"Who here is a perfectionist?" asked Sensei, who then explained that we need to focus on only our practice when we are on the dojo--not our children, work, or whatever else is going on outside of the dojo. He then reminded us not to drive ourselves crazy trying to get every detail perfect, but rather, to have some fun and stay relaxed.
The very next drill we did was 50 mawashi geri, roundhouse kicks, with each leg. Roundhouse kicks are the most difficult thing for me to do.
The first step of the kick is to pivot on the ball of the foot I'll be standing on, but because my skin is barely attached to me I'm not actually able to do that. My skin does not come off the floor with my feet and body, resulting in a very painful pull. I either have to hop or step first, which gives an opponent advance notice of my next move, saps a goodly bit of energy, and changes my center of gravity away from what it needs to be for the kick.
Next, I aim. The kicking hip comes up (and hopefully stays connected), followed by the knee and then the swing of the foot. At this point the ankle I'm standing on usually subluxates, followed by the knee and/or hip. That is painful, but more frightening, because it can be so painful to land on a dislocated hip that I cry out in fear or pain, which breaks my heart.
If I complete the kick I have to find a way to land and right my body. This is the hardest part because, by this point, my standing leg is no longer where I planted it when I began the kick. Think fast: I have to figure out which bones are still under me and try to re-stack anything that didn't stay put. This looks and feels something like jumping down from the kick as though I were hopping down from a high shelf or counter. I never land gracefully and it almost always hurts! Tonight it didn't: I've been working very hard on my hip and balance.
Skip perfection, he says. I am terribly far from ever worrying about perfection, but that does nest me in the position to just have fun with it--and I do! That must make me lucky, because I kicked my heart out!
As I continued I discovered that my stamina has improved, and so has my temperature tolerance. My balance continues to be a struggle because I have weird proprioception (that's the word for the body's ability to know where it is and where its limbs are in space, and where it's going). I working on it.
Spectacular night. Chillaxed, easy-going but firmly pushing through. My Sensei is very versatile, I think he could squeeze orange juice from granite if he needed to. He has a seemingly bottomless well of practices and ideas for how to help us all get a little stronger, a little more accurate, a little more graceful. I envy his toolbox of leadership. Moreover, I appreciate his warmth, humor, and the sweetness about him when he watches his students like a lion watches over his pride.
I write so highly of my Sensei that it seems almost sublimated or unrealistic. One would argue, and he certainly does, that he is just human. Of course we all make mistakes. But I have yet to bring a concern to his attention, no matter how small, that was not heard with love and compassion. What more is there? The truth is that he is an experienced and educated teacher of karate and I am always caught off guard by how much more drawn to the art I become when he is teaching. Therefore, I think it's okay to write of him as he appears to me. We all have our faulty lives outside of the dojo but while we are there we are safe from those things, and we have the freedom to choose what is best about ourselves and flex those strengths for a little while. A man whose life work is dedicated to such improvements in people is a sterling treasure in this world.
At night I usually leave the dojo fired up and excited about going home to practice some more. Tonight I was satisfied with my work in class, comfortable with my body's progress, and finally peaceful enough in my head to let it rest. After a month of diligent physiotherapy to restore my hip it was nice to rest.
You may be wondering, if EDS is so bad and so dangerous as I say it is during karate, why do I practice martial arts? It's because those injuries happen anyway. The pain is a constant companion. A few times a week I get to let go of it and know that I can do more with my body than I have ever been able to do in the past. To discover one's strengths requires exploration. It's constant discovery in karate. Sometimes I don't like what I find, but usually I do. We did something like 500 kicks in class last night. I remember the three or four that went exactly the way I had wanted them to go. That's why I bother.
Be well.
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