanting Freya to study.  I did want to 'empower' her, to give her a sense of confidence in life, but it was more of a spiritual sense of empowerment that would encompass every aspect of life.

Freya now has her third degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and teaches at a Karate studio.  When I watch her, I see in her all the beauty and power of the Goddess Freya.  I know she is far more humble but even so, I hope it has given her a sense of her own grace and beauty as well as power that should be second nature now.

Originally, I had hoped to be able to train with Freya, but I became physically disabled and was unable to take that journey with her.  I always did try to distinguish between my own goals and those of my daughter, to try not to impose my own desires and ambitions upon her.  I am really happy that she chose to continue with the art but I know that her vision may be entirely different from mine.