Shiai Number Two

I have been training every day for a month for this! The dojo is packed with karateka and my roommate is cheering me on from the bench. Sensei is keeping time and Carol is keeping score. The ring is set up and the judges are placed around it.

My name is called and I don't hear it. A fellow karateka taps me to let me know.  My opponent is a karateka with whom I have practiced much. We know each other's bodies and movements, strengths and strike preferences. We have a great match and I win by just one point. She got in some good strikes that I am still feeling. I'm more excited about her progress and fearlessness than about my win. She used to treat me delicately, which may have been her fear of hurting me combined with her natural reluctance to wish to injure anybody at all. A mother and special education teacher, she is an unmistakably tough cookie who carries herself with delicacy and kindness. She is a lot of fun to work with and I know she will beat me someday. I will be glad when that day comes because I will have been a part of her training. She gets me back during practice. :)

My second opponent is someone I really don't know well, but I tied with her husband in kata. He broke the tie and won in the second kata. I have lost to this woman before. Having learned that she is quick, knows how to reserve her energy, and has a good eye for open strike zones, I guard myself. Unfortunately for me I forget to fall back every time I strike and she gets the point on counterstrike. She got a whopper in on me too, which left me gasping for air. I recovered and finished the fight, which makes me proud of myself.  She made a really good punch and I was happy for her.

I took home second place in the shiai, and I have never been more proud of a ribbon. Before this my most proud was third place in a science fair. I've won higher titles but the pride comes from the level of challenge and effort. In no physical activity except physiotherapy have I ever managed to watch myself grow like I have in karate. I was on the tennis team, I swam every day in the summer, and put a lot of boring hours in at the gym. Injury after injury kept me from getting any stronger and I had no choice but to eventually give up. I wasn't getting any better and nobody else believed in me, so I didn't believe in myself.  That's what happens: it takes other people to be successful. At the dojo we all have work to do. We are under stress and have challenges to overcome. We take it one class at a time. Sometimes we take home a ribbon. I did here, and I am very, very satisfied.

The shiai was last night. Tomorrow morning is Spirit Training, where you train so hard that the only thing you have left to carry you out of the dojo is your spirit. Today I have been too weak to do anything, and barely got through a shower. Still, with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome those weak days happen even when you don't do anything athletic. I prefer to have had the amazing memory of having competed in a karate tournament. When I'm laying there on the couch and don't have the freedom to move I really have to work to keep my thoughts positive. It gives me hope that I will be able to at least walk into the dojo tomorrow, whether I sit on the bench and just learn or go for broke and participate. Either way, I feel better having karate in my life for the days when I can do more. Kiai!

I'm In Pain But I'm In

Just like the first four months I was in terrible pain. I took a break to hydrate as I have been working without my IV bag. At that point I made the decision: no more of this today. I going to hurt either way, and today I choose to push through the pain. I will go easy on the moves that hurt and maximize the rest. You know what? It worked.

Sensei gave me plenty of encouragement and accepted when I needed to rest. It makes the difference between my giving up and my getting back in as soon as I can. That's a lot of pressure for one person but I'm glad he takes it on. One day I hope to be able to carry all that ambition myself.

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.

Spirit Problems

"Your spirit will get you out of trouble 90% of the time. If someone is trying to hurt you, give them a *very* hard time. Do not give up for any reason." -Sensei Tony

After having missed two weeks of karate due to health issues I am thrilled to be back in the dojo! A little stiff, but happy. I continued to practice every day and worked on stabilizing my hip, which is back to its usual, less-often schedule of popping out of socket. I still can't balance on it but I can use it for everything else.

My spirit has been a fleeting entity these days. I will have to make a lot of changes to the way I do things if I want my life to improve. It is very hard to do and I miss my wife so much that I barely have any drive to go on living. It's very sad to have a broken heart.

At the dojo we did push-ups on our fingertips, which I certainly cannot do the way everyone else does. Sensei taught me how to adapt: use just one hand of fingertips and use the entire other hand. I felt capable and strong, even though I use the wall to do push-ups. I am always pleasantly surprised when he calls out a strategy to adapt something I struggle to do, but I have no reason to be surprised. Every single person in the class is under his close watch and he is a remarkable instructor. I don't know how he sees what he sees.

Furthermore, I most appreciate Sensei's vision for what I have been calling adaptive martial arts. I'm just as tough as anyone else in my rank and it's because I am able to adapt what is unsafe, maximize what's good and work on what can be improved, all under the watchful eye of a very precious and skilled man.

Humility is a tenet of our practice. Sensei demonstrates humility by insisting that he has done nothing for me, that God is working through him. While that may be true, it is his spirit that has carried me through these hard and lonesome weeks until my health was better. I have leaned heavily on his spirit and probably will continue to do so until my own spirit is able to carry me again. His warmth and friendship continue to fill me up with the comfort and determination that I desperately lack to keep fighting these days. If ever grace were in my life it is here among my dear Sensei, Senpai, and fellow Karateka, who are working just as hard to outgrow their own limitations at all times.

Who would have thought in a million years that I would be practicing karate? Less than a year ago I could hardly stand up and the prior three years I couldn't even stay conscious. I love karate with my whole body and soul. That's a very real blessing and a protective factor, because very few things, if any at this time, speak to both. Even though it is not in our dojokun, there is plenty of room for mercy in our hearts.

Tough Call

I can't decide whether to let my hip heal or go to karate tomorrow. Maybe I can kinesiotape my hands and work on my crutches. Decisions, decisions.

When I miss karate I really *miss* karate. To miss karate because of pain or dislocated joints sends me into a tailspin. On one hand I hear my PT begging me to rest. On the other hand I am terrified of muscle atrophy. The muscle spams are already  intolerable. The uncontrollable cry of pain is the embarrassment, not the pain itself. The pain itself just sucks.

The correct answer is just to go and to try my best.

Day by Day, Como Se Pueda

The worst thing a karateka can do is not practice every day. Just something. Anything. Such was not in the cards for me this week. I spent the week in bed, my only activities centered around getting a little bit of time in at the office and putting myself around compassionate friends to help me cope worth the pain and sick. 

The hardest thing at my sickest times is getting healthy meals in. When I'm feeling well I am able to cook, prepare meals, shop for groceries, and best of all, chew. When I am sick my jaw dislocates, I choke on nothing, don't have hands to feed myself, and you can forget about digestion.

This thing about pursuing an athletic adventure such as karate is that you cannot out-exercise a bad diet. When I get sick I want to eat even more healthy than I usually do (which isn't as healthy as I'd like but isn't far off) so that I can hurry up and get back to the dojo! I want to get back to kicking and punching, participating in every way that I can. But I have yet to beat this challenge.

Sensei would know better than I, but I think that even though I need a lot of adaptations I'm pretty close to everybody else's movements. But when I'm sick for a week like this my body becomes incredibly weak and unstable. It will probably take me a month to get back up to par but I don't even feel better yet. I just forced myself to come to karate this morning because I needed it.

I have come to need karate as a vital part of my existence, part of my identity and self-worth. My whole heart is in it, and when I'm laying alone on the couch I just wish I were practicing karate. But sometimes the pain is so severe that I really cannot make an honest movement without crying out. When that happens I feel really pathetic. Part of this is a conditioned response where, when I was sick as a child my family would tell me to shut up or they would give me something to cry about. The other part is just that I am so strong willed that I become surprised when I can't will myself to ignore the pain and do the physical work that I know is going to keep my body moving successfully.

I really need to figure out methods for getting healthy nutrition when I'm sick and keeping my body somehow active. I worked really hard during the week to learn pain management mindfulness techniques and keep my attitude up. 

Despite my efforts my feelings caught up to me about my wife's desertion. She used to help me through these times and I felt comforted. Now those memories are torture on top of the existing pain, nurturing and whole moments soured by the weakness of a bond she promised me forever. Lately my mind has been so distraught that I haven't been able to focus or produce like I normally do. Couple that with being sick and I naturally long for stability, support and structure, which karate offers.

My Sensei and Senpai are dear, lending encouragement and leadership so I don't get soft when I'm sick. If I can just get to the dojo I will be held to the standards of doing my absolute best, trying everything, and adapting what I cannot safely do.  Today I dislocated my hip while we were kicking and it would not go back in place. I'm actually writing this in the parking lot of the dojo because I don't trust myself to drive until the swelling goes down. A fellow karateka ran out to my car and got my crutches for me so I could get out of the dojo, and it felt very good that I could ask for help. It doesn't feel good to need to ask for help, such is a universal sensation. But it feels good to know that when I need to, I can. I made a joke on my way out the door, that if anybody asks, I made it all the way through class.

It doesn't take much for a body with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome to lose its conditioning. Muscle hypotonia being a primary contender, the spams and laxity were rampant today. Pair that up with the side effects of medication and I have no idea how to cope with my condition. The easy answer is that I can't, and that's why I have a strong support network.

I desperately need to get back to physiotherapy. I had to stop attending when my wife left because of the cost. When I was lying on the couch all week I knew that I was doing myself a disservice by being still, and I just prayed that somehow I would be able to get back to physiotherapy. I really needed someone to help me get moving, and there is nobody now. The way my wife left was abrupt, & I haven't had the chops or the energy to get the support in place that I need in order to live. I'm in a terrible way and if I could just manage the physical pain I think it would help my quality of life significantly. For example, I haven't done laundry in two weeks. You can forget about mowing the lawn. The last time I took a bona fide walk was about a month ago. Its not that I haven't found a million ways to adapt these processes, but when I'm doing it all alone I just cannot apply all those adaptations to all of those functions. They're hard enough for someone able bodied to complete independently.

How do I break the cycle? That has yet to be determined. But for now I'm going back to bed until I feel well enough to hazard a shower.

EDS sucks. No two ways about it.  Karate rocks. More than being the best defense I've found against giving up, it actually raises the bar by giving me an internal reason to face hellacious physical challenges.

I'm glad to be welcome here at the dojo. There is a magical aspect to this place, which reveals itself in its willingness to work with all kinds of people from all walks of life. Knowing I can never repay my Sensei for his generosity and support I am just doing my best and trying to let the pain go through me so I can get right back to the love and excitement of practice.

I use dictation to write these blogs. The number of times my jaw has dislocated is above five. It's time to stop. Be well.

-=-=-
Through discipline, strength and humility
I will strive to bring out the best in myself and others.
I will use common sense before self-defense
And never be abusive or offensive.
I will strive to have patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
-Megumi no Bushido Dojokun

It Must Be Different

I never regret getting up early on Saturday and going to karate.

They have really been a help to me for getting started in karate, but now that I'm in a little bit better shape, and weather is cooler, I've been trying to practice without fluids running during class. I made it once last week and almost made it through today, too. It's nice to feel the freedom of not having my heart tethered to a plastic line and a heavy bag while trying to swing at people. It's just a lot to manage, although it's so wonderful to have fluids that allow me to do things like karate that I'm pretty sure I could cope with it if I never got off of them. It wouldn't be easy, and maybe someday that won't be the case, but right now I'm doing well.

Finally, thanks to a wonderfully dedicated doctor, I have gotten the chronic micro-barfing under control. At karate, when karateka partner up and practice karate in close proximity to one another I become very self conscious because I constantly taste puke.  I don't know if my dragon breath counts as a qualified karate move but I'm sure it could take out someone much larger than I am. I even eat breakfast before class now, which is giving me another positive edge.

Here at the ten-month mark I feel stronger and more sure of my movements, feeling less like I'm going to pass out or vomit, or both, if I dare to try a new move or to go beyond the basic positions. I think everybody goes through this on some level, but for me it has an amplified level of anxiety because throwing up and passing out were such daily occurrences for so long.

If I threw up in class I would be mortified. I know I would be forgiven and I might even get help cleaning it up, but the real embarrassment would be to my own sense of self, my inability to control a vital reflex. That's the crazy thinking though, which needs to be untwisted, because reflexes are not something that we consciously manage. We can use mindfulness and relaxation to take us so far, but the truth is that if the body needs to eliminate, thats what it's going to do.

Having an orange belt puts me at the top of the beginners class. Almost all of the people who have supported me have moved on to the higher levels, and now I see lower level belts going through their own struggles and discoveries. Everybody at the dojo was so sensitive to what I was struggling with, and still is, but I feel that as I observe the new our students than myself I am somehow either less sensitive to them and their challenges, or that I am erroneously comparing my challenges to theirs, looking to feel like I'm not alone, and not really finding that. We all have our challenges to face, and for some reason, though I recognize that my challenges are no less severe than anyone elses, they are comparatively more rare, which gives me a feeling of loneliness. It's difficult to relate to healthy people and their challenges, even though they're not as healthy as they appear to me, but simply healthier than I am.

Using the word healthy in this context, I mean able-bodied. Everybody has aches and pains, especially at eight o'clock in the morning; undoubtedly a fair amount of psychache passes through us all, which may be our most common element in terms of resilience. But the average person does not appear to be concerned about whether their joints will dislocate;  whether their skin with tear open and never heal; whether drinking plenty of water will not be enough to keep them sustained and conscious; whether the air temperature in the room means they should modify every move, making sure that they don't overheat; whether they would have to go around people and weather there would be enough time to go out before leaving to throw up, and so on.

Karate is the best thing I have ever done for myself, and the instruction of karate is one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me. Is the gift of physiology, time, space, safety, and instruction, to learn about this beautiful and complex organism in which I live. This is true for all of us who practice karate and face our limits, so maybe it's not that different after all: the experiences are different but the feelings are the same.