Long Thin Legs

Amidst review of our kata, Reed Sensei reminded me that I needed to go lower in some of my stances.  It's no doubt a direct result of the people around me that I don't appear to be even trying.  The folks who've been doing the cat stance since they were ten years old appear to defy gravity with the depth they can achieve while in comparison I look like I'm barely bending a knee.  

It's not like I'm not aware of it, but it bugs me that I'm unable to really get deep enough to even look vaguely capable.  As I've gotten older I'm hyper aware that I'm losing muscle mass.  To add insult injury, without meaning to, Reed said I really need to hit the stance low and beautiful because of my long, thin legs.  Ouch!

The old joke in the gym was, "what are the four meanest words said by a loved one?"  You're arms look smaller.  

I know I'm vain, but over the years I don't have the physique to even pull that off to myself anymore, but I winch over the simplest comments.  How weak am I?  When I was younger I wanted to be a body-builder because I was skinny all through my adolescence and I worked hard at it through my twenties.  Now that I'm in my fifties I look at the weights in the rack and have a hard time developing the energy to even pick up the light ones.  I can barely stand to watch my hard won muscles decay before my eyes, but the amount of work I do around the house doesn't really leave time for me to indulge myself in that kind of activity.  Thank god for karate.

Anyway, the gist of my melancholy was that after the comment from Reed we were doing deep fudodachis (sp?) and even though my thighs were parallel to the ground I noticed that I do have long, thin legs.  No hint of muscle.  Sigh.

One item of note is that we made it through Rohai Shodan which was a big deal for me since it's the second to last kata I needed to learn.  I can't totally remember it but we'll be working on it for the semester and that'll help me quite a bit.