In 2000, I decided that I was not getting enough exercise. I investigated local gyms and exercise facilities and realized that I was not a "self-starter" when it came to exercise. I was not willing to walk or run on a machine, nor was I willing to lift weights or use other machines without someone standing over me telling me what to do and to keep doing it.

As a kid, I took Judo for 3 years and in law school, I took Tae Kwondo Karate for a year, so I began to check out the many martial arts studios in the area. One name kept coming up over and over again. It was Faustini's in Oradell. I visited the school, liked the people that I met, and signed up for a three month introductory period.

Faustini's Institute of Martial Arts (FIMA) is not a typical Tae Kwondo Karate school. FIMA is a school of Jujitsu self defense and a school of Tae Kwando. Techniques within the system are explosive, effective, and efficient and incorporate Judo, Karate, and other forms of martial arts. Sensei, Richard Faustini, has been training students for over 30 years. Sensei Faustini is personally involved in working with the students. The school is located at 660 Kinderkamack Road in Oradell.

All students are actually enrolled in the school of Jujitsu. While they are training for belts in Jujitsu, they can also graduate with belts in Karate. In the adult program, a person could get a black belt in Tae Kwondo Karate in about 4 or 5 years. A black belt in Jujitsu takes about 9 to 10 years of study. I did not want to learn the katas (Karate katas are executed as a specified series of approximately 15 to 25 moves, with stepping and turning, while attempting to maintain perfect form. The practitioner "visualizes" the enemy attacks and their responses.)

Our school of Jujitsu trains us in self defense. We learn to parry attacks and break bones, dislocate joints, and in the extreme, kill our attackers. The training is intense. We are attacked with clubs, knives, fists, chokes, and grabs. We also learn defense against assailants with guns. Testing sees how well we have learned the different defenses to attacks and then at the end of each test, we have "dessert". In dessert, 4 people stand around you and take turns attacking you with and without weapons. You must defend yourself and show that you can take down and disable your attacker, without actually injuring them. This is the control that you attain with years of training.

The belts start with white, then orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, red, brown, and finally black. Each belt after yellow, has stripes (usually given in pairs) that must be earned. You need 4 stripes to move to the next belt level. You can only take each test after about 4 months of study and when you obtain a brown belt, then it jumps to 5 months of study. This is a realistic system. To get proficient, you really need to put in the time to gain and demonstrate the skills necessary to move to the next belt level. Once you get to black belt, there are degrees of black. It keeps getting more challenging as you progress.

The black belt test is brutal and demanding. It lasts about 2 hours and makes you demonstrate, basically all you have learned in your years of training and in doing so, exhaust you. When you are exhausted, you must rely on your training to keep going. At the final dessert, you are attacked by 6 black belts who are going to win. The goal is to do the best you can against all of them. Imagine all those great movies where the hero is attacked by many attackers and defeats them all. It ain't going to happen here. You will ultimately lose. The following day is when you realize that your body has muscles that you never knew existed. Every part of you aches. But the aches go away and you now have the pride of your black belt.