Sai what?
Getting ready for karate class was not fun this week. It went something like this:
Me: "It’s time to get in your gi, Big I. Get dressed."
Big I: "No."
Me: "Yes."
Big I: "NOOOOOOOO. I don’t want to go. I HATE karate."
Me: "No you don’t. Why do you say you hate karate?" (thinking to self about how this child begged to start taking karate.)
Big I: folding arms and pouting with chin tucked to chest, speaking in baby voice, "It’s too tough. I’m not going."
Me: "Yes you are."
Daddy: "Do you like McDonalds, Big I?"
Big I: "Yes."
Daddy: "If you don’t go to karate you’re never going to McDonald’s again. McDonald’s is a treat that happens when you go to karate."
Me: (mouth drops. Thinks to self: "Did he seriously just say that?" (starts to compute in head the cost and time that will be devoted to therapy in the future for such a statement.)
Big I: getting dressed "Fine. I’ll go. But I HATE it."
So, we get to karate class and I say to our 20 something year old instructor, "How old were you when you started taking karate classes? I bet you thought it was hard, huh?" wink, wink and nod head in direction of Big I.
Mr. M: totally catches my drift and says, "Oh, well I was about 10 years old and yeah, it was really hard at first. But then it sinks in and gets easier and then it gets really fun." He looks back at me. I nod approvingly for a job well done.
Mr. M then spends the entire class catering to Big I, helping her with things she needs to know and making it fun in the process. He totally rocks, let me tell you. For a 20-something guy, he is so darn with it when it comes to kids. We spent time this week learning weapons kata’s. We worked with sai, tonfa, and the bo. By worked with, I mean that Big I sort of held the weapons but mostly just banged the two sai and tonfa together and made sweet music while the rest of us did our thing around the dojo.
When we got home from karate, I asked Big I which weapon she thought was the best. She paused briefly and then answered, "those metal things (referring to sai). . . you know why Mommy? Because they make the best music."
Music now, fighting expertise later. All in good time. I can wait.
You’re only as old as the kids think you are
Filed under: Tales from the dojo
I pre-tested for karate tonight. This means that our class sits along the back of the dojo and our instructors call us up one at a time and have us go through our material. For whatever reason, (maybe because I’m the oldest by about, oh 13 years in this class) my instructor made me wait until last to get up and do my thing. I can not tell you how much I HATE going last. By the time it’s my turn, my heart is pounding out of my chest; I’m sweating; And, I can’t remember for the life of me what the heck my next move is, even though 10 minutes ago I knew it perfectly. To make matters worse, this is the first time that I have to do a weapons kata as well as an open hand kata. Double stress.
You would think that since I was a high school English teacher for two years, standing up in front of a bunch of kids would not even make me blink. But for some stupid reason it does. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again and I hate feeling that way. Tonight, as I sat there waiting for my turn, a girl of about eight years old, leans over to me and whispers, "Were you in the tournament?" I’m like, "shaa, yeah right." Seriously, maybe I feel like a kid because the kids think I’m a kid.
The same thing happened to my husband. At 36 weeks pregnant with Lil C, I finally had to stop going to karate. My husband started up so that Big I would have a partner she knew. At their first class, the average age of the student was about six. When it was Mr. B’s turn to stand up and punch the heavy bag, he punched once and all you heard was a collective gasp of awe and wonder at his amazing ability to nail that bag. One little boy’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he blurted out a simple, "Wow." My husband and the instructor got hysterical; and I had to make a trip to the little girls’ room since laughing, second pregnancies, and 9 months along so do not make for a good combination.
Apparently, post delivery joints and kata don’t make for a good combo either. As I was doing my kata tonight, my hip cracked so loudly that a parent of one of the other students, who was sitting in the waiting area, actually commented that he heard it. Yeah, well I felt it buddy and trust me, that was so. much. worse. I swear I take karate classes at a place where there are adult students. I am NOT a Kramer; and I don’t make it a habit of making myself feel good by beating up on unsuspecting five year olds. It just seems that the other adults. . . are always attending classes other than the one that I go to.
When it was all said and done tonight, my instructor pointed out a few things to work on. So next week will be the week that I will officially test for 5th kyu green belt (or two brown stripes on a green belt for those non-karate literates). Tonight, after I did the first kata I have to do for testing, my instructor told me to start over, which is never a good sign. I shot a quick glance at my usual instructor (a college student who pointed out a few weeks ago that I was doing something so ridiculously wrong in the one kata that it could seriously be confused with hula dancing) and asked if they were going to point out another awkward dance move that I’d decided to incorporate into this kata too.
Luckily this time, I had just screwed up a minor step and corrected it without prompting on the second go round. The hula move from the previous kata was probably just a side effect of my body compensating for my ridiculously HUGE and LOW stomach at the time. Seriously, I mean check out that belly! Lil C was a LOW RIDER so I’m going to blame it on her. She apparently took the whole, "Get low, get low, get low," rap lyrics of the summer a bit too seriously.
Speaking of serious, I need to do some intense practicing for this testing next week. My husband has a fear that I will take it to the streets and start swinging around my bo outside and freaking out the neighbors and I’ll tell you what, if the weather is nice this weekend, you better believe I’ll be out there.
I think I can hear Mr. B upstairs now quietly praying for a freak blizzard just in time for the weekend. . .
Karate Girls
I’m not really a black belt. . . at least not yet. But I will be some day soon. I am currently a 6th kyu green belt. I earned that green belt while eight months pregnant so I am quite proud of the fact that I could even kick at that point considering I was quite large, carrying oh so low and it was about 9000 degrees. (I had my daughter 10.4.05).
I was inspired to take karate by Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, and other random female victims whose crimes against them just plain outraged me. Not that I am afraid of my husband, because I am not in the slightest. We’re fine. But, when the whole Lori Hacking thing was happening, I woke him from his sleep at about 1 a.m. after watching about three hours of constant coverage on the story to just let him know that if he ever tried that kind of crap on me, even if he succeeded, my ghost would come back and make his life a living hell. He laughed; he’s used to me.
I started taking karate with my then three-year old daughter and we both continue to go to this day. The proof that my soon-to-be five year old can kick butt??? Ask her Daddy to show you the quarter sized bruises all over his body from when they "spar." She can throw a wicked forearm and if you ask her where to hit a bad guy or gal. . . well, let’s just say that you shouldn’t really ask her that question in places like church, a restaurant, or well, anywhere in public because she will tell you, and loudly.
The cool thing about our karate is that we’re also learning how to use weapons. My personal favorite is the bo, which is a six foot long stick basically. Think back to the days of men or women carrying water jugs on either end of a long stick. It made a handy weapon. So would my swiffer to be quite honest; and don’t think for a second that I don’t practice with that thing while I’m making dinner. My daughter’s bo is actually a dowel from Home Depot and she knows how to use it too, although she prefers pretending it’s a "horsey" from time to time in class. Our instructor is quite amused at her imagination and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think it was quite funny myself.
While I have the love affair with the martial arts, my daughter has a love/hate relationship with it. At home, she will rail on her daddy; but ask her to spar in class with a layer of padding thick enough to confuse her with the Pillsbury Dough Boy and she’ll demurely tell you that she "doesn’t want to hurt anyone." Regardless, I figure if its in her head and we reinforce it enough, she’ll remember it in case she ever needs it, God forbid.
I’m planning on starting my five month old daughter as soon as she can stand and kick. She had a jump start while in utero. My friends and family may think I’m insane for training my young daughter in karate already, but I figure if we start now, then by dating age they will both be black belts (along with their mama), and I’ll be able to relax a bit more than I would otherwise. Can you imagine the look on a young boys face when he shows up and sees his date’s mother whipping around a swiffer with gusto??? Priceless.
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