Back to Class
Are you old enough to remember the whole break-dancing craze? If you’re reading this blog, chances are that your answer is "yes." I don’t know about you, but I always watched my friends (mostly guys) who could spin around on their backs for what felt like the entire song and do all kinds of other crazy stuff in absolute awe. I was a Roger Rabbit pro for sure. Need some Vanilla Ice, Ice Baby moves? Got those too. But break dancing completely escaped me. I had no clue.
If only I had a capable karate person to help me back in the day. . .
I spent lots of time spinning around on the floor tonight. There were many bunkai questions and after a two week break from being the "attacker", I definitely got my share of wrist locks, take downs and other fun tonight. We spent a lot of time on bunkai and self defense tonight and it felt great to get back in the dojo for the first time since returning from vacation.
Whenever we have a class heavy on self defense, I always come home and try things out on my husband. He’s 6’4" and a fairly big guy. He’s got a lot of upper body strength, especially when compared to my spaghetti arms so it’s always a good test for me when it comes to whether or not I’m using good technique.
I’ll be honest. Many times when I come home and try things out on him, I am discouraged. I get very frustrated with not being able to get it quite right. It is a completely different thing to practice with a person your size at the dojo and then go to someone much bigger at home.
Tonight was not one of those discouraging nights.
While in the course of going through a particular scenario, a question came up as to what to do if a person approaches you and grabs you or your shirt with both hands. Instead of trying to get out of the hold, my instructor took a bigger guy, put his hands over top of the attacker’s hands, held on tight, stepped back and sent the "attacker" flying onto the floor. It was an absolutely awesome move that I haven’t seen before.
I came home, told Mr. BBM to grab my shirt and then I proceeded to take him for a ride.
"That was awesome!" he said. "Man, that really works!"
He was so excited about that move that we ended up working on different things, taking turns as the attacker, for about an hour. And then, towards the end, Mr. BBM asked me to show him some blocking drills again to get them back in his head.
I didn’t think it would happen, but maybe, just maybe, Mr. BBM will come back to karate at some point. I guess he’ll have to if he wants to keep up with me, right?
Are you bored yet?
I know you’re probably completely bored with my vacation posts and pictures; but, if you go here and check out my scrapblog of some of my vacation pictures (more pictures to come), I’ll get entered for a free trip to BlogHer ’07 where I can go represent for all the karate bloggers out there.
What? You’re still here. Go (pretty please)!
Back-In need of another vacation
Coming back from vacation is rough. There are the mounds of sand covered laundry, the unpacking of all the other stuff, reacclimating the munchkins to a decent bedtime, and coming back to realize that your next few weeks are going to be killer.
Big I auditioned for a play and now has 12 hours of play practice every week until the play is over. Not only that, but parents are put to work while there. Tonight, I was the green paint lady, while Big I tried to catch up from all the practices she’s missed so far. By the end of the three hours, we were both yawning something fierce.
I also have to deal with the fact that I need to get back into a karate training routine. I had these grand delusions of kata on the beach and practicing with my weapons, but the truth is (sigh) that being on vacation with two kids is hard work. I think I finally understand why many of my friends leave their kids behind and go vacationing by themselves.
As much as I wanted to take my sai out onto the beach, I was feeling a bit too self-conscious to ultimately go through with it and practice some of those throws. There’s also the fact that the Outer Banks beaches have lots of little crabs scurrying around, digging holes in the sand, and I really didn’t want to have to explain a crab shish-ka-bob to Big I. That’s my excuse du jour anyway.
I did do pilates twice and I also took a run on the beach. . . once. I know, pathetic right? But I can only take so much of feeling like someone just set fire to my lungs on vacation. Instead I chose to read almost three books and sip some Corona’s.
So I took a little break from training; but I’ll get back at it. . . as soon as I vacuum up all this sand and put away the 2000 pieces of clothing I took along on vacation.
To all of you who contacted me with your words of support over my little "troll" problem last week, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kind words and offers to help. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re better off. . . trust me. 😉 If you do, you know who you are, and thank you!
Karate Rolls equal Vacation Fun
So you know that tennis match I referred to last time? The one where I was going to be taking someone "down in flames"? Well, the only person who went down was me.
I’m blaming it on the little hole in the court which was placed right where someone attempting to return a serve might step. I stepped in the hole, my left ankle rolled and the rest of my body went along for the ride. It was an absolutely fabulous karate roll, lemme just tell you.
In fact, it was so good that instead of cracking up laughing at me like I would have done had the shoe been on the other foot, Mr. BBM came running from the other side of the court to make sure I was o.k. before erupting in laughter. And yes, it happened right as the resort bus pulled in with a crap-load of beach-goers from the bay side.
Fab-U-LOUS.
I spent the next two days feeling like I had whiplash and cursing my 30-something year old body because "if I was a kid I’d be just fine!". To heal my bruised ego, I spent the rest of the afternoon having a "funny face contest" with Big I. I think I won. I only picked one of the pictures to display because I had no idea how capable I was of contorting my face into. . . well, a whole lot of wrinkles!
If I was a kid, I also would have believed that this dude is indeed Jack Sparrow, as advertised.
I was sort of hoping for a younger hotter replica, but when a pirate DJ shows up with hula-hoops, the kids aren’t complaining.
When I wasn’t complaining about how bad my neck hurts, we took the whole crew and went kayaking over in the bay. The bay here is pretty cool. You can actually walk across the entire bay (if your idea of a good time is feeling the constant sting of jellyfish). But it was a cool day on the beach, and the bay felt much warmer so we took the girls for some kayak rides.
Lil C went out for about two minutes before she decided she was just too far from "MOMMY!!!!" and stood up threatening to abandon ship. Big I went out for a while and had a great time.
My Mom and I also took the kayak out without kids (after I got Mr. BBM to carry me out to get in the kayak since I am so done with being stung by jellyfish after a short stint with wind surfing a few years ago). My Mom and I paddled around for a while, took some pictures of wild life, dreamed about having a home on the bay, and then decided we’d head towards the "rapids."
I don’t know the last time you’ve been around rapids in the middle of a bay, but we were exposed to the sun and. . . whatever, they were rapids. So, we paddled in their direction and then quickly realized that those "rapids" were actually the quickened pace and ripples of the water over a sand bar. We were stuck in about four inches of water.
Logic tells you that you’re going to be o.k. when you’re stuck in the middle of a bay that you can walk across. But my Mom and I threw logic to the wind and panicked because being beached in the middle of the bay, meant one of us was going to have to. . . gasp!!!. . . get out of the kayak and get us unstuck.
I stepped up, because she’s my Mom after all and I got us unstuck in a matter of moments. I also managed to avoid the dreaded jellyfish. I’m sure we also provided some entertainment for the golfers nearby as I must have looked like I was walking on water to free us while looking like a complete loon as I high-stepped and scanned the water for any "predators." It was quite an adventure.
In other news, Big I has become a master boogie boarder. (It could be because of her brand new beach braid.)
She picked a black board with a pirate skull on it and took to the water like the Black Pearl in the pirate movie. At one point, she got dumped and went for a bit of a karate roll herself. Hers, however, was much more eventful than my little tumble.
While under the ocean water, she saw, and I quote "a mermaid, a lobster, an octopus and a shark." Holy crap! If that’s not enough to make you stick to the shoreline, I don’t know what is! And that’s just what I have done.
I finished reading Living the Martial Way and started on another book that I’m already half way through. And Mr. BBM bought me some sunscreen that goes on like stale Crisco which has been able to fend off another sunburn and then some.
Lil C has learned a ton of new words this week. She is seeing sharks everywhere including at the pizza place where we ate tonight. Apparently, there was a little something extra in those mushrooms on the pizza. She’s also quick to tell you that sharks bite, and then launches into her repertoire of animal sounds that always entertains surrounding tables and waiters.
Lil C has cooled off on her love of seagulls. The damn things are just too hard to catch. Oh, and one pooped on her Mom-Mom’s umbrella while she was under it, so I think she gets the picture. She’s cursed like her mama.
She also breaks out in Rhiannon’s umbrella song every time someone refers to the beach umbrella, as in "Mr. BBM, I think this umbrella is going to launch," to which she responds with "ella, eh, eh, eh." It’s really quite cool that my kids are learning hip-hop music. Imagination Movers? Pshaw! What-evah! She steals my sunglasses frequently to really add some style to her Rhiannon rendition. And despite the fact that multiple attempts by Mr. BBM to stretch those suckers out didn’t work, Lil C had absolutely no problem stretching them out to fit a head of Ben Affleck sized proportions.
Tomorrow it’s more of the same. . . Big I and Mr. BBM boogie boarding while I scan for sharks intermittently between page turns. Meanwhile, Lil C will be pointing out at the sea and sending most the beach running as she matter-of-factly states: "SHARK! BITE!!!"
. . . and spends the rest of the day lounging around in peace.
SPF Failure and other Vacation Adventures
You can forget the black belt; just call me "Red Backed Mama" from now on. It will take at least a week for the fluorescent red to fade. In the meantime, if you need a cool light for a party or something, or perhaps a flashing traffic light? My back is for hire.
It’s not like I wasn’t careful. I sprayed SPF 30 on my back and then what I think happened is, my hair quickly wiped all the SPF action away.
Of course, building a huge sand castle for like two hours and facing my back in the same direction towards the sun probably didn’t help things. I’d like to also mention that both children could have cared less about said sand castle. . . but when I start something, I finish it damn it. So I went at that mound of sand with gusto until I was shaky from lack of food.
When I returned to the beach after eating lunch, the tide had come in but my castle was sort of holding its own. . . right up until some bratty boy jumped all over it. Like any good martial artist will do, I practiced restraint. I had to after all, because Lil C took off at warp speed after yet another seagull, my favorite animal ever. Right.
After getting Lil C occupied with putting sand in her hair and down her swimsuit, my Dad and I took Big I out in my dad’s ocean kayak. He held the back; I held the front and Big I got the ride of her life while my Dad and I got a workout (and a few shin and knee bruises).
While the kayak slammed into my shins and the waves threatened to take me and my swimsuit for a whirl, Mr. BBM snapped away with his camera.
Afterward, Mr. BBM was quite proud of his photographic skills. All I saw was a Black Belt Mama butt that was:
A. Too large
B. Too white
C. Too disproportionate with the rest of my body
D. All of the above.
Hmm, let me think. . . I’m going with. . . D. Regardless of me and my butt issues, Big I had a blast.
Lil C hasn’t been left out of the fun this week either. At the aquarium, she made fast friends with fish, turtles, otters, and a couple sharks who were eyeing her up. Video of her chasing seagulls may be forthcoming if I can figure out how to do that.
At Cape Hatteras, Big I and Mr. BBM climbed up to the top of the lighthouse (equivalent to a 12-story building) while Lil C and I stayed safely on the ground.
Back that thing up child! It’s so good I wasn’t up there because she would have had all body parts touching the outside of the building. Standing at the railing???? I think NOT!
Two of those little specks down there are Lil C and me.
And now, I’m about to go show Mr. BBM what’s up in a spirited game of tennis. The last time I played singles with him, I was about 6 months pregnant and I gave up after a good fight. I’m thinking he’s going down in flames.
Red Backed Mama. . . out.
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