The Balance of Hard and Soft ☯︎

I walked into Energy Martial Arts Academy in Pickering, Ontario at twenty-nine years old. I didn't know what I was looking for. Maybe discipline. Maybe confidence. Maybe just something to do with my body that wasn't sitting at a desk.

What I found was Varpet Ed Saki—and a philosophy that would reshape how I understand authority, teaching, and love.

Varpet is Armenian for "master." Ed is Armenian-born, Canadian-raised, and the co-owner of an academy that has shaped hundreds of students over the years. The art he teaches is called Nerkin Ouj—"Inner Power"—a mixed martial art delivered in a formal Korean-style academy setting.

But the name tells you everything. The power isn't in the kick. It's in what the kick reveals about who you're becoming.

The Vessel, Not the Contents

Early in my training, Varpet said something that I didn't fully understand until years later:

At the time, I heard it as a nice sentiment. A way of saying the academy wasn't just about fighting. But the longer I trained—and especially after I earned my black belt at thirty-three and began teaching alongside him—the more I understood what he actually meant.

The forms, the techniques, the belt progression, the discipline—none of it was the point. All of it was structure in service of something deeper.

The vessel holds the water. It shapes the water. But you don't drink the vessel.

Varpet wasn't teaching us to fight. He was teaching us to be.

Hard and Soft

Every martial artist eventually encounters the distinction between "hard" and "soft" styles. Hard styles emphasize power, structure, direct force. Soft styles emphasize flow, redirection, yielding to overcome.

What I learned from Varpet is that mastery isn't choosing one or the other. Mastery is knowing when to use which.

I watched Varpet move between these modes seamlessly. In one moment, he would hold a student to exacting standards—no sloppiness, no shortcuts, no excuses. In the next moment, he would kneel down, look a discouraged child in the eyes, and say exactly what they needed to hear to try again.

He wasn't switching between two different approaches. He was reading what the moment required and responding with precision.

That's not a technique. That's wisdom.

You Can't Do That Here

One of the most important things I learned from Varpet wasn't about martial arts at all. It was about correction.

When a child acted out—pushed another student, disrupted class, crossed a line—Varpet's response was always the same:

Not "you're a bad kid." Not "what's wrong with you?" Not shame. Not character assassination.

Just: the behavior is unacceptable in this space.

This distinction might seem small. It isn't. It's everything.

I've carried this into every teaching context since. Into parenting. Into difficult conversations. Into my own self-talk when I fall short.

Focus on the behavior. Preserve the center.

Stay Strong, Ash

For five years after earning my black belt, I worked at Energy Martial Arts Academy—running summer camps, assisting with evening adult classes, going through Varpet's leadership training program.

The leadership training deserves its own mention. It wasn't about management techniques or public speaking tips. It was about who you are when you're responsible for others. How you hold space. How you model what you're teaching. How you stay grounded when things get chaotic.

And throughout all of it, whenever I was struggling—with a difficult student, with my own doubt, with the weight of trying to become someone worth following—Varpet would look at me and say:

Three words. But they landed differently every time.

Sometimes they meant: You can handle this. Don't give up.

Sometimes they meant: I see you're tired. Keep going anyway.

Sometimes they meant: I believe in you. Now believe in yourself.

What never changed was the underlying message: strength isn't the absence of struggle. Strength is what you find inside the struggle.

Nerkin Ouj. Inner Power.

What Mastery Actually Looks Like

I've thought a lot about what made Varpet different from other teachers I've had. And I think it comes down to this:

He made everyone feel welcome and empowered. Always.

Not welcomed despite their limitations. Not empowered after they proved themselves. From the moment you walked through the door—whether you were an anxious child, an out-of-shape adult, a natural athlete, or someone who'd been told their whole life they weren't coordinated enough for this—you belonged.

And that belonging wasn't permissive. It came with standards. It came with expectations. It came with the clear message that you were capable of more than you believed.

That balance—high standards AND unconditional welcome—is rare. Most people can do one or the other. Varpet did both, simultaneously, with everyone who trained under him.

That's not a technique you learn. That's a way of being you grow into.

The Vessel I'm Trying to Become

I left active training years ago. Life moved on—marriage, fatherhood, career changes, the thousand small redirections that shape an adult life.

But what Varpet taught me didn't leave. It became part of how I see authority, teaching, correction, and care.

When I work with children in my role as an Educational Assistant, I hear his voice: You can't do that here. Focus on behavior. Preserve the center.

When I'm exhausted and my son needs me to show up anyway, I hear: Stay strong, Ash.

When I'm developing frameworks for understanding relationships and ethics, I find myself returning to the same insight: the structure exists to serve the human, not the other way around.

Martial arts was just a vessel. But the water it carried—the lessons about presence, about the balance of hard and soft, about holding standards while honoring dignity—that water is still flowing through everything I do.