August 17, 2006

They Found Me Out

I’m going to go backwards in my karate recap this week, because it was the end of class tonight that was so mind-blowing. It all started with a simple statement by one of the new black belts:

"By the way, I like your blog," she said.

"You read my BLOG," I blurted out in surprise. "Which one?" I asked her. "Both," she responded. "I like your writing style," she said. Oh, Good GOD! I don’t know how I expected to remain anonymous. My hometown newspaper publishes a stripped down version of my blog on their website. It’s easily accessible to people who want to read the newspaper online. I just kind of figured that people in my hometown didn’t read blogs. I guess I was wrong. Then she says:

"Mrs. "D" told me about it." ACK! "Mrs. D" is the mother of two new junior black belts at our dojo. One of her students is the 10-year old who completely kicked my butt while sparring, AND I WROTE ABOUT IT!

My instructor seemed excited that I was writing about karate and thrust a notebook and pen at me to write down the website. While I was writing, my reader says, "Yeah, she writes about you," to my instructor. He gave me a look like he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. I assured him it was totally fine. I’m an honest person and I speak the truth on this site. The good thing is that the truth about what happens at my dojo is usually a good thing, and I am totally NOT just saying that because I fully realize that my instructor will probably print out my blog for the entire dojo to read. ACK! Did I just say that? Please Mr. Instructor Man- no printing of the blog. Yeah, it’s. . . um. . . copyrighted or something.

So, from now on if my entries seem a little more detailed, like not just "the tall teenage black belt", but instead "the tall dashingly handsome and always so helpful and one heck of a kata-er black belt", well you know why; And if his sister isn’t simply described as "his sister and fellow black belt" but instead as "a loyal and faithful reader o’ mine who happens to have a command over her weapons kata’s like the Okinawan Master’s themselves". . . Well, it’s just me, a 4th kyu, trying to kiss some black belt bum. And while we’re addressing my fellow dojo-goer’s, "Hi guys!" and "Please don’t hurt me."

Everyone likes to see their name in lights or in blog writing for this example, but rest assured that your names will not be used and I will ALWAYS (from this point forward) be absent on sparring days just in case you’re not flattered by my description of one of you totally kicking me in the mammaries or something. Moving right along. . .

I’ve been accused on my hometown blog of being "self-absorbed" to which I would respond, "Dude, it’s a blog which means web log or ‘journal’, which means it’s my personal experiences, thoughts, and is therefore untouchable to the accusation of being self-absorbed. So, in the nature of being self-absorbed, I’m just going to come out and say it: Karate tonight was ALL ABOUT ME! That’s right. ME!

And thanks to this occurrence during both the intermediate and advanced classes, I know ALL of my kata’s for 3rd kyu. They are by no means perfect and I have to continue to work at committing them to memory and hope that by testing they flow the way they should. I now know them well enough to practice them at home.

I bragged tonight by making my husband watch me perform all three of my kata’s (including the sai kata thanks to a generous loan from my instructor because my ordered sai are apparently being molded out of liquid magma or something and apparently this takes time). When I caught my husband’s attention waning and his eyes drifting towards the Seinfeld episode behind me, I called him on it. His response, to his 4th kyu wife? "Well, you’re like talking to yourself." UM, YEAH! I need to talk myself through them until I know them well enough to just do them. He needs to remember there are SAI in the house. SAI, you know with points and very dagger like. Yeah. I like undivided attention, lending credence to the whole self-absorbed thing. Seriously, some of my rude commenter’s over there say that like it’s a bad thing. Geesh.

But getting back to me. . . during the intermediate class, we worked almost exclusively on Nai Hanchi Sandan. It is a cool kata that moves on a straight line like the other Nai Hanchi kata’s, and it is all arms. When you know this one really well, it looks awesome. During the past few years at the dojo, I always enjoyed seeing the higher ranks perform this kata. They just look so wicked when they’re doing it. We’ll see how good I can get it by next week. I don’t know if I can pull off "wicked" quite yet, especially since the breathing I’m supposed to start doing during kata’s makes me feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. That would be wicked looking alright.

During the advanced class, we worked almost exclusively on Pinan Sandan. I am not a Pinan fan. This one seems particularly strange and during one part Big I almost always laughs. With your fists on your hips you step through and block with your fists still on your hips, followed by a back fist. You do this three times. It feels more like "I’m a Little Teapot" than a kata and I think that’s why Big I gets such a kick out of it.

I plan on spending a lot of time working on kata this week. (I also plan on spending a lot of time going through old entries and ~~editing out~~ "spicing up" descriptions of my fellow dojo mates.) This is the crucial week. If I work on it, it will get cemented in the brain. If I don’t, I just might lose it and THAT is not an option with testing just a few short weeks away.

Why do I have the feeling that returning to the dojo next week is going to feel like going back to school after puking in the classroom the previous day?

Oh, and one last thing. For testing, we usually have a list of karate vocabulary that we need to know. Here is this week’s vocabulary list for one of my favorite new blogger finds, Mr. SecondHand Karl himself. I "rented" a spot on his illustrious site last week and his descriptions of me and my site were nothing short of hysterical. So, to thank him for all the free promo, here is a list of vocabulary words for you Karl. Feel free to use them however you choose: