Sunday, January 5, 2014

Why The Goju Ryu Karate Style Works For Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Read the warning!

I practice Goju Ryu karate. It's close-up work (no hyperextension) that focuses more on personal development than on combat. However, both components exist and the discipline is not naive to the fact that everyone on earth has limitations.

As karate is a tool for self-defense I started studying it because I appear an easy target with a cane, crutches or my wheelchair, especially since all of those can be taken away and used against me. However, a kick with an aluminum unloader leg brace on or a rake across the face with silver ring splints makes me feel much more empowered.

THIS IS THE WARNING!: THESE AND ALL DEFENSE TECHNIQUES TAKE PRACTICE AND SUPERVISION UNDER A MASTER. ONCE YOU ENGAGE SOMEONE IN A FIGHT IT WILL NOT END UNTIL ONE OF YOU IS SUBDUED OR DEAD. EXPECT TO SPEAK WITH AUTHORITIES AND UNDERGO INVESTIGATION. IF YOU WRONGLY HURT SOMEONE NEITHER THE LAW NOR THE DOJO WILL PROTECT YOU.

Always act with the least amount of effort required to neutralize the situation and end the conflict. The best way to win is not to get into a fight at all!

That said, my dojo works tirelessly with me until we have adapted moves that maximize my strengths and protect my weaknesses. It's the most satisfying interaction I have ever had with my body, which is much more powerful and amazing than I ever thought it could be. I am no longer quite so easy a target.

Well beyond that higher sense of self-efficacy (but not too high!) is the growing sense of intellectual and emotional stability I gain from practicing Goju Ryu Karate. As long as I continue to live within the precepts of humility and self-awareness, as defined by my dojo, IOGKF, my personal belief systems, my education and my medical team, I conquer my daily perceptions of what a limit looks like, which matters more overall than a hypothetical fight with an unknown assailant.

If I've ever agreed with the axiom, "you are your own worst enemy," it has been in the times when I have felt most hopeless about what my life might be worth as my health cycles from manageable to intolerable. The consistency of Goju Ryu practice is not within my body because my health is inconsistent in all ways. Rather, the consistency of Goju Ryu  practice is in my mind, my resolution to be aware of the very moment I am in, for every movement to be saturated with effort. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome requires the same dedication, a best effort no matter how corrupt and unfair the fight. How blessed I am, to have this fusion, amid all the other fusions I can expect to have in a lifetime....

Don't get me wrong: EDS is hell in the dojo.  It's bloody, vomity, sweaty, clammy, fragile, slimy, oozy, and other disgusting, undesirable things.  I throw up almost every time I practice, or at least walk around refluxing for the rest of the night after practice. But I have only been practicing for a year. I am still discovering what limits are real and must be respected, as well as what limits are perceptual and wanting for care. 

There are times when I go all out, feeling like I should at least get to have a little fun if my body is a sinking ship. Sometimes it works, sometimes I'm on the couch for the next four days. But that's a conscious decision I make, and I pay for an hour of freedom by giving my body the rest it demands in-kind. Those "couch days" happen anyway, but at least I get something out of it this way.

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