March 16, 2006

You’re only as old as the kids think you are

I pre-tested for karate tonight. This means that our class sits along the back of the dojo and our instructors call us up one at a time and have us go through our material. For whatever reason, (maybe because I’m the oldest by about, oh 13 years in this class) my instructor made me wait until last to get up and do my thing. I can not tell you how much I HATE going last. By the time it’s my turn, my heart is pounding out of my chest; I’m sweating; And, I can’t remember for the life of me what the heck my next move is, even though 10 minutes ago I knew it perfectly. To make matters worse, this is the first time that I have to do a weapons kata as well as an open hand kata. Double stress.

You would think that since I was a high school English teacher for two years, standing up in front of a bunch of kids would not even make me blink. But for some stupid reason it does. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again and I hate feeling that way. Tonight, as I sat there waiting for my turn, a girl of about eight years old, leans over to me and whispers, "Were you in the tournament?" I’m like, "shaa, yeah right." Seriously, maybe I feel like a kid because the kids think I’m a kid.

The same thing happened to my husband. At 36 weeks pregnant with Lil C, I finally had to stop going to karate. My husband started up so that Big I would have a partner she knew. At their first class, the average age of the student was about six. When it was Mr. B’s turn to stand up and punch the heavy bag, he punched once and all you heard was a collective gasp of awe and wonder at his amazing ability to nail that bag. One little boy’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he blurted out a simple, "Wow." My husband and the instructor got hysterical; and I had to make a trip to the little girls’ room since laughing, second pregnancies, and 9 months along so do not make for a good combination.

Apparently, post delivery joints and kata don’t make for a good combo either. As I was doing my kata tonight, my hip cracked so loudly that a parent of one of the other students, who was sitting in the waiting area, actually commented that he heard it. Yeah, well I felt it buddy and trust me, that was so. much. worse. I swear I take karate classes at a place where there are adult students. I am NOT a Kramer; and I don’t make it a habit of making myself feel good by beating up on unsuspecting five year olds. It just seems that the other adults. . . are always attending classes other than the one that I go to.

When it was all said and done tonight, my instructor pointed out a few things to work on. So next week will be the week that I will officially test for 5th kyu green belt (or two brown stripes on a green belt for those non-karate literates). Tonight, after I did the first kata I have to do for testing, my instructor told me to start over, which is never a good sign. I shot a quick glance at my usual instructor (a college student who pointed out a few weeks ago that I was doing something so ridiculously wrong in the one kata that it could seriously be confused with hula dancing) and asked if they were going to point out another awkward dance move that I’d decided to incorporate into this kata too.

Luckily this time, I had just screwed up a minor step and corrected it without prompting on the second go round. The hula move from the previous kata was probably just a side effect of my body compensating for my ridiculously HUGE and LOW stomach at the time. Seriously, I mean check out that belly! Lil C was a LOW RIDER so I’m going to blame it on her. She apparently took the whole, "Get low, get low, get low," rap lyrics of the summer a bit too seriously.

Speaking of serious, I need to do some intense practicing for this testing next week. My husband has a fear that I will take it to the streets and start swinging around my bo outside and freaking out the neighbors and I’ll tell you what, if the weather is nice this weekend, you better believe I’ll be out there.

I think I can hear Mr. B upstairs now quietly praying for a freak blizzard just in time for the weekend. . .