No Pain, No Gain
There is not enough ice in the state of Alaska to help with the pain I’m having right now. I attended my regular intermediate class and then decided to stay for the advanced class this week. I’m going to start doing this every week; but between now and next week I am going to eat about four tons of ice cream, french fries, and probably some straight lard in an effort to gain some damn weight in my forearms already. I have NO padding there. None. Zilch. Zippo.
I have always had skinny, spaghetti-like arms. My upper arms actually have some muscle. You can’t carry around a 9-month old 14 hours a day without getting some muscle development, but the forearms. . . oh, my poor pathetic skinny forearms. The great thing about this is that the pain in my knee from standing in nai hanchi for what felt like an eternity while our instructor "froze" us and went around correcting stances and arm placement, is barely noticeable in relation to the pain in my arms. In fact, typing this now is sort of painful.
Tonight the advanced class was me and a new black belt. He’s a tall thin teenager, and he’s very good. We were working on the waza (small series of moves) I need for 3rd kyu. It goes something like this: step back and augment block. With the other arm, you do this block where you bring your arm up so that your hand goes back to your ear. It’s sort of like the old time models would stand, with one bent arm up behind your head. It’s a block that works equally well on straight punches and hook punches. Then the arm that blocked in the first move does a four-knuckle punch to the neck and then you step back and clear. So, the black belt and I stood facing each other and took turns throwing punches at each other and working out the moves of the waza. My arms endured the impact from at least 40 blocks.
I am going to wake up tomorrow with black and blue forearms. They hurt so badly from the impact of his arms blocking my punches. Pain, I tell you. Pain.
(In one of the kata’s I have to learn for brown belt, there is what we call a "clear and spear". Your left arm clears the area, and your right hand juts straight forward in a spearing motion. For purposes of the kata, the spear is aimed at the solar plexus. In reality, you would aim it somewhere a little more vulnerable, but it wasn’t always like that. Our instructor told us about how a long time ago, those training in the martial arts would line up jars. One would contain sand, another pebbles, another larger pebbles. Martial artists would do this spearing move directly into the jars to toughen up their hands. When their spear hit you after they had advanced to the bigger pebbles, solar plexus or wherever, it did some serious damage. Of course, our instructor said, when they reached older ages, they had claws for hands so we don’t do this anymore. Maybe they had the right idea though. Maybe continued impact on those skinny forearms of mine would do some good. I’m hoping something good comes out of the discomfort I’m feeling now.)
Before we started this drill, our instructor was demonstrating the rotation that needs to be on the blocks and had me throw some punches at him. He blocked and my whole hand went sort of numb and got all tingly. "See that," he said, as I felt like my whole arm was vibrating. Oh yeah, I felt it. Trust me. I’m still feeling it now, hours later. He went on to say how quickly a street fight could be ended if you block like that. Your attacker isn’t going to be able to feel his hands, and the pain from getting hit in the forearm like that is mind-numbing. Your attacker might just sit down on the sidewalk and start sucking his thumb. If I were a thumb-sucker, I think I might have tonight. I may have made a pathetic whiny "ow" sound. . . O.k. I admit it. I did.
Despite the pain, the wonderful thing is that I know my waza like I have never known a waza before. I’ve got one of the 8,000 things I need for black belt down. That feels good even if my arms don’t.
During the intermediate class, I asked my instructor if we could work on some self-defense. In particular, the self-defense that went so very wrong last week during at home practice with my husband. Our instructor happily agreed (This is a different instructor than I had last week for the original lesson.). He asked me what the problem was and I demonstrated what had happened.
So, I acted as the attacker. He took everything very slow, until the part where I screwed up at home. One second I was vertical. The next? I had hit the ground on the side of my arm. I never saw it coming. There was an audible gasp in the dojo as the other students and myself were in awe. I quickly scrambled to my feet, (once I had figured out what happened) and implored him to "TEACH ME HOW TO DO THAT."
My instructor paired Big I with another Mom tonight, and I got to work with a teenager who is about my height. I put her down; she put me down. It was awesome.
Tonight, after the girls went to bed. . . I practiced my new moves on my husband. With his arm twisted behind his back he said, "But what if I started to do this," and he tried to twist out of having his arm held behind his back with his little spinning move from last week. I already had the joint lock, but I lifted it up and instead of continuing with the spin, his head bowed. There was some creaking and cracking and the good news is that it wasn’t me for a change. He remained contained.
I learned something very important tonight in class. If I’m going to put someone on the ground after getting out of a rear double wrist grab, then I might as well make it as unpleasant for them as possible. You don’t need to wrap your arm around their neck and pull them back. You can grab hair, ears, collars, or even eye sockets if you really want to do some damage. Of course, you don’t practice these nasty things for real. You could hurt someone; but if someone is a true attacker, then all bets are off.
While working on the self defense, I watched Big I with her partner. She did so much better working with someone other than her Mommy. She was grinning ear to ear as she grabbed the collar of the other woman and kicked out her leg and put her on the ground. She did so well. I am so proud of how she worked at it tonight.
Every night when we put her to bed we read a bedtime story and then we "talk." This talking usually consists of three questions. The three questions are usually things like: How do they make light bulbs? How do they make shoes? Why does the moon move? etc. Tonight? She asked me how to do a move in her kata. I could hardly contain my excitement! So, lying in her bed beside her I told her we were going to do some horizontal kata. It was actually really fun. Our bow was a crunch, and it was obvious if we were doing side blocks right or not because they would hit the bed if they were right. We got to the move she wanted to know and went over it several times. Then she sat up and demonstrated how it would look vertically. She even made a mean face when she did it. The pride, the pride. I’m swelling with it. . .
Or maybe that’s just my arms.
How to choose a karate school
I’ve been getting some emails from curious readers about how to choose a karate school. It’s a very good question, and extremely important to know what to look for (and what to beware of as well). I consulted my instructors and some other karate-ka’s to find out what they would suggest. The suggestions below are a compilation of what to do when shopping for a karate school.
- Ask about costs. This is very important. There are some karate schools who will bleed you dry when it comes to money. They have inflated monthly costs, rarely offer a discount for additional family members, and charge astronomical fees to test. These are the same schools who require your little ones to test every two to three weeks. The tests are meaningless; they only serve to bring more money into the school. As an example, my karate school charges a monthly rate and additional family members receive a large discount. There are no testing fees (some fee for testing is o.k. but make sure it’s not going to force you to take out a second mortgage). My dojo even gives students a gi and provides all belts. They are extremely generous and not all dojo’s have to be like that to be good karate schools. But, do beware of inflated costs. Call around for sure.
- Be extra wary of long contracts. My dojo requires no contracts what-so-ever. Karate schools that require long contracts, especially for young children, are only looking for your money. They can’t guarantee your child will like karate, so they guarantee one thing-that they’ll take your money. These types of schools are notorious for getting a large group of students to sign up, pre-pay long contracts, and then they pack up and leave the area. Make sure the school is an established one. If the school is fairly new, find out where the instructor/s trained and make sure they’re legitimate.
- Observe several different types of martial arts classes. There are so many forms and you really need to shop around and make sure you’re choosing the right one for you. It’s an individual choice. There are no wrongs or rights here, but of course another warning. Make sure that the school answers to a higher authority. Is there an organization that oversees the dojo? Are there other schools that teach this type of martial arts? Look it up online and see what you can find. A karate school that can’t tell you what type of karate they teach and can’t tell you the lineage of the kata’s is probably not worth your time.
- Talk to students at the dojo, children and adults alike. Talk to the parents who are observing the classes or sitting in the waiting area. Do they have any complaints? If so, what are they? Karate parents are notorious for speaking up so ask away.
- Ask who the instructors are and what their ranks are. Find out their credentials. It’s o.k. if non black belts are helping out with the classes, but they shouldn’t really be teaching the classes, at least not on a regular basis.
- You can not learn karate online. You can not buy videos and become a warrior. My instructors tell me all the time about some people who came to the dojo a few years ago after "studying" karate videos and thought they would waltz in and be handed black belts. It’s never going to happen. You can supplement class instruction with videos or online demonstrations once you already have a good understanding of what you’re doing, but that’s all the online stuff is good for.
- If you’re inquiring specifically for your child’s interest, ask how many junior black belts there are in the dojo. Ask about the testing policies for junior black belts and find out age requirements. Let’s be honest here; no one goes to karate with the intention of staying a white belt. Black belt is the goal so find out what the road there looks like.
I think that is about all. I know there are a lot of karate-ka’s out there who read this blog, so please use the comments section to add anything else you think is relevant.
Now I’m heading off to rest. At karate class tonight I was used as the "attacker" by the instructor who likes to bring students to their knees, literally. He’s excellent at teaching self-defense; but for obvious reasons, I enjoy watching him demonstrate on someone else. He demonstrated his favorite self-defense jitsu technique on me and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my shoulder blade is feeling a little yucky right about now. I’ll describe it some other time. Maybe I’ll even video tape me showing my husband what’s up. . . now that’s an idea!
Yells to husband: Where’s my back massage????
I’m in LOVE
Remember how I said I thought it was love? You know, me and my new weapon, the sai? Well, it is definitely love. I woke up bright and early this past weekend and attended a morning karate class. It was me and one other student. We worked on only weapons kata’s and it was a blast. I now have a good working knowledge of my new sai kata.
At one point in the kata, there is a move where you are standing on guard (for non-karate-ka’s, this means that you are standing upright with one sai in each hand. You are holding the handles and the blades are against your arms, somewhat obscuring them from view. The handles of the sai are creating a plus sign just out from your left hip bone). The next move has you step out into a deep right-foot forward seisan (think deep knee bend, sort of) and you make a throwing motion with the sai in your right hand, blade facing toward an attacker’s imaginary foot.
The next move has you pulling the sai back to the on-guard position again, followed by a step back and then you spear the would-be attacker with the sai in your right hand. It is wicked cool, the spearing part, but the confusing thing is this: why would you point a sai at someones foot and then pull it back and start over again?
This weekend I learned what it was all about. As the other student and I stood on guard, our instructor had us freeze. He retrieved two additional sai. He placed one securely in my belt with the blade facing down and did the same for the other student. We started from the on guard position, but this time we threw our sai at our would-be attackers foot. We then stood up into the on-guard position again. This time, we discreetly moved the other sai that was in our belt into our empty hand, stepped back and then speared our would-be attacker with our new sai.
Regarding my love for the new weapon. . . YOU HAD ME AT THE THIRD SAI! (Think Jerry Maguire.)
We also learned how to properly do the sabori at the end of the kata. Sabori is a term I first learned from John at Martial Views. Simply put, it is the symbolic cleaning off of the blood, etc. from the sai blades at the conclusion of the kata. It is important to do this right, because if it were real you certainly wouldn’t want to be splattering your opponent’s blood all over yourself. While I oohed and aahed over the kata, the little girl who was taking class with me squealed with disgust. She thought it was "gross." We are obviously at two very different places, which can probably be explained by the 20-something year age difference.
So, blood and gore aside, morning karate was refreshing. It was great to start the day with it as opposed to ending the day with it. I had much more energy; and I seem to have retained more of the kata. Of course, that could just be because I’m getting more familiar with the kata. But, I prefer to go with the "morning karate is good for me" theme. I do, after all, need to convince Mr. BBM that he likes being stuck with both of the kids by himself while I’m out there becoming a warrior.
Once my sai come in, I may attempt to video-tape a kata and post it. I think it would be beneficial for all the non-karate folk who frequent here and are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about most of the time. (It would also probably provide a good laugh for all the karate authorities out there.) It all depends on how I look on film though, so the jury’s still out on that decision. Stay tuned. . .
Lots to Learn
The family and I went to black belt testing. Our dojo had six students testing for 1st degree black belt (two of them for junior black belt), and two instructors testing (one for 5th degree and one for 4th degree). The testing dojo had two floors. We arrived a little late and lingered on the steps between the two floors trying to decide where to go. While trying to decide, Lil C heard one too many kiai‘s and started having an absolute fit. In her defense, 15 simultaneous kiai’s by some loud and motivated brown belts were a little intimidating for me, let alone a 9 month old baby. Mr. BBM promptly took her outside.
Big I and I decided we would watch our instructors for a while since the upstairs was packed full of hopeful parents wielding video cameras and jockeying for the best position. It was simply too packed upstairs to watch the brown belts. I can’t say I’m disappointed though. We watched six black belts test for the next level and the technique and the power that they used was nothing short of amazing. During a bo/tonfa kata where our two instructors did a fight routine, Big I audibly said "Wow" when our one instructor jumped into the air to avoid a bo sweep. At the end of their routine, there was applause. It really was that impressive.
The kata’s came fast and furious as the whole group would perform and then individuals would be pulled out to go it alone. All black belt candidates were judged by four higher ranks, one of which was a red belt. It was certainly a bit intimidating, but the judges didn’t seem to be overly critical which was encouraging. Another encouraging fact? Four of the six black belt testing for the next level looked to be older than I am.
Granted, I was watching the higher ranks test; but I couldn’t help but start feeling like I need to get to work and NOW. The level at which they did the kata’s was so impressive. The kiai’s were loud and forceful. Their punches and kicks had serious power behind them. They were all doing the proper breathing during the kata which is something that I do not grasp at all right now. Even trying to do the proper breathing makes me feel as if I’m going to hyperventilate. I’m going to make sure to ask about it this week at class because I feel like I should start practicing it now, rather than wait until right before the black belt test to try to learn how to do it properly. I’ll be interested to see who is wearing a black belt this week at class. I hope that they all did well enough to pass.
It was exciting to go and watch the testing, but the best part had to be when we were leaving. As we walked down the street to our car I asked Big I what her favorite part was at the testing. "The jumps," she said excitedly. "I loved it when they jumped over the bo. They jumped to the CEILING," she said. "Let’s try to do it," I said to her. So, the two of us jumped down the street as high as we could imagining a bo sweeping at our feet. I hope that one day Big I and I will be able to work on that fighting weapons kata together; but for now, just jumping down the street together was plenty of fun.
Let’s hear it for INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
I went to class tonight and worked one on one with a black belt on the sai kata for 3rd kyu. It is so cool! I also think it is fairly easy to learn. Of course, there are a lot of little intricacies that I’ll need to make sure I’m getting right; but the overall pattern is a familiar one. It reminds me a lot of the tunfa kata I did for last test. Having a familiarity with it already and it’s only July feels wonderful. It makes brown belt in September seem attainable.
I felt really good when I learned to use the bo months ago. Tunfa felt even better. Using sai just make you feel so wicked. There is a move at the end of the kata where you bring the sai together in front of you. The right overlaps the left sai, both with blades facing inward towards each other, and you scrape the sai blades together until you are holding both sai with the blades facing outward. Because the move is unique in that there are no other points during the kata where the sai come in contact with each other, I asked for an explanation. The black belt made sure the younger kids weren’t paying attention and then said that this move is supposed to symbolize scraping the sai clean of blood at the end of the battle. . . I think I’m in love.
As if the whole private lesson with the sai wasn’t exciting enough, Big I made some major progress tonight. Yes, when she snap kicks it still looks as if her leg weighs 4000 lbs. and instead of a smooth finish, she is usually picking herself up off the floor. No, her punches aren’t landing exactly the way they should; but the progress is that these kicks, punches, and elbows are coming with some serious force. She put on her game face tonight and instead of checking her hair in the mirror or worrying that she needed to reapply her "pretty" (chapstick for the common folks), she was scowling at me (her bag holder) and nailing that bag as if she has some anger management issues. I was one proud mama. Sure, she sort of resembled a monkey going nuts in a cage. The control is sort of lacking. O.k. we need to work on control. But we have said goodbye to the prissy girly punches of months gone by and are now seeing some drive.
In addition, while I was busy with the sai, the lower belts were standing up one at a time and showing their waza. (Big I’s waza goes something like this: step back and block up; kick; punch; block down with kiai). I didn’t even bother to look at the other side of the dojo because I was fully expecting to see my little girl, cheek to her shoulder, hair hiding her face, as she refused to stand up and give it a go. Instead, at the end of class, Big I came running up to me with a grin from ear to ear as she told me that she did her waza ALL. BY. HERSELF. I was sort of in shock and looked to our instructor for confirmation. She said it wasn’t perfect, but she could definitely recognize the waza from what Big I stood up and showed off. Big I wasn’t the only one who left the dojo grinning tonight.
The best part. . . she didn’t even ask for a reward. There was no mention of McDonald’s. Every few minutes on the drive home she would just blurt out, "Mommy, are you proud that I did my waza? I can’t believe I did my waza ALL BY MYSELF!" The intrinsic motivation was just oozing out of her and as a former teacher and as her Mommy, I can finally see that it is sinking in. Being intrinsically motivated to learn is a wonderful thing. She is starting to enjoy the successes that come with karate. THIS is the self-esteem boost that parents talk about when they say they want their kids to take karate. THIS is the reason why I wanted her to start taking karate two years ago. THIS has made my day, my week, and quite possibly my month.
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