"Watch and Learn" is a Thing

"Watch and Learn" is a thing; I'm a hypocrite if I could do that thing, but then don't.

If you have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and practice Goju Ryu karate, you'll need to practice adapting. I am a star at adapting, with plenty of life experience. What you do on the floor has to work in the street or it's of no use. Observing gives me an opportunity to watch and think about adaptations without trying to stay conscious and upright.   

For both Monday's and today's appointments I did not get medically cleared by my physiotherapists to attend the once-in-a-lifetime Gasshuku (special karate group training) this weekend. The Gasshuku is with 8th Dan Paul Enfield, and it was the right call: my sacrum won't unlock. If I try to use my lower back I'll be very sorry for it later on. Throwing punches without full access to my hips is causing my clavicles and shoulders to sublux. Kicking with a fibula that won't stay in place unless it's taped, or suri-ashi (body shifting) with an ankle that won't stay in place, is not a good idea. All this, right after finally figuring out a way to reduce the blacking out from Dysautonomia. Any one of those things would be reason enough for any rational human being to sit the heck down.

But this is Paul Enfield, the man who brought all four volumes of Higaonna-Sensei's work to document Goju Ryu karate to the English speaking world. Sensei told me to come and observe, and usually I would be able to do that, and happily. PT suggested the same. But I'm deaf in the dojo, so it would be complicated and stepping into the dojo is already so emotionally charged that I can't imagine being isolated in two ways (movement; hearing). That's an error of thinking, though; I am never separated even when I'm just observing because my dojo family goes out of its way to make sure everyone on the floor is included.

I dread sitting out because I put everything I have into physical therapy to get back to karate. It feels like I'll never be done rehabbing, and it's true that I'll never be done with rehab. PT is a permanent aspect of life with EDS. But rehab without karate feels like I'm fighting just to live, and my quality of life feels pretty low since the third bout of sepsis.  I also miss my port and the freedom to roam whenever and wherever I want to go.

It's hard on the psyche to go to the dojo and not physically participate. Sometimes I have to step out to cry, which is fine, but tends to make others worry. "It's just hard," I tell them. And it is. The pain of knowing my body will work against me if I try to use it is agonizing in itself. It's arguably worse than the physical pain, but because the physical pain affects my overall functional level (like being able to use the bathroom), I have to respect the pecking order of matter over mind. 

It won't be forever. Sensei assured me that there will be plenty more Gasshukus. But my heart is in the dojo and I want to be doing karate. No matter how much I read or review while I'm physically rehabbing, it's no replacement for live practice. Not being able to practice also has a detrimental effect on how much I can learn through studying, too.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm upset when I don't need to be, and if I want to be a hypocrite I should stay home and not find ways to adapt what I'm seeing. And yet, I feel pretty rotten. But even when you feel rotten, you should go to karate.

Adaptive Makiwara

At the dojo I like to hit the Makiwara and will happily spend time there honing my punch delivery until someone gets worried that I might get hurt. Of course I'll get hurt, that happens in Makiwara training. But I will also get better at minimizing my effort, maximizing my output, and localizing my target. I would much rather get hurt on the Makiwara than in the street. My Sensei has taught me how to properly strike it, how not to, and to recognize any cues from my body that say it's time to stop. I have promised from day one to do my best to pay attention to my body.

Before I started karate I did a lot of rehab work in physiotherapy, and I also played a lot of Wii Fit Plus. I love that game and wish I had room to play it now. Wii Fit Plus as "Wii-habilitation" helped me lose weight, improve my balance, timing, stamina, and mindset. It's quite the game!

For the past three years I've had to do a lot of rehab for a lot more reasons and I've missed that gamified training. Today I got Fitness Boxing on the Nintendo Switch. Either the synchronicity is off in the accelerometers or I truly have no rhythm. (Sadly, my Joy-Cons have just exhibited "Joy-Con Drift", a problem that requires me to send the unit in for repair.)

With fitness boxing the trainer's avatar lifts her back foot to throw the punch. In Goju Ryu we stay on the ground because that's where we generate our power. The game seemed to have no trouble with my alteration.

Having just left the Rehabilitation Technology field I'm back to being my own only Assistive Technology patient, so it's just as well that I'm finally getting back to karate after a very long time and finding new methods for supplemental training.

There is a grid in the game that shows all the movements it can track: basic body movements and basic punches. We like the basics in our style, I'm happy to stick with those during personal training time.

The hardest part is keeping my legs and hips steady beneath me while I throw the punch. The second hardest part is stopping before my elbows hyperextend or dislocate. I don't have much trouble with my elbows yet and I don't plan to start  now!

Last week an opportunity came up to test my Goju Ryu with an Isshin Ryu karateka. I enjoyed seeing the dynamics of both and just how much power can be generated by a small movement. A simple back fist can be devastating.

Both of my shoulders stay in their sockets most of the time and I haven't had a major shoulder dislocation in several months. If I punch the way I've been taught there should be very little risk of a shoulder dislocation because the power comes from the legs, hips, and back.

As longs as I do it right -- that's the catch.
The more training, the more opportunities to get it right --
that's the work!

This game is a jackpot for the basics of boxing. I wish my stepdad were here to play with me, he was a boxer and would have liked the game. He was very supportive of my karate, too.

We can only do so much, but we can often adapt beyond the limits we first perceive.

Be well.

Tai Sabaki and Shifting Directions

Tai sabaki is a shift but it is not a final destination, you have to keep moving.

PT didn't clear me for karate this week so I'm watching videos of Higaonna-Sensei. My goal is to find one physiotherapy modality that will help me develop the functional muscle movements and stability to perform one thing a little better than before.

My focus has landed on tai sabaki, body shifting, which can also be translated as body management. Defensively, tai sabaki is used to move quickly out of the way and often includes facing a different direction.

Since my last three hospitalizations I've had to dramatically switch directions in my life. Switching directions shifts one's vantage point, which allows for refocusing. In fact, it requires refocusing, if you're going to get anything done. Tai sabaki is a shift but it is not a final destination, you have to keep moving.

The hips drive tai sabaki. The more stable your core, the better the control. Faster, stronger, easier, smarter. Less easily fatigued. More readily engaged.

PT has been incredibly hard and slow to progress. I feel less likely to fall but I'm still too weak to do a number of functional tasks. For instance, I can't go out to buy groceries and then also put them away when I get home. It has to be done in steps with rest in between.

With tai sabaki you have to stay relaxed, "not too busy", as Higaonna-Sensei explains it. If you get anchored down you can't move or change when you need to. My PT is good at changing directions and finding new approaches. It's not easy work to manage my frustration when a task doesn't work out; a quick shift of focus keeps my time in PT productive and developmental, even if it's not the original task I set out to accomplish.

The goal is to get through, not to land a particular punch. That's why you have to be able to shift, and to practice all different kinds of things. A little at a time, all those little efforts add up to the win.

https://youtu.be/8Ru-fQ10c3Q

Recently I had a nurse evaluation, one of many. "Staying alive, is that what your goals are with your doctors right now?" she asked. Yes, that's the primary goal right now. But it's leveling off and the shift is toward recovery and functional goals for Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Karate isn't on the list as a method right now, even though it involves exercise. But that doesn't stop me from asking for clearance to go each week. That's the direction I want to be facing, even if I have to shift now and then.

Anxiety at 2-kyu

I'll be ready when it's time to test or I won't test, but having been 2-kyu for over a year, it's heavy on my mind.

At least once per day I get anxiety about the fact that I'll eventually test for shodan (black belt). I worry about how the test will look, what will need to be adapted, and what Higaonna-Sensei would say about my performance. I tear up thinking about it because I cycle among different ways of looking at it:

1. Everything I adapt will be to something that would work in the street. If it wouldn't work in the street, it's not an adaptation and needs more work, which takes more time.
2. The day my Sensei decided he would take me all the way to black he told me he was going to hold me to the same expectations as everyone else. I trust my Sensei, and he won't let me slide. To let me slide would be to give me a false sense of security, which would put me in real danger.
3. While I can't test to the level that able-bodied people can test, very few people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome ever approach martial arts at all, and I don't know many able-bodied friends who would practice karate if they had the challenges I have.
4. A shodan is just the mark of the most basic self-defense techniques being loosely known. It takes a lifetime for them to be truly undertstood and applied.
5. The real job of the obi (belt) is to hold your gi closed and that's it, so the test shouldn't matter.

Things that make me nervous: I have a terrible time remembering bunkai, and I'm slow on the uptake to learn new techniques, especially complex ones like joint locks or grappling. Class moves fast in the dojo and I don't have opportunities to practice outside of the dojo. Being pretty much deaf on the floor, I'm recently becoming aware of how much incidental learning I miss, and it makes me panic because there aren't many opportunities to follow up. Exhaustion is also a factor that hurts my memory and follow-up. It would be different if I were taking notes, or working with subtitles or an interpreter.

I'm so focused on staying conscious in the dojo, and on managing joint pain and dislocations, that it's hard to concentrate on anything but the next move I have to make. That makes it good for me in that I have to stay in the moment, in tune with my body and with my partner. It's great exercise for my body and a paramount stress buster. But it also keeps me from higher thinking about applications, similarities to other moves, connections with kata, and so on.

It's time to deal with these matters but I'm not sure how to proceed, besides talking to my Sensei about it. Such puzzles aren't new, they've been present since I started karate. But they hit me harder now that I've finally returned to the dojo after a long absence and I am fighting a whole new battle to stay functional, a long war against failing health.

Special Olympics: Cosmic Achievement

I did Florida Special Olympics coaching for Track & Field and Volleyball. I did volunteering in New York for Swimming. SO and Gliding Stars (formerly SABAH) are some of the best athletic endeavours I have ever undertaken.

I will once believed we could figure out a good way to give everyone the exact same opportunities, if only humanity thought hard enough about how to do it.

Having later been diagnosed with a different genetic condition where one mutation unpredictably affects countless characteristics (pleiotropy), I now understand it isn't possible to integrate. There is no contest; nobody who wasn't born with such a steep uphill climb could ever compete with SO athletes. They are extraordinary beyond anything the mainstream could ever conceive. Their accomplishments are cosmic. Therefore, we'll have to settle with treating everyone with respect and human dignity, and if we ever get that far we can look into this again.

Re: Creepy Hug Defenses for Every Woman

There is no one way to say NO. However it's said, it must be abundantly clear, and repeated as many times as it takes. Body language, facial expression, and speech must be in clear agreement.

This video is alarming, as it should be. It's presented in a positive, sterile-white background, but the subject matter is red-light serious. We shouldn't need videos like this; but since we do, here we are, and it begs for discussion on a hundred levels.

Source: GracieBreakdown, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyr9gOtRdJ8

NO takes three steps:

1. Person 1 crosses a physical or social boundary (or almost does).
2. Person 2 indicates NO through clear body language and/or words that point out the boundary.
3. Person 1 adjusts their behaviour accordingly.

Saying NO doesn't have to be loud or aggressive, it needs to be clear.

Whose responsibility is it to teach NO?

Can I live with it if I let him take a feel so I can go on with my day? If I say NO I can protect myself, but without addressing it directly, he may go on to do the same thing to others Can I do anything to stop him, and what will it take out of me to fight that battle?

Saying NO is risky and that sucks.

A woman* may be accused of overreacting, misreading. What's worse, it can be dangerous to say no. That danger may be physical, psychological, social, political, and on. It can cost her job and even her future job prospects, and that sucks. She is forced to choose: would she rather live staving off the psychological impact of covert (or overt) sexual assault? Or, would she prefer to live with the social implications of her NO being ignored, or blown out of proportion, to the detriment of her future, safety, and livelihood? That sucks. That's a shit choice.

In the #MeToo movement women come out of the woodwork once an assailant has been exposed. These women have missed thousands of opportunities to protect themselves and others, until one finally did speak up to expose the abuser, often at the cost of her own reputation and/or livelihood.

NO vs. "Yes, but...." 

Several of the video's defenses lack a transfer of psychological power, a posturing of NO. The examples appear to say, "yes, but", as in, "Yes, we can take a selfie, but you can't touch my butt." This doesn't address the fact that groping is wrong and it allows the social interaction to continue after a deliberate action had to be taken to prevent sexual assault. She protected herself, but if he tried to grope her, he will do it to others.

Having to step backward twice to avoid a hug is unacceptable. In the video she verbalized, "I prefer handshakes" and he stopped, this is another clear NO and a desirable outcome for her, but  

Having to keep elbowing someone's arm so they don't grope you is unacceptable.

The hugger has either ignored or not gotten the message. The onus is on the woman to react in self-defense. If not, she must live with the humiliation or learn to block it out. She must to continue self-defense until it stops by stepping away or verbalizing, "hands off." 

Everyone has limits but not everyone knows what they are. 

Eventually the woman in the video gets fed up and takes the man to the ground. Deciding when and how to react takes practice. Every situation is different and quick thinking is always best aided by prior practice.

These are just some preliminary thoughts, but a thousand more come to mind. 

Know your limits and options before you need them, and hopefully you never will.

Take a self-defense seminar course, even if you don't plan to join a martial arts school. Make decisions when you have time to think them through in a seminar, instead of on the fly in an awkward social situation.

*woman, or man, or anybody in between. As the video intended the audience to be "every woman" I addressed it that way.

Gassho.

The Myth of "Not In My Dojo"

I won't say "it doesn't happen in my dojo" because no one thinks it happens in their dojo. But I will say that we go through specialized preventative training, and that, despite my own hypervigilance on the subject, I have never seen it in my dojo. I hadn't realized it surely happens in martial arts because I have never seen it happen there. I have also been sheltered by having only ever practiced in two schools.

The dark side of karate includes "grooming", the act of establishing a relationship with a child to ultimately enroll them in a sexual or otherwise abusive relationship for the gain of a maleficent adult. 

A child has no basis for comparison. They are completely helpless against a predator. An adult predator might spend years conditioning them to believe that the abuse is natural, necessary, out of love, wholesome, or anything other than disgusting. An adult child of sexual abuse may not recognize that they were abused until well after a statute of limitations let alone be stable enough to go back and face their abusers.

In our school, for example, we have specialized training required to work with children. A large TV shows cameras during all classes and parents are encouraged to watch. In training for work with children we are taught to spend no more than a few seconds on a correction, to stay as hands-off as possible, and to have someone of the same sex as the student tie their belt. (This is not to say that same-sex abuse doesn't happen, but that this precaution apparently minimizes the risk.) The school invites all students, parents, and staff to training events on prevention of human trafficking and sexual abuse, taught by qualified representatives of that field.

As a Catholic I am no stranger to the story of grooming by people in positions of power. The news is filled with discoveries of sexual predation from the church that ruins the lives of its victims and their families for generations.

Hamlet says, "do not spread the compost on the weeds/ [t]o make them ranker" (3.4.171-173). Briefly, he means, don't add trouble to an already bad situation. I don't know how to acknowledge or discuss these unspeakable abuses. Given parts of my own history, I have an added sensitivity which often gets in my way. But I'm trying to make sense of what I can do to get a foothold of this problem. 

When I hear about these abuses it messes with parts of my identity. What can I do as an adult, non-parent, Catholic, survivor, martial artist? What comfort, empowerment, or comment can I offer without adding to the Internet's weeds? Not much thus far: there are no excuses or valid reasons for this, anywhere in the world, ever.

I am seldom without words, and I feel strongly compelled to say something, but I have no idea what to say. Here are some preliminary thoughts, which fall egregiously short:

1. If I see what appears to be child abuse, I absolutely will report it.

2. If I come upon an adult child of abuse, I will believe them and behave compassionately toward them.

3. I will refer to every resource I know to help someone in crisis.

4. I will maintain confidentiality for absolutely as long as it is safe to do so.

5. I will take care of my own self separately.

6. I will not participate in grooming.

7. I will not internalize the guilt or the abuse in the Catholic church--or anywhere in the world--as a failure on my part, but I will accept personal responsibility of taking steps to not contribute to the abuse, and to speak up or stop it when I see it.

8. I will take steps ensure that my time with others is as safe and positive as it can be.

Abuse happens everywhere, and it seems particularly rampant in the church and in sports. I will do my part to be informed and aware.