Kata on the Beach
This morning I woke up early and it was overcast outside. The beach was deserted and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get outside and run through some kata. I lugged my kobudo weapons and my Mom down to the beach and set up near the dunes so as to limit the view of me from the beach houses.
I ran through my kobudo katas first. Doing kata on the beach was a bit challenging. Without the mirror in front of me and the shinza to the left, it felt different. It was a good test as to whether or not I know my stuff, and thankfully I do.
Doing kata on the beach felt really good. The wind was whipping around and I think my favorite beach kata had to be nunchaku. With the breeze blowing, they seemed to fly extra well through the air. With the sound of the waves crashing nearby, I was able to work on my breathing too.
I ran through all the open hand kata as well and made it through without forgetting anything.
Then I thought I'd have some fun. During the kata Kyan No Sai, there's a part where you go on guard and then step out with the right foot and throw the sai in your right hand, presumably into the foot of an oncoming attacker. It's obviously not possible to do the throw for real in the dojo, but at the beach it's a different story.
I drew myself a little circle in the sand and stood back. I wanted to see if I could hit my target. I hit it every time, but there was a problem. The sai wasn't going in point first and staying that way. Instead it was hitting point first and then quickly flipping over. Sometimes, the sai would end up completely covered in the sand.
I decided to experiment. I moved a little closer figuring these are short range weapons and found the trick. I was definitely too far away from the circle/attacker. By moving in a bit closer and concentrating more on technique and less on power, the sai went in blade first. It was a near perfect stick. The other interesting thing is that when the point went in first, it went in and then sort of rocked back a bit. One can imagine the damage it would do to a foot if it hit and then continued the rotational movement which would rip things apart easily. I realized why this move is near the end of the kata.
I revealed my revelations to my Mom, a registered nurse, who sat there squirming as I talked about it. I find this stuff so fascinating. It's not the gruesome part so much as it is the technique and getting it right that intrigues me. I'm thinking our dojo should put a sand box in somewhere. How cool would that be?
Relief
Filed under: Mental Strain for Mama, Tales from the dojo
Last night Big I auditioned for a play. She did one of these productions two summers ago and it was grueling. They practice Monday through Thursday, 6-9 and the director is very serious about the play. Although the kids love her when it's all over, during the actual process of getting ready, even the parents are sometimes on edge. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of stress.
When Big I did it before, it felt like our summer was gone. After five weeks of non-stop rehearsing and then a weekend of performing, we had a month left before school started. Still, if Big I enjoys acting and singing, then I thought I shouldn't deprive her of the opportunity.
Auditions started at 6 last night and after dancing, singing, and acting portions, she was finally finished at 9 p.m. It was a very long night.
I took her to the audition and they started with dancing. The only thing I could compare this part of the audition to, would be like someone showing you a kata two times and then asking you to do it on your own. The poor kid had trouble following along and I wanted to just whisk her off the stage and erase her memory of it. Fortunately she wasn't the only one having trouble. Dancing like a marionette isn't going to happen after a mere 10 minutes of instruction.
Then came singing. I stayed for half of it and then headed out to the dojo. Mr. BBM said her group of four did well and for that I was relieved. Mr. BBM said she also did well reading her lines for the acting portion. He said she read every word perfectly and you could hear her, but she didn't really "act" it out so much. Keep in mind that the youngest allowed to audition is eight. Big I is eight.
On the way home from auditions, she told Mr. BBM she had a dilemma. She knows that if she does this play, she can forget leisurely evenings at the pool. She can forget doing tennis or swim lessons; and she's going to have to miss a week of ju-jutsu too. She decided that she's not going to do it this summer. Instead she thought she'd audition for the spring play. To say I'm relieved would be the understatement of the century. The month of June is already packed for us; rehearsals every night would just about kill us.
I have to give the kid props though. I doubt I would have had the guts to get up there the way she's done twice, once when she was only 6 years old!
I'm relieved that we'll have our summer back, but now I'm looking for relief of another kind.
Yesterday, I was looking for something in the basement, moved a box without moving the ones in front of it and tweaked my lower back. If I'm standing I'm fine. If I lay down I'm fine; but sitting is a different story.
I walked in to karate last night and told Big I's Danzan Ryu Ju-Jutsu instructor who was teaching downstairs that I was hurting and he disappeared outside to his car. He came back in with a chinese analgesic that you rub on your sore spot and wait to dry. He gave strict instructions for me to pass along to Mr. BBM when putting it on me, "Don't touch your eyes and don't 'adjust' yourself until after you wash your hands." I woke Mr. BBM up last night when I rolled in from the dojo around 11 p.m. to put it on me.
Today I feel slightly better but not much. Sitting is still killing me. What I love about Big I doing ju-jutsu is that Danzan Ryu practitioners learn how to hurt people, but they also learn the healing arts. It's an interesting combination and one that Big I's Sensei takes very seriously. He told me that if I'm not better soon, he'd work on my back a bit.
In Kyoshi Bill Hayes' book "My Journey with the Grandmaster" he talks about training hard and then going to get fixed back up with long soaks and massage. I can't help feeling like this should be a crucial part of modern day training. Maybe those sore spots wouldn't happen as often and maybe that was the key to longevity in the arts.
If I could just convince Mr. BBM to go get certified in the healing arts. . .
Sheer Exhaustion
Lately I've been training a lot, like about five days a week. It's been exhausting. I'm getting home late from the dojo and then I need time to shower, wind down, and rehydrate. I'm getting to bed too late and having to wake up too early. The only way I've been able to get through my day lately is with coffee in the morning and some cranergy in the afternoon. And I'm still tired.
Allergies aren't helping things. Whatever is out there right now is horrible and I'm completely congested and miserable. If I take my medication for it, I get really cranky and unhappy. If I don't, I'm cranky and unhappy because I can't breathe. Something has to give.
Last night, I thought I had a good option for about a minute.
Another 1st kyu was telling me about these "energy shots" you can buy at the convenience store places. I asked him if they were mega doses of caffeine and he said it wasn't. He told me they had B vitamins and a bunch of other healthy stuff and that when he's used them, he's had a good five hours of straight, non-jittery energy.
I made a mental note to pick a couple of those up for the coming weeks and then he said,
"They also make you poop."
Apparently they speed everything up and that's one of the things. I think it would probably be a bad idea to take one and have to leave the training floor non-stop to go empty the system, or God forbid, not make it in time!
I guess I'm just going to have to find a way to get some more rest. The beach vacation coming up in less than two weeks, can't come soon enough. It really can't.
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A Compliment I’m Taking
My Dad isn't exactly the best at compliments. Like on my wedding day for example, he said to me, "I didn't know you could look that beautiful." Hmm, that got me to thinking a bit. It was sort of a back-handed compliment, but considering my compliment history with my Dad, whatever. I'll take it.
He also says things like this: "Boy, you look nice in that shirt, but your arms are really moley." Freaking fantastic. I spent an entire 4th grade night at Disney World begging my Mom to buy me a sweatshirt so I could cover up my arms and avoid making people run in horror from my chocolate chipped arms. When he said I was being ridiculous about it, I just crossed my arms and used my hands to cover up as much of my arms as possible. I'm like that in every picture my Dad took that night. It was one of those nights that scarred me for the teenage years, but he still says I'm too dramatic about it.
He's also not very good at apologizing. Truth be told, I'm not either. But my Dad's apologies tend to go something like this: "I'm sorry I told you that your arms are moley. . . but your arms are moley." They never quite feel like apologies.
That's why what happened tonight came as a total shocker.
Tonight my Dad came into the dojo to watch Big I during her ju-jutsu class and, more importantly, to keep an eye on Lil C while I trained upstairs with Ax Kick-Eric. At one point he came upstairs while Ax-Kick-Eric and I were working on some open hand bunkai. I heard Lil C saying she wanted to stand closer to Mommy and I heard my Dad say, "This is the closest we're going to get." I was busy at the time, trying to make a throw work on Ax-Kick-Eric.
After we were finished doing that, I showed my Dad my kobudo bunkai. When I was finished he said to Lil C, "That's why you better behave when you get to dating age." I laughed and said, "Why do you think I train so hard?"
Soon though, I could tell my Dad was ready to go home so I packed it up and he said goodbye to the girls. He didn't wait for me to walk out, so I just figured he'd go home and make fun of me or tell my Mom how silly karate was; because over the past few years, I've felt an undertone of him not quite understanding why I was so into the martial arts.
Then I got a phone call from my Mom. "Your Dad says you look like a black belt!" she said. I had to pick my jaw off the floor to ask her to say that again. I heard right and there wasn't even any extra commentary like "for a girl with moley arms" or anything. "Yeah," she said, "he said 'Wow, BBM is really good at karate. She looks like a black belt."
Total shocker, but that is one compliment I'm going to gladly take, keep, and remember always.
A Serious Case of the Sillies
Last night at the dojo, it was just one of those nights. Although I've been fairly serious about my training for the past few weeks, last night I was tired and everything was cracking me up. I wasn't the only one with the problem.
When the advanced class started, our teacher asked us what we wanted to do. I made the unfortunate mistake of saying I was "up for anything minus break falls and roll falls." I was thinking open hand or kobudo. I wasn't thinking 30 minutes of kicking.
We have this young green belt who loves competition and loves kicking. She also likes doing kata with her eyes closed but that's another story. In attendance was the young green belt, our instructor, two 20-something black belts, me and a 40-something 1st kyu.
With the black belts on one side of the floor and me and my brown belt buddy on the other side, we started doing some kicking drills. We started with simple snap kicks and thrust kicks. Then it was crescent and roundhouse. We did some knees and heel-butt which are more like hell-butt kicks when I have to use my left leg. There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of intensity from the black belt side of the dojo, while the other 1st kyu and I debated about whether or not it would be acceptable for us to hold onto the wall in the back of the training floor so as not to fall over.
I used to love kicking. It was one of my favorite things to do. Post knee-injury? Not so much. I'd rather watch four hours straight of Star Wars than do kicking drills; and if you know me and my deep and established dislike of Star Wars, then you know how much I want to avoid kicking.
Every time we thought we had exhausted all the types of possible kicks, our teacher, the green belt or one of the black belts would come up with another type of kick, which is why one of those black belts will forever retain the nickname "Ax Kick Eric" from now on.
After 20 minutes of straight kicking, when your leg protests full extension, one is not too happy to hear the words "ax kick." I thank you "Ax Kick Eric" for those ax kicks last night and so do my ailing leg muscles; and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible.
I announced to my 1st kyu friend that I would be pretending I was fighting a midget for this round of kicks; and then we made helpless faces at each other in the mirror until we were finished.
Finally, after 4000 types of kicks, the young green belt says she wants to have a kicking contest. I said we should forgo the contest and just name her the grand champion. Although I think she was sort of satisfied with that, I really think she wanted the pride of knowing she had beaten up on the ailing brown belts a bit more than having us just hand over a title.
I do have to say I learned an important lesson last night though. When your teacher looks directly at you and asks what you want to do. . . you better be specific, VERY specific.
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