Learning How To Fall
A couple week ago, when Big I started first Danzan Ryu ju-jutsu, I was worried that this wasn't going to be her thing either. The very first thing that they learn in class is how to properly fall. There's a lot to remember and it's a little different than how we do it in karate. I spent the first night of class watching her fall on her arms constantly when she tried to do the side break fall. I watched her forget to turn her head sideways for the front one. I was worried.
Last week, they started doing roll falls and I began to really worry. Big I is not your typical little girl in the rolling department. It doesn't come naturally to her the way it does to many others girls. I wrote about this in the past and described Big I trying to do a forward roll as someone throwing their forehead at the floor. She just doesn't get that you're not supposed to roll on your head and almost break your neck. I think a big part of it has to do with how tall and skinny she got so very quickly. She just doesn't know how to work with that body yet.
However, this week at class, Big I made some major progress. With the exception of only one or two times, the kid got every break fall nearly perfect. Her Sensei was impressed. This was only her third class.
The class progresses with the usage of scrolls that have various techniques on them, and this week they were able to move down to the 5th technique. The children's class is currently only Big I and her Sensei's daughter. They get along really well, work great together and although Sensei's daughter seems to pick things up a little quicker than Big I, she's also his daughter and has had some at home training.
This week though, Big I was doing so well. When we got home from class, she wanted to show Mr. BBM all the things she had learned. There, in the middle of the family room, she showed him her break falls without being on mats. She is genuinely excited about what she's learning and tries to show her "moves" to everyone. Last night, she told me that if I'd like, she can teach me and Mr. BBM what she's learned in class. It may not have looked like it was her thing at the start, but it's appearing that it's becoming her thing fairly quickly.
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Hanging with the Boys
Lately, at the dojo, I have frequently been the only girl in class. There are definitely more men than women at my dojo. When you break it out and look exclusively at brown belt and above, there are even more men than women. I grew up a tomboy and my best friend in high school was a guy, so this has never bothered me. I seem to get along better with guys overall. From a martial arts perspective though, I began thinking about whether or not the guys take it a little easier on me.
Last night, we were paired up and spent the entire night trying to wail on each other with bat-sized sticks. Whenever we do these drills, we ease into them gradually. We start by working out distancing. Our partner starts swinging at us when we're just a hair out of reach. Then we add movement, first small movement, then big movements. Finally, we add some evasive maneuvers and techniques to combat someone wielding a club or bat at us. By the end of the night, it's usually a sparring type situation that can get pretty intense.
I was partnered with a brown belt guy, who I believe has a black belt in another style (a heavily into kicking style). I like working with this guy; we seem to work well together. The drills went fine, and then it was time for the free-for-all stick swinging. He was taking aim at me and my first movement brought some serious pain with it for my knee. The quick movements, twisting, pivoting and off-angle stuff still freak me out and cause me some trouble. Yet almost every week, I've been taken out of my comfort zone for drills that start harmless enough, but end with me being a nervous wreck. I simply haven't figured out how to adjust to my knee situation. My previous stances are uncomfortable so I've been forced to find new ways to stand. Something as simple as which foot to put in front is now troubling and feels uncomfortable.
It's really difficult to think about the stick swinging at your head when you're more worried about your knee and messing it up again. After the initial tweak however, I was able to make it through the drill. I got hit a couple times (thank God we had switched over to plastic), and I mostly felt like a total idiot. Being a teacher and having previously done a lot of public speaking, you'd think I could handle a little audience, but the four guys standing on the side were freaking me out too. They're all good, and I feel like I'm not, so it can be intimidating.
Later, I watched the guys switch it up and continue going at it. When my partner was out there with someone else, it was intense. He was throwing in some good kicks and techniques and I was really impressed. I also got the feeling that he had been taking it easy on me.
This, for a girl, is good and bad. It's good because I am smaller than these guys. Even though I'm of similar height to most of them, I am definitely a light weight. I don't fit the typical body type of a female karate-ka, at least not most of the ones I've seen and been around. Despite months of busting my butt at the gym, there's nothing you can really do when your genes say you'll be a 5'9", 135 lb string bean. I've built muscle, but it's still on my spaghetti frame. So, for that reason, I guess being treated a little differently is good.
I also think the guys are cautious around me because of my knee. They know I'm terrified of being injured again, and so they approach drills with me with kid gloves on. I get that, and I do appreciate it. But I guess there's a part of me that wishes it was otherwise. When I watch the guys out there, throwing each other around, and getting intense, I'm a bit jealous.
That's never going to be me. I'm not the girl who will be fondly recalled years from now as "the scrapper." I doubt there will be any legends told about me and my skills twenty years from now. I'm feeling more and more like I'm the blend-into-the-background type of girl in the dojo and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
People comfort themselves by saying that there's a reason for everything and that things happen for a reason. I, for one, would like to know the reason for some of these things. Like the ACL injury, for example. What was the purpose of that? Was it to make me quit karate? Was it to make me appreciate it more? Was it a giant smack-down from someone above telling me I'm out of my league? I know it's made me into a person who enjoys going to the gym and working out, but how does that fit in with karate and how things go at the dojo? Right now, I'm not seeing how the working out has benefited my karate. Will it make me a better martial artist in the long run? Will it harm my progress because I'm afraid (rightfully so), and because others are afraid to hurt me?
I don't want to go to the dojo and get a beat-down each week (I seriously can not sustain another injury), but at the same time, my purpose for being at the dojo is primarily self-defense. If the guys are taking it easy on me, then isn't this doing me harm in the long-run? Am I now seen as the delicate flower of the dojo? If that's the case, I'm not happy about it.
Last night I got home and iced my knee for a while. Then I had Mr. BBM come swinging at me and I tried to take him down using one of the techniques we worked last night. Without him knowing what I was going to do, and without him taking a dive for me, I simply couldn't make it work. Granted, he is bigger than the guys I usually work with, but it's still frustrating when something that had worked only hours ago, now doesn't.
As martial artists, we need compliant partners until we've learned the proper technique and control, but are my partners being too easy on me when it comes to helping me make techniques work? Is it because I'm a girl? Is it because of the ACL injury? Am I doing the same thing to them? Unfortunately, I don't think there are any easy answers to these questions.
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Pain That Makes You Work Harder
Tonight at the dojo reminded me why I love karate so much.
I've spent the last few weeks at the dojo trying to get kata back into my head. Of course, there was the occasional night where I had a bo coming at me full force, but most nights have revolved around kata, either open hand or weapons, and my brain trying to reabsorb and perfect it all.
Tonight, however, it was all partner work; and it was awesome. Hanshi had us take each scenario from a casual stance to mimic what might happen if someone approached you and started swinging when you weren't quite expecting it. We worked on parrying, back-fists, some crazy cool joint locks and jamming the bicep when you have an incoming round-house punch.
I was working with a black belt partner who I haven't worked with in a while, and we had a good time practicing on each other and exploring some potential other possibilities. It felt good to evade a punch and throw back some techniques. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing how a small portion of kata can turn into the perfect defense against someone looking to take your head off.
There were certainly some mess-ups on my part tonight. Learning something new is never perfect, but my partner and I worked through it and it was definitely a fun night at the dojo.
At one point, Hanshi came over and demonstrated one of the techniques on me. It reminded me, once again, how very good he is at what he does. For minutes after, my bicep was unhappy, as was the rest of my arm. He uses such amazing control, but when he hits you, man, do you know it! I never mind being his uke though; because when you feel that tweak of pain, it inspires you to work harder yourself.
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Listening to the Knee Yoda
Last Thursday, I made the mistake of assuming that my knee would tolerate kneeling, as in butt back on the heels kneeling. I was very wrong.
I think I would have been ok if it had been a brief stay, but it wasn't. We ended up sitting in seiza for quite some time and I sat there awkwardly jutting my leg out to the side. Even if I could kneel completely, my knee brace wouldn't allow me to go that far. My brace is sort of like my mother, reminding me what I can and can not do.
I noticed my knee was a little crankier than usual over the weekend and I tweaked it again during my crazy yard lady four hour raking stint in my yard on Sunday when I sort of leaned back on my left heel at one of the areas in my yard that has decided it would like to be reclaimed by the depths of the Earth.
I should have called it a day, but I had a much needed appointment with my trainer at the gym, so after four hours of raking and seeding, it was time for more torture.
I had every intention of asking my trainer for some new leg exercises. I'm getting a little bored with what I've been doing. My knee has been holding up great through all of the increased reps and weights. I wanted something new; but when I sat down to stretch my legs out, I noticed a very sore and swollen knee.
I couldn't get full extension and my knee was really puffy. My trainer took one look at it and said, "We're doing arms," which is just what my arms needed after raking for four hours. He tortured my biceps, triceps and abs in new and horrible ways and then I went home to ice my knee.
I took my knee cocktail of my joint supplement, bromelain, and turmeric and topped it off with some ibuprofen. The knee was screaming for some. I iced it on and off until I went to bed, where I slept with it elevated.
On Monday, the swelling was down but I was still really sore. I was getting stiff after sitting for only a few minutes and I knew it was the kneeling that did me in because I was also super sensitive when I tried to bend my leg past a certain point.
I headed out to karate class anyway. I was up front with my instructor and told him I wouldn't be kneeling or doing anything to stress my knee. I also asked if we could refrain from doing anything involving abs, biceps or triceps, but the entire class decided that working joint locks on noses would be sort of short-lived and weird.
True to form, my instructor had me more worried about protecting my face and head than my knee and despite a couple reminders from the cranky knee during class, I actually finished class feeling better.
I'm still a little swollen, but it's definitely feeling better. Riding my stationary bike for 30 minutes last night seems to have loosened things up a bit. I am forever reminded of what my PT used to always say to me: "Listen to the knee." He's like my knee Yoda and I wish he would have been at the dojo when I was breathing through the pain of kneeling, telling myself to suck it up.
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A Comedy of Errors, Form of Weapons
When you return after 17 months off and go full blast with the kobudo weapons as you did before, there are bound to be some bumps and bruises. I started off with forearm bruises from the bo and another large and well placed bo bruise right above the elbow on the upper outside of my arm. That one, although painful, was cool. I seem to remember someone saying that if you have that bruise, you're doing it right. I pretty much wanted to wear a tank top to show it off, even in 30 degree weather.
Despite this trophy bruise though, I also had a bit of a sore spot right at my hairline on my forehead, where I kind of bounced the bo off my head. I don't even think I was doing kata at that point. Bouncing a bo off your head truly takes talent when not even doing something official. Truly.
Here's a picture of someone using a bo without whacking himself in the head.
Then came the tunfa. The first night I used them again, I smacked my knee brace pretty good with them. Man, I was thankful I had a brace on and wasn't going it without one. That would have hurt. I also hit myself in the head during the course of kata. I'm trying to remember how I did it, but if I recall correctly (keep in mind this is the second head trauma in two weeks), I believe it was from an over-ambitious upward block. Don't ask.
That's an upward block in the picture below. Clearly, this talented man has the tunfa nowhere near his noggin. You learn something new every day.
Then came nunchaku. Nunchaku and I have had a love/hate relationship for quite some time. While nunchaku, for many men, is an absolute dream weapon, actually operating the little suckers can be quite tricky. I was tempted to ask my one instructor to borrow his foam ones for my first run through, but instead I just went ahead with my wooden ones. If you can recover from ACL surgery, you can take a whack or two from nunchaku.
I took several. I whacked my back much harder than I would have liked to, and I also smacked my thigh hard enough to leave a little bruise. Thankfully, I didn't knock myself unconscious with them. Here's a picture of a woman in Okinawa not knocking herself unconscious with them. When you imagine nunchaku, imagine me like this. . .
Finally, we come to the sai. One must keep in mind that my sai are brand new Shureido sai. I've been using craptastic sai for many years and am only now getting to use some decent sai with the right angle where your hands go. Here's a picture of me, pre-injury, acting like I know what I'm doing with my crappy ones.
So far, I have yet to injure myself with my new ones, but I do have to admit that I am having a terrible time getting them caught in my gi sleeves and top. It's a good thing I wear a tank top underneath during training because my sai are convinced that I don't need to wear my top at all. I need to figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong. Disrobing at the dojo, during class, or (God Forbid!) during eventual testing would be just a tad bit embarrassing.
Speaking of embarrassing, my biggest gaffe so far, happened on Saturday morning. During a black belt/wanna-be-black-belt workout at the dojo, we were working on some tunfa kata. Still getting used to my new purple heart custom Crane Mountain tunfa, and sweating up a storm, I did the equivalent of what would be a major party foul, like spilling a full beer for example. I spun my tunfa around and to my horror, watched it spiral toward the floor. It hit with a loud klunk, despite the foam floors. A girl can hope that no one noticed, but my usual training buddies around me had definitely noticed. One was grinning ear to ear and the other sort of chuckled. They laugh because they've done it themselves, many times, probably, right guys?
Anyway, having your training buddies notice is one thing. Having Hanshi announce that "dropping your tunfa is optional" as he explains the steps in the kata. . . well, you can pretty much guess that everyone now knows. Yep, everyone. Brown belts are there for amusement purposes though right? I take that role seriously. I figure if you can't laugh at yourself, then it's going to be pretty lonely as everyone else laughs at you right?
Returning to karate may be like riding a bicycle; but the words of my surgeon continue to echo in my head, "You're not going to be any good at it for a while."
He's a wise man indeed.
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