August 31, 2006

Making Peace with Nunchaku

I am not a fan of nunchaku. I bought a wooden pair last year and I keep them by my bedside. Not because I know how to use them properly and could do any damage, more because I figure if someone breaks in my house, I can at least throw them at the attacker and have a chance of knocking them out. My nunchaku are heavy, and when used in proper nunchaku fashion, they hurt. O.k. I guess that wouldn’t really be proper nunchaku fashion/technique if they hurt while using them, but you get the idea.

Nunchaku is a weapon for men. Guys just like these contraptions. Girls. . . (at least the ones I know), not so much. After my test for 3rd kyu, nunchaku will become my life. The test for 2nd kyu has two weapons kata’s: a bo kata that is complicated, and a nunchaku kata that just plain scares me. Without foam nunchaku to practice with at home, I realize that it’s only a matter of time before I’ve got some serious bruising (and a possible knock-out).

In the advanced class tonight, it was just me and a 3rd kyu. She is young. I think she’s maybe 10, and she is a joy to watch. She takes her karate very seriously and you just know that she’s practicing at home and living and breathing her kata’s. Because she needs the nunchaku kata for her test in two weeks, we practiced the kata several times. I found a nice thick foam nunchaku and my instructor and the 3rd kyu picked up the bruise-inducing kind.

Before we started the kata, my instructor demonstrated proper swinging techniques. Who knew that the faster you go with the nunchaku, the less you beat the living daylights out of yourself? Certainly not me. He also revealed a trick of the trade: moving the hips along with the nunchaku. If you just stand there and swing them, they’re going to hit you and even when they’re foam, the hit they deliver is an unpleasant reminder that, "Hey, idiot, you’re not doing this right."

The nunchaku kata itself is confusing. I don’t see the pattern in it yet and until you do, it makes going through the motions that much harder. The beginning was surprisingly lacking the back pounding hits I’m used to delivering to myself. But once you start kneeling and swinging and changing things up, I was sending my hair whipping through the air and just hoping I could keep up. I’m not worried about the test for 3rd kyu, but what comes after is going to be brutal.

Brutal is also how bedtime went tonight with Big I. Tomorrow she starts Kindergarten. For a bedtime story she asked me to read the book, "When I was a baby." This book is one that comes blank. You put in a picture on the last page of your baby and the picture shows through to all the other pages. The book starts out by telling about your baby’s birth, then the firsts, then the favorites, etc. I felt like I was choking the entire time I read the story. Big I sort of giggled at me. It was a very appropriate book for Kindergarten Eve as we’ve been calling it all day, but appropriate doesn’t make it any easier.

Tonight we plugged in Big I’s new Cinderella alarm clock, and kissed her goodnight. Tomorrow is going to be exciting, but brutal on the emotions. It’s the equivalent of mental nunchaku for me. I have a feeling that dropping her off at school is going to feel a lot like a big old slap on the back from my wooden friends. Say a little prayer that I can hold it together until she’s out of sight. I’m going to need all the help I can get.