Saturday, September 19, 2020

IOGKF PerĂº Entrenamiento especial

Tomorrow I will train with Goju Ryu friends in Peru and beyond thanks to a generous invitation to show up and do what I can. My Sensei offers me the same generous invitation to class each week.

Peter set me up in his office with a tv, pc, sound bar so it's super loud; a non-slip mat, and a fan. My wheelchair is right outside the door if I need to switch, or I can rest and watch.

I'm emotional about this. Friends I haven't seen in six years haven't forgotten me. I might cry. 

I'm bad at math. Peru is only 1 hour earlier than EST. If I'm right Peru starts at 9am and I start at 8am. And if I'm early, we can do juunbi undo!

But mostly, I will cry. I've lost a lot of function since 2014. So I will play when I can and then I will adapt when I must! My Sensei has helped me grow.

Goju Ryu karate training is very strict. We take deep care in making sure we understand what is being said to us because it can devastate a person if you do the wrong thing.

We all value Higaonna-Sensei and wish him the very best, naturally. What's harder is continuing to organize ways to carry his message into the future with one unified and timeless voice. We will become his voice someday when he goes where we all go, so until then we can continue working to build voices in ourselves that we should choose to share with Higaonna-Sensei and expect he will feel that it is okay for him to rest.

Tomorrow is my first Spanish-language karate class. I am super excited! I'm sure my recognition has become weak, but they still day the moves in Japanese. I'll be okay!

My Sensei told me to go ahead and that tells me there is nothing that can take me down here. I have much to learn and must stay humble.

I am enchanted by Kokubo-Sensei because he's the first person I ever met who was Japanese, speaking Spanish! He also speaks English. Because I am as polyglot he is very fun and exciting to see.

Onegaishimasu.

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Zooming In On My Progress

Online learning is getting to me. In karate tonight over Zoom I tried Sepai kata for the first time. I miss my dojo. It'll be interesting to see how my body tolerates karate with no port and overall reduced activity after the pandemic ends. I look forward to building back up because looking back won't do me any good.

I've been in physiotherapy for a year and a half now since sepsis ended. I've been out of the dojo since before the pandemic hit the United States, where I live.

Learning karate online has been a lot of fun because it's different and I get different things out of it. I can turn the volume way up on my Sensei's voice, for instance, whereas in the dojo I'm almost totally deaf. Learning online I can write notes down and scribble out my questions and their answers. I can rest, add a fan, hydrate, and manage blackouts more easily. The cats are distracting but that's only because I want them to meet my dojo family.

It's frightening that my body has deconditioned in so many ways because of sepsis. My muscle memory is carrying me further than my actual memory in some cases, and in other cases I'm choked up from drawing a blank.

My Sensei is extremely generous with my schedule and my abilities. He has things he wants for me and I have things I want for myself. At the end of the day we're glad to be alive and we have faith that this is the foundation for anything else we can imagine to come true. :)

Sepai, though, which is thought of as the oldest kata, has a lot of moves in it that are new to me. It looks like Sepai bunkai might be easier to perform than the kata itself (at least, kihon bunkai).

I'm frustrated most moments of the day with the pain, which is a lot worse, a lot sooner. Pain control in the U.S. is a strange racket. With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome it is unrealistic to expect that one may ever be completely out of pain. But it is realistic to expect that I can learn to defend myself. I don't need every kata to be lovely. I don't need every bunkai to work. I need to practice and ingrain a few solid techniques that will work for me in different situations against different types of people. I choose to see my life as worth defending. There are many people in my life I wish saw themselves that way, but I can only control myself and invite others to join me in the adventure, in the work. And boy, is it work.

Eventually, everyone gets seasoned at working toward or fighting for something, so long as we do not give up and check out. And even that is another type of fight altogether worth besting.