April 26, 2009

Just Breathe

Breathing is supposed to be natural. Most of us know exactly how to do it when we're born. We are able to continue breathing throughout our life, without thinking too much about it. It's just natural, the way it should be.

Then there's karate breathing.

If you're not a karate person, or if you don't do breathing kata, it's kind of like this:

Inhale like you've never inhaled before. Breathe in through your nose until your sinuses shake and your body can take in no more air. This sinus shaking business is visible from the outside. If it's not, you're not doing it right.

Then, punch and breathe out. When you do it though, growl with the back of your throat so you feel really uncomfortable and weird. Breathe out until you have no more air left and the only thing left for you to do is cough awkwardly.

This, people, is karate breathing, and I can't seem to do it to save my life.

The other night in karate class, we were working on various waza. We have 10 of them and they're small series of moves. For example: step back and block up, punch, punch, clear down with kiai. Done. That's waza one.

Waza are the most difficult things to remember. They just don't stay in the head because they all tend to blend into one another. One of the shodans was helping me get them back in my head the other night and afterward, we took turns picking a number and then doing that waza.

When it came time for one of our 3rd dans to do his, he took waza three and did this breathing business with it. He did it a couple times. First slowly, then faster. Personally, I'd never seen anyone do a waza like that before. When he was finished, the shodan teaching that night asked me and another 1st kyu if we had any comments.

"Yeah, I thought we told him to do waza three!" I said.

The 3rd dan looked at me funny and said, "That was waza three!"

I said, "Well, it didn't look like my waza three. It didn't look like any waza three I've ever seen before."

Everyone laughed. They all know I have issues with the breathing. That's putting it lightly.

I came home that night and was telling Mr. BBM about class. I showed him how waza three had been done. I think I did a fairly good impersonation. The problem is, I can't do it in class. It's simply that right now, an impersonation, whenever I do that breathing. For now, I can't seem to make it my own.

I'm just going to need to practice at home, with music blaring or something, until I get comfortable with my own lungs and with the growling.