FAQ
What style of karate do you do?
I train in Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo of the Heilman, Odo, Nakamura lineage. Kenpo is the open hand karate and kobudo is weapons. So far, I’ve trained with nunchaku, tunfa, bo, sai, nintai bo, eku bo, tekkos and kama.
Why did you call your site “Black Belt Mama” when you were not yet a black belt?
Some people really get their gi all in a bunch about this issue. Personally I think it’s ridiculous. I wasn’t pretending to be a black belt. In fact, I was quite up front about the fact that I was a white, yellow, green, and then brown belt before finally reaching Shodan. I have always listed my current rank/kyu very prominently on the site. A quick read of any of my posts would tell you that I was training for my black belt. It wouldn’t have made very much sense to call myself “Green Belt Mama” which is what I was when I started, or even “Brown Belt Mama” since those ranks were never where I planned on staying. My blog is about my journey to Shodan and beyond, so that’s why the name is what it is. If it bothers you that much, you should probably just leave my site and forget you ever saw it. If my instructors and the head of my style know about it and don’t mind it, then seriously, why should you? You feel pretty silly now, don’t you? Yeah? As well you should.
I don’t know you and I don’t read your blog; but will you link to my site about tigers who eat aloe plants while getting pedicures?
No. I get tons of requests daily to link to other people. I link to sites that I like to read or that I think my readers will find interesting and/or useful. If you’re not on my blogroll now, it doesn’t mean you won’t be in the future. The best way to get me to link to you is to visit, comment, and make me notice you. There are a lot of blogs out there. I work 14 part time jobs which equals like four full time jobs so I don’t regularly go cruising around the internet looking for new reading material.
I also think it’s kind of strange when people email me and put me on the spot by asking me to link to them. I don’t ever do that. If people want to link to me, they will. It’s as simple as that. Oh, and if you do write me and ask me to link to you and I don’t want to, your email went to my spam folder I think. Yeah, that’s it. If I spent my entire day responding to emails, I wouldn’t have any time to blog and then you wouldn’t want me to link to you anyway right?
Do you mind if I link to you?
Not at all. Feel free to link to my site if you have my best interests at heart. You can even use this handy button:
All I ask is that you don’t steal my posts as your own content or to better your search engine ranking. That really irritates me. Linking with reckless abandon by legitimate sites is welcome.
Please don’t email me and ask me if I mind if you link to me with a thinly guised attempt to get me to link to your site. If you want to email me and tell me you like the site and are linking to me. . . great! However, nothing is more annoying than those standard emails that say how much you love my site about “X,” that’s not even filled in, and then you go on to ask me to link to your site about monkey bandanas or something. Not interested.
Can I reprint one of your posts?
This highly depends on who you are and how you’ll use my material. You have to ask me prior to doing so, promise you’ll include a link back to the original content, do 5000 jumping jacks, and then I’ll let you know. I go after people who steal my stuff with vigor. Don’t be one of them.
Can I reprint one of your photos?
No. All photography used on this site is copyrighted. You don’t have permission to use a picture of mine unless you have my written permission to do so.
I don’t know you at all; but will you give me your phone number or IM name so that we can talk?
Anything you need to say to me, you can do so via email, unless of course you want to publish my book, book me on Oprah, or something equally awesome. Then, once I’m sure you’re not a psycho-serial killer, I’ll call you. There is nothing quite as creepy as a 20 something year old guy from half way around the world who emails and bugs me non-stop about giving out my phone number. If you’re trying to pick up a girl who lives a gazillion miles from you, and happens to be married with kids, go join eharmony or something. While you’re at it, you should probably get a life.
I’d like to run ads on your site and pay you for them. Can I contact you?
If you’d like to pay me to run an ad on my site, I’d be happy to hear you out. I have just a couple rules: 1. You can’t pay me with peanuts or ice cream cones, 2. Your product/ad has to be acceptable to my standards, 3. It has to be worth my while. Shoot me an email and we’ll see what happens.
Are you interested in paid writing jobs?
Yes I am! I love to write and getting paid to do it sounds like heaven. However, I absolutely will not sacrifice my own content on my site. If you’d like me to write something on your site, I’m happy to do it. I’m not interested in being paid to write about cat litter or sofa cushions on my site though. Sort of wrecks my credibility, don’t you think? I’m not really into the whole voluntary writing so that your site can benefit from traffic I might send to you either. See the question above, number three to be exact.
Do you have a question that’s not answered here? Feel free to email me at bbm at blackbeltmama dot com and I’ll see what I can do to ease your curiosity.
Week 4 Torture Update
Pain wears you down and out. Physically you’re spent; mentally, you’re just completely gone. I am exhausted from physical therapy today.
Here’s the knee before surgery and four weeks and one day post-op. Looking at this picture, I can actually see the beginning of some minimal muscle tone in the thigh. It’s about time! (No, it doesn’t take much in the form of improvement to make an ACL reconstruction rehab patient feel happy.)
I don’t expect it to feel good, but I never anticipated wanting a piece of wood to bite down on during such a big portion of it. My flexion was at 121 degrees before my PT decided he was going to stretch me a bit. With me on my stomach, he pushed down on the back of my knee (since I’m having posterior knee pain probably due to a knee capsule that needs some stretching) and pushed my heel towards my butt.
It’s excruciating. He takes it to the point where you’re going to go through the roof and then he pushes it a little more. I feel like my knee is going to explode or snap completely off the rest of my body. Today I found myself burying my head in the pillows trying not to scream. It got worse when my PT sat down and put my foot over his shoulder and used his whole body to lean in towards my body, forcing my knee to close the distance to my butt.
I realized I was holding my breath so I asked him to just give me a second to "go to my special place" and that’s just where I went. With Lil C, I got through bad contractions by going here:
I spent a good deal of time at the beach today. It hurt too badly. I just couldn’t stay there in that PT room. When all the stretching was done, my PT measured my flexion at 125 degrees. Something tells me that I’m going to have to fight for every degree from here on out. It’s ridiculously hard and challenging. I’ve been working on flexion at home, but I have been taking it to the point that it hurts, not beyond. I need to push it further and it’s a difficult thing to do to yourself when you know it kills.
While looking at my incision scars, I commented that it still feels like I have marbles under my skin, despite me torturing myself every night with cocoa butter pressure and massage. "How hard are you rubbing the incisions?" he asked me, as he began to demonstrate the appropriate amount of pressure. Judging from my subsequent squirming, it was quite clear that I am not pressing down hard enough. I really am going to have a drink the next time I do this to myself.
This was all discouraging, annoying stuff. There was some good news in the form of using the leg press for the first time with 30 lbs., riding the bike for 10 minutes, and getting about five more exercises including a prone stretch to aid with my extension, more quad building, and additional leg lifts. I swear I’ll be spending six hours a day doing my exercises now. As the mother of an ornery two-year old, I have no idea when that’s going to happen.
This might help though. I give you the official BBM torture device:
Tonight, we bought a brand new exercise bike to help with my rehabilitation. Getting on that bike every day is going to make a big difference. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway, in the form of a new mantra: "This bike is going to help me. . . This bike is going to help me. . . This bike is going to help me. . ."
My goal is to torture myself enough at home this week that my PT doesn’t have to do it for me any more. Something tells me this is wishful thinking.
***The latest reviews are up at The BBM Review and more will be appearing soon! Check out my new favorite book and some karate training bags.
Worthy Causes
Ego-Building Business
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thanks to Karl at 2HT.
Thanks to Andrew from "Everybody Loves Coupons"
Thanks to Bush at Da Mack Daddy
Thanks to Perpetual Beginner!
Thanks to Karl!
About Black Belt Mama
Filed under: Uncategorized
“Most karate moms just do the commute; this one IS a black belt after an ACL tear nearly ended it all.”
I am a 30-something forever 29 year old stay at home mother. I stay at home with my two daughters: “Big I” who is a nine year old artist, ju-jutsu practitioner, competitive swimmer, and gentle soul. . .
. . . and “Lil C” who is a four year old wanna-be-diva, future Food Network cooking sensation, Mommy’s little helper, and a specialist in terrorizing her big sister.
I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in English Writing, Creative Nonfiction. I met my husband my sophomore year, fell in love with him when he let me borrow his laundry detergent, and married him shortly after graduation.
Then. . .
Now (ish). . . (Notice one of us is getting all salt-n-pepa-ish; the other is not. He’s living with three girls so that probably explains it.)
I worked for a small literary journal as an Assistant Editor, then at “Come on-get happy!” Clinique cosmetics (because the pay was better), and then at a graphic design firm as an “Administrative and Marketing Assistant” which is just a fancy name for copy girl, xerox pro, or otherwise just plain old lackey. I was supposed to be a writer, but somehow got the desk where I answered all the phones, filed all the folders, and mostly just retrieved muffins and coffee creamer. I did, however, write a corporate identity manual and an insurance brochure. I did learn lots of things while working there though, but mostly how to swallow my pride.
When I got sick of that (a very short time later), I went to Duquesne University where I earned my M.S.Ed. in only 11 months, and accumulated so much student loan debt that it’s just plain ridiculous considering I taught high school English for not even two years and then decided my true calling was diapers and picky eaters.
I went on maternity leave, had my first daughter in 2001, and never looked back.
We sold our house; and my husband switched careers so that I would be able to stay home with my baby girl. By home, I literally mean home, as in we moved in with my parents for a year. Then, we moved to NJ. Then we moved back to my hometown.
In October 2005, I gave birth to our second daughter after a long wait to get her on her way. I wanted everything to be natural, and planned a birth center birth. Then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and everything got turned upside down. I did have a midwife deliver her, and that was truly awesome.
I now work from home as a part time logistics recruiter, as an adjunct instructor at a local university, and as a volunteer and officer on my local country club’s board of directors (I’m fairly certain they gave me the title of “Secretary” because that’s “what girls are supposed to be,” if that tells you anything about how much fun I’m having arguing with 80-year olds about removing tuna melts from the menu). My husband sometimes works from home too. Because of this, our neighbors probably think that:
A. We are independently wealthy.
B. Pajamas are the new ‘business casual.’
C. Our house will be foreclosed on momentarily.
None of these are true. Well, except for B., maybe.
I’ve learned that no matter how many legitimate part time/work from home jobs you have, your Dad will probably still tell people you’re “unemployed.” I’ve learned to live with it.
I am trying to raise my girls to be smart, strong women, and I practice what I preach. I am a 1st Dan Black belt in both Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo. Did I mention it’s a family affair? (I didn’t just mean “strong” in the figurative sense.) Big I started karate when she was three, made it to 7th kyu, and then decided she was going to quit and give Danzan-Ryu Ju-Jutsu a try. She’s loving it and I’m loving the stuff she’s teaching me. Lil C knew how to snap kick before she was potty trained (she already knows how to kiai better than I do). And look out Mike Tyson, because this kid will totally pull your ears off and with no training either. As for me, I was a little late on the draw, starting when I was 29 (Yeah, I realize the math doesn’t make sense with the whole “forever 29” statement in the beginning, but just work with me here).
I’ve realized that it’s never too late to learn something new. You just have to be willing to face the fact that the 14 year old you take class with, who has been there since she was three, is 100% capable of kicking your butt. It’s also comforting to know that the 20-year old guys who spend many more hours per week training at the dojo instead of helping with homework and putting kids to bed, will eventually enter their 30’s as well (Did I say 30’s? I meant turn 29).
I started writing my blog in 2006 to document my journey in the martial arts. I had no idea how many detours my journey would take. I was looking forward to testing for Shodan in February of 2008, but then I tore my ACL while sparring in October 2007. I had ACL reconstruction surgery in December 2007, and have been using my fabulous sense of humor to get me through surgery, recovery, and many frustrating days of pain-med-induced constipation physical therapy. I had a second surgery to remove scar tissue and part of a sheath from the screw in my tibia in January 2009 and returned to karate about a month later.
I finally tested for my Shodan in June of 2009 and was successful. Then the screw in my tibia, that was supposed to turn into bone, decided it was going to back out of my leg. I had to stop karate again and had a third surgery in July of 2010 to remove the screw and install alloderm (donor tissue). It’s been a fun ride. Clearly, I have a talent for sarcasm.
I love: reading a good book, playing fantasy football (damn you LaDainian Tomlinson), going on vacations, writing, Ann Taylor Loft, mojitos, all the crazy rap and R&B music that I probably shouldn’t like, dancing to said music, and nailing a new kata.
I can’t stand: litter butts, irresponsible dog owners, one-sided friendships, people with no reading comprehension skills, common or business sense (all three not required to be present for me to dislike), plagiarizers, folding laundry, liars, and bad table manners.
My writing credits include articles/reviews published in the following publications: “Pittsburgh Tribune Review,” “Transport Topics,” “Bridges” (NCTE Publication), “English Leadership Quarterly,” and in the book At Issue: Date Rape. This blog has been syndicated by my hometown newspaper’s website, and through BlogBurst on “The Houston Chronicle,” “The Chicago Sun Times,” “Austin-American Statesman,” USAToday.com, Reuters.com, “The Sacramento Bee,” and multiple IBS news service websites. Not that you should care about this, mentioning it just makes me feel more important. As well it should.
I’m also writing a book-it’s just that most of it is being written in my head at this point. I’m my own worst editor.
I think that about covers it.
If you have something nice to say, please leave me a comment, write me an email, or link to my site with reckless abandon. If not, no one is forcing you to read this, so get lost.
No, seriously.
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