It Must Be Different

I never regret getting up early on Saturday and going to karate.

They have really been a help to me for getting started in karate, but now that I'm in a little bit better shape, and weather is cooler, I've been trying to practice without fluids running during class. I made it once last week and almost made it through today, too. It's nice to feel the freedom of not having my heart tethered to a plastic line and a heavy bag while trying to swing at people. It's just a lot to manage, although it's so wonderful to have fluids that allow me to do things like karate that I'm pretty sure I could cope with it if I never got off of them. It wouldn't be easy, and maybe someday that won't be the case, but right now I'm doing well.

Finally, thanks to a wonderfully dedicated doctor, I have gotten the chronic micro-barfing under control. At karate, when karateka partner up and practice karate in close proximity to one another I become very self conscious because I constantly taste puke.  I don't know if my dragon breath counts as a qualified karate move but I'm sure it could take out someone much larger than I am. I even eat breakfast before class now, which is giving me another positive edge.

Here at the ten-month mark I feel stronger and more sure of my movements, feeling less like I'm going to pass out or vomit, or both, if I dare to try a new move or to go beyond the basic positions. I think everybody goes through this on some level, but for me it has an amplified level of anxiety because throwing up and passing out were such daily occurrences for so long.

If I threw up in class I would be mortified. I know I would be forgiven and I might even get help cleaning it up, but the real embarrassment would be to my own sense of self, my inability to control a vital reflex. That's the crazy thinking though, which needs to be untwisted, because reflexes are not something that we consciously manage. We can use mindfulness and relaxation to take us so far, but the truth is that if the body needs to eliminate, thats what it's going to do.

Having an orange belt puts me at the top of the beginners class. Almost all of the people who have supported me have moved on to the higher levels, and now I see lower level belts going through their own struggles and discoveries. Everybody at the dojo was so sensitive to what I was struggling with, and still is, but I feel that as I observe the new our students than myself I am somehow either less sensitive to them and their challenges, or that I am erroneously comparing my challenges to theirs, looking to feel like I'm not alone, and not really finding that. We all have our challenges to face, and for some reason, though I recognize that my challenges are no less severe than anyone elses, they are comparatively more rare, which gives me a feeling of loneliness. It's difficult to relate to healthy people and their challenges, even though they're not as healthy as they appear to me, but simply healthier than I am.

Using the word healthy in this context, I mean able-bodied. Everybody has aches and pains, especially at eight o'clock in the morning; undoubtedly a fair amount of psychache passes through us all, which may be our most common element in terms of resilience. But the average person does not appear to be concerned about whether their joints will dislocate;  whether their skin with tear open and never heal; whether drinking plenty of water will not be enough to keep them sustained and conscious; whether the air temperature in the room means they should modify every move, making sure that they don't overheat; whether they would have to go around people and weather there would be enough time to go out before leaving to throw up, and so on.

Karate is the best thing I have ever done for myself, and the instruction of karate is one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me. Is the gift of physiology, time, space, safety, and instruction, to learn about this beautiful and complex organism in which I live. This is true for all of us who practice karate and face our limits, so maybe it's not that different after all: the experiences are different but the feelings are the same.