Randori Dumplings

Today I said, I'm going to the dojo with the intention of connecting with my own body and telling myself is okay to feel it even if what I will feel is pain.

And I did!  I almost barfed a million times but I didn't, and that's impressive.  I know it worries my classmates when I stagger out doubled over, but they trust me when I say I'm okay.  I appreciate their concern.  I don't want to gross everyone out by saying, "Just trying not to vomit, I'm good so far!"  I thought three hours would be enough of a break between eating and working out but now that it's warmer out I'll have to rethink that.

Injury: We practiced randori tonight, which is slow-motion, continuous sparring.  We have to let the opponent finish a move if they are successfully carrying something out, and it's good for learning to take a hit.  My opponent is very good, my belt level.  We crashed our knees into one another and it caused enough pain to drop me to the floor!  Sensei asked if it was dislocated and it was not, but it had dislocated a half-dozen times during warm-up, so I was impressed that it was in place.  He said it'll hurt tomorrow, that I should ice it tonight, and I certainly will.  Yowza!

Hazard: 

Make sure the gym bag is stocked with enough nausea meds and supplies!  Caramba!

Still, I was able to get up and continue sparring.  That meant a lot to me.  I'm getting stronger and stronger.  Part of that is a matter of learning my limits and working around them.

New skill: When we were sparring Sensei reminded me to keep my hands up and guard my face.  I've been working hard on that.  He also said he wants to see me perform more mae geri and less mawashi geri.  I lose my balance on mae geri, which surprises me.  I have something to practice now.  I'm learning to slow down and lower my kicks until my balance is better, then I raise them higher and it feels like I'm starting at zero.  I'm probably not starting at zero, though.

Ahh, karate keeps me sane.

Put Down the Pace

I will look for some information on pacing myself. In the beginners' class this morning, something like 80 mae geri and mawashi geri is too many geri. My spine is toast and now I'm missing my own class.

Today's Sensei is doing a great job with conditioning. She explained that if you have to do a lot of one particular move it is important to keep your pace, but that you can lower your intensity for a few reps so that you can catch your breath, relieve your muscles and go back to full power. I find that this approach gives me a chance to work smaller muscle groups during the lighter times.

I'm having a tough morning. This will be my last anniversary before getting divorced. I had it in my head last night while I couldn't sleep that it was going to be nice to kick the hell out of nothing (i.e., the air) but because we were conditioning we got to use pads. It seems I kicked much harder than I should have because my whole spine is mad about it. This is so hard to deal with. I wonder when the nightmare will end, and that's useless, because it will never end. I promised my life to her and it takes two people to keep a promise, so that promise will not be kept. It will always be a room in hell and it isn't easy to get used to the heat. It's okay with me that I went a little hard on the kicks this morning but it will be nice if I can cultivate more self-awareness and self-control by this time next year.

It will help lessen both the physical and emotional pain if I make this a goal so I will aim for it. Shifting my attention will be a healthy way to redirect the energy. I don't know how I will take care of the pain in the meantime, so that will be a task of humility, being humble enough to ask loved ones for help and being string enough to turn the other cheek to  criticism.

Pardon my language but divorce is fucking brutal.  My dojo is really saving my buns right now.

500 Imperfect Kicks

"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.