Push The Bag

We do an exercise with the little kids where they have to push the bags. We adults hold kick shields in front of us, the kids have to push us up and down the dojo. When they "get stuck" (i.e., we resist), we encourage them and laugh with them, or gently cajole them, whatever they need. When we make huge progress (i.e., we take several steps backward so they feel like they got a really strong push) we celebrate and congratulate.

Push The Bag one of the more time-consuming activities, but it's easily one of my faves because we are encouraging them the whole time, no matter what happens.

We encourage one another in the dojo no matter what happens. It just so happens that during Push The Bag we get to do a whole lot of it, one-on-one, which really improves our relationship with that one child. It's special to me.

Nothing big and profound today to write about, just this nice thing.

Teach Their Children Well

On Saturdays, when I am able, I work with the children at our dojo. Someday they will inherit the earth. I have an opportunity to do a small part in helping them grow to be their best. As Senpai, senior karate students, make ourselves ready to support the children with whatever they need. We support each other and work together when things come up. Sometimes it's a seamless transition. Other days it's a little grittier to get through. We never complain or show disappointment because we respect the children as we do ourselves and one another.

We don't learn about our students by their challenges, or even by their strengths. We learn about our students by who they are as people. We learn about our students by their names, by their interests, by the activities they like doing, by the things they're working on. Students of all ages have needs of all kinds. Some are the Autism Spectrum. Some pronate, others supinate, meaning their feet turn inward or outward. Students with ADD or ADHD move constantly. Other students with anxiety hardly move at all. Students with physical disabilities move a little more slowly or rush to get through. Students with intellectual disabilities may slide by undetected because they have excellent behaviour.

Someday I will be knowledgeable enough to be the Lead Senpai. Sensei is trusting us with the development of children in his charge. He is also trusting us with the majority of his income, his business, his livelihood. I am trusting myself to lead the children with a sense of healthy detachment, but constant presence. I well up with tears when they do well and I tell them so. Of course I do, I love them. I have so much love to give and this is an outlet for it, but it's not enough to fill the void.

Working with the children is the most mentally challenging way for me to participate in karate. Not only do I have to be on my game, but I also have to stow away the overwhelming grief that comes with helping other people's children, knowing at some point they will go home to their parents and families, but I've no child of my own. If I carry children it's a 50-50 shot that they'll inherit Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I have ethical concerns about both carrying and not carrying, and I'm on the fence. Sometimes the pain of this truth hits me so hard that I have to excuse myself to go and cry in my car. The emotional wave usually hits when I am also sick. At some point with running around I get sick and start blacking out from cyclic episodes of Dysautonomia/POTS and erratic blood pressure. As the nausea creeps up and my visual field goes in and out I remember that I'm sick, my heart sinking as I bow and walk away from the kids on the floor to recover out of sight. If I can't see straight I have to stop because I also can't hear at all in the dojo. It's a heavy thing.

How does it get so heavy on my heart? It would be better to focus on the children, on their needs, and on their strengths. My personal issues do not belong in the dojo, they should be checked at the door, tucked into the cubby with my shoes and car keys. Every Saturday, though, I come home with an ache like my heart is trying to hold up a dead piece of itself, trying not to miss a beat as I move on to the next activity. Every Saturday afternoon I spend a period of time in tearful prayer for those kids, in grief over the children I haven't got. I give thanks to God that I was well enough to help the kids and I pray to St. Jude for the children I can't help. I pray to St. Anthony to help me find the hope that I'll move through whatever lies ahead for me, children or no children. I pray for the resilience to accept my lot and move forward. But man, is it heavy: it is a brick I cannot seem to lift and assimilate into the wall of life experiences.

Saturday is a time of personal development for me, but I'm spinning my wheels because I had been expecting a family by the end of 2013. My first-born would have been 2 by now--walking, wiping snot on things, learning phonics, learning social skills. Instead I grieve like we had actually gotten to the point of conception and we'd lost it. (We were a little over a month from starting the process when my wife left). I grieve like there was a baby, not just a plan for a baby. I grieve at the memory of all the videos we'd made for the baby about how we really wanted it, how we looked forward to it, what our life was like before the baby. I just grieve. It's a deep ache. I've been able to let go of my marriage, but the baby is a cold and frozen feeling that won't be shaken or even soothed. The personal development is in learning to accept that pain, learning to not let it knock me over, learning to not let it influence my work with the children at the dojo.

It would be much easier and far less painful to work with the adults, but the dojo needs more help with the children, and avoiding the problem does not solve it. So, I try to see Saturday as an opportunity to grow and find peace with it. I don't think there's anything harder I do in life than try to get through Saturday.

If I had children I'd struggle to hear them or they'd need to sign. I'd be tired and they'd have to play with each other. They'd have to care for each other when I'm sick. They could be or get sick themselves. But they'd have so much love. They'd have support, education, hope, faith, strength, and integrity. They'd be creative. They'd be loved, and they'd love themselves. They'd work hard at everything they do, including karate. They'd be just like the children at the dojo.

Saturdays are the hardest days of the week for my emotions to navigate.

Maximum Utilization

He must know how it feels to sit out and watch other people have fun because Sensei never lets me feel left out when I am benched from pain or fatigue.  After spending the weekend in bed with no energy and wicked pain I was determined to make it through a workday and get to the dojo. I made it, but the pain was still high, and Sensei directed me to stay and observe from the bench this class.  The way he makes decisions on how I can learn successfully is so careful and full of regard that I never feel alone or excluded by his direction.  Rather, I feel that his decisions are deliberate and that there is good reason.

It was nearly impossible to stay on the bench, it's just too painful to sit up.  For the time I could endure it I enjoyed watching fellow karateka warm up and practice.  Everything looks different from the bench, I can see everybody working individually to improve, but helping out the people nearby, too.  We are all watching to see if our classmates are doing okay.  There is a purity about the dojo in the way we watch out for one another, and it feels *really* good to be a part of that, to use the word "we.'

I got to see the moves of some people whom I never really get to observe, and I learn a lot by watching the movements of people who are not hypermobile.  I see where everyone stops, where feet and knees go, how heads move and do not move.  The lines are straighter in some places and movements are more relaxed in others.  Every gi fits differently and belts sit higher on some people than others.  Most notably, Sensei's eyes are everywhere.  In fact, so is the rest of his body.  He literally watches every single student.  I don't know how he does it, and I got a taste of that effort tonight.

During the day I work as a rehabilitation technologist.  I also write accessible curricula and teach.  Teaching is not my favourite thing to do but by some grace I have a knack for it.  Something in me wholly believes that people can become ever-better, and that we all have a responsibility to help one another improve.  When I started karate (a year ago, this coming Wednesday!) I relied heavily on the instruction of my Sensei, on an obsessive amount of my own research, and from other karateka who had been practicing for longer.  They showed me blocks and strikes, stances, breathing, angles, all kinds of great stuff, and I was grateful.  Sensei helped me put it all together and adapt where I needed to. 

On night like this when I'm hurting too much I also ache in my heart because I would rather be doing karate.  If it meant no more pain I would train in karate all day and night, every day.  So even though I learn a lot from the bench I would have preferred to have been in class, as anyone would have.  But I am grateful to have gotten out of the house before cabin fever set in, so I thought of the bench as one step closer to being back in action, and I wasn't giving that up!  It's a good thing I didn't, because another very special thing happened tonight.

"Get in here, you can do this," Sensei said.  He pointed out two fairly new students and told me to work with them in the back of the dojo on geki sai dai ichi, our first kata in the curriculum.  He was right!  I couldn't sit for long, so I would be standing.  I couldn't practice full-throttle, but I could move enough to demonstrate!  He found possibility in what I could do, and created an opportunity for me to do it!  I had a blast teaching those two karateka, and they were better when we finished! 

There's an old saying: "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach."  Teaching is something I can very well do, and tonight it felt better to teach than it ever has in my life.   When I'm sick or weak I feel useless. It's a torrent of sadness and anger, frustration and loneliness.  But to take just a little bit of movement that I  had and make it helpful for somebody else was awfully special.  I remember now that I need to maximize what I am capable of doing, to help others, as I am helped up by others.

Since this is my own experience, I'm going to add this personal note because it is heavy on my heart all the same: I wish my wife had stuck around to have seen this.  My heart still aches so deeply for her after six months that I have relied on karate for life support.  But I wish she were here, and that she hadn't given up on me.  It's a true grace that my dojo has been there for me.  It felt good to give back, to not feel worthless after having been left behind.  The disposition in my fellow students' faces became so much more confident by the time we finished that I was quite satisfied with my effort, and it was worth the extra pain I'm going through now because I got a little excited and practiced a bit more than I should have. :)

Be well.