Depression Stuff

My Buddy Colin Wee who runs Traditional Tae Kwon Do in Perth, Australia is an enterprising guy by anyone's standard.  So I was pleased when he approached me and several other martial arts folks to create some articles so that he could explore areas and how they relate.  I chose depression as a theme because of the issues I've been dealing with parents.  Below is the article I wrote for him and here is his.

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Depression, Symptoms And Its Treatment From the Martial Arts Perspective

Generally speaking, we all have ups and downs throughout the day, week, and season.  Most folks are not usually aware of the moods that pass by if they are fleeting and mild. We tend to become aware of our emotional state when it starts impacting our quality of life.  Because of cultural influence, this article focuses on the Western male.  I can’t speak to other cultures but I can imagine in most patriarchal ones the emotional response is similar.

Although the polar opposite of depression is mania, we’ll focus on depression because it’s generally considered to be the more impactful of the two.  That’s not to say that intense periods of mania aren’t destructive in their own way, but for the most part, it’s not generally considered bad during the initial stages.

In contrast, depression has noticeable symptomology that can be sometimes confused with a physical problem.  Some symptoms can be a lack of energy, an inability to empathize with others, lack of appetite and disrupted sleep patterns.  

Depression traditionally comes from one of three sources; environmental, physical or psychological.  For people living in the North, the environmental effects of being in a situation where there is little to no light for long portions of the year can cause depression.  Physical causes are usually attributed to head injury, but other neurological problems can cause the same symptoms.  The final cause is psychological.  The traditional reason is that there is an issue that is avoided, so it  manifests in some form.  In many cases, this turns out to be depression.

The ability to treat depression can be very difficult. Traditional therapies include medication and therapy.  The therapy is conversation based analysis and can often take a long time for the patient to develop insight into the cause.  If the patient is introduced into the process through doctors visit, the first thing that’s evaluated is the amount of sleep and activity the person has.  If they are seen as a deficit in these areas, the doctors will prescribe medications to allow for sleep at the very least.  Currently, those who have been diagnosed with depression will also be referred to therapy.

Another difficulty using a talking analysis is that a majority of men in Western culture have some degree of difficulty describing their emotions.  It’s not only not having the self-knowledge and vocabulary that slow the process, but culture itself teaches the male (and some females) to suppress outward displays of emotion seen as negative from a very early age.

A common example is the response to ease the pain of a child.  The child is placated and often told to be quiet. There is nothing wrong with that, but the trait strays into a possibly dysfunctional area when the suppression of the child’s emotional responses are continually reinforced.  Examples of this might be, “suck it up” or “boys don’t cry.”  

The counseling experience becomes difficult when the male has to learn to express emotions and emotional states that have been closed off since childhood. The counselor is challenged when the patient can only provide the response, “I’m sad.”  While the client takes the time to learn to emote and explore his emotions, the depressive cycle will continue.  Thus feedback on the counseling experience will be less than satisfactory.

If the patient (in this case the person experiencing medium to significant depression) can physically motivate themselves, activity is used to help moderate symptoms.  The use of exercise is preferred to encourage the person to resume a healthy sleep cycle.  The more the person has a habitual physical routine the better they are going to do during the recovery, which will shorten the process by lessening the symptomology.  

Here is where martial arts excel in the treatment of symptoms.  Running, bicycling, swimming and lifting weights are great for a person, but in each case, when a plateau is reached, the time to spend thinking gets longer and longer. If a person is healthy, then this time is productive in the sense that they have time to sort and process.  If they are not healthy, this time is where cyclical, negative spirals in thought patterns tend to foment.

Martial arts, on the other hand, provide much of the same activity of the other sports, but adds a feature, the requirement to be present mentally.  It’s a rare thing where the practitioner can participate in regular class work and think about much else.  In schools with more conflict based practice, there is little more to focus on than what is occurring at the moment.

The depression sufferer can find a few hours of solace from symptoms and in time can realize a positive feedback cycle in time.  The more practice the better they are going to feel.

In time, depending on the severity of the depression and the ability of the sufferer to address its cause, the lessening of symptoms will continue.  However, it should be known that the path to recovery is always studded with set backs and pitfalls.  The constant to this process should always be regular physical activity.  The course of treatment may be irregular and even when the counselor and client believe they've come to a logical conclusion, further visits may be required to address emerging issues.

The best thing about a good martial arts school is the sense of shared activity and a feeling of a second family. Taking advantage of that environment to shore up one's emotional state is always recommended.  

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Potatoe Fist was a marriage and family counselor for ten years.  He doesn't miss it all.  He went into IT for a good reason.  Thank god for all the beatings he took in his old school to help him through the hard times.

Potty Mouth

As I become more relaxed around the young students I find my behavior becomes more collaborative instead of instructive.  This is not necessarily the best approach and I find after the fact that I should cut down on the funny faces and jokes.  If I could keep it together I think the lesson would go better.  I just seem unable to manage that.  

Last night I was assigned a brown belt to run through his black belt test work.  He'll be tested in September and he's got a lot to get squared away before he's ready for his test. He's self motivated, but having time with the more experienced instructors would be a lot better than me.  I can only judge kata and point out improvements, but the techniques are still a bit mysterious to me.  He's got two months.  Tick Tock.

After about half the class I was give to the ten year old girl, Miya.  Her karate is very solid and she's earnest about her practice.  However, she vexes me with specific questions instead of just doing.  It's good for me because it makes me focus on those specifics and it also allows me to tell what I do and don't know.  

Eventually Louie joined us.  He is also earnest and has fairly good karate relatively speaking.  He's six or seven, but seems to pick up things very quickly and shows good skill so far.  As we progressed through our lesson, and this is where I'm attacking him, I noticed several men in the gym area connected to the studio where looking at us quizzically.  I was shooting a kick and punch at a six year old who is maybe an eighth of my weight who responded with a kiyai and punch to my gut.  

I experienced a moment of embarrassment because it totally looked like a giant trying to beat some kid.  I mumbled to the kids how I looked like a dumbass.  Miya gently reminded me that I shouldn't use profanity around kids.  I was a bit chagrined and apologized and we moved on.  Of course after class I had to make light of my slip with the adults.  

"You're an A - S- S."  Holy cow I'm less mature than the kids in my class.

Two Big Birds

I've been studying Haku Cho for about three weeks now.  Although it's not overly complicated there are fine tuning items to get squared away.  For me it's been the hands and keeping my fingers together.  Last night I got started on the second of these "bird" katas.  This is Haku Cho Dai. 

The somewhat humorous story Reed tells me is that the first kata looks as though the learner went to class and only learned the first part.  The second resembles the first, but it turns around and returns to the staring point like every other kata. 

It's not actually true because the katas are different enough that there would be no mistaking either, but the pattern is definitely the same.  I think that can be said about most katas though.  Anyway, this one is long in physical space.  I'm lucky enough to have a long living room and my wife begrudgingly allows me a chunk of it for kata, but the Dai takes up all the space available. 

We didn't have too many adults in class on Monday night, but instead of working with the kids I was put in the corner to work on Haku Cho.  I was then introduced to Dai and fumbled through the first half.  After I started getting some comfort I got a few of the girls to work on Pinan Godan.  For the most part it went well, but in time the complaint of "my legs hurt" and other classics started.  Mind you this was after a speech from Reed talking about exactly this kind of thing.  Sigh.  I guess it's a constant battle. 

After class was just me and the Sensei's Reed and Daniel.  The heat was pretty intense, but we opened the garage door for the small amount of breeze.  We completed the whole kata and went over the details as much as possible in the time I had. 

I let them know how much I appreciated their time, but they just shrugged it off.  I can only assume that teaching gives them a lot of pleasure, but after I left they went about working on their own things.  How many hours must they put into this? 

Sweep The Legs!

After the last bunch of visitors had passed through the house and the obligations had been met, I can go to Karate with a minimum of guilt.  Of course while we were gone on a weekend trip my wife was busy prepping plans for ripping out another rooms walls.  So my fun time has dried up fairly quickly.

Thankfully she doesn't pressure me too much on Mondays and Wednesdays.  I think she understands I need to get my exercise and attitude adjustment as much as I can.

Last night was fight night.  Which means that Sensei Reed is getting the kids closer to sparring on a regular basis.  However, the class is relatively light on adults at the moment so he ended up managing the three ring circus while I helped our only brown belt work on her test.  We got through most of the bunkai (30!) which ends up with a few sweeps.  As an Uke (the attacker and loser) I mostly throw a punch and get beat up.  The sweeps aren't usually a big deal but I took my falls on hardwood.  This morning I'm definitely feeling it on my one hip. 

Reed then set up three rings and each of us had to judge.  I have to admit it's the cutest fighting I've ever seen, but I feel crappy having one kid lose and take it personally.  We got through three or four three point matches before the end of class.  The kids were all pretty stoked afterwards so I would count that as a win.

After class we worked on my Pinan Godan.  Then we worked on the five bunkai (it's like two-step sparring).  Senseis Daniel and Reed would rotate with me to iron out the techniques so that we can teach them in the future.  The fifth is my favorite because it contains a double foot sweep.  The front one and then drop into a spinning sweep for the rear leg.  I doubt I could do it very quickly in real life, but it would be awesome to see used by someone quick.

Curriculum

During my black belt confirmation trip to Yakima, Reed Sensei and the others went to great length to talk about the upcoming year.  This was to develop the curriculum to match the other schools in the region and pitch ideas back and forth.  Through a lot of stories I've heard all kinds of the passive-aggressive behavior that the schools have had with one another, but for the most part they want to be on the same page.  However, having a head master who might not be absolutely consistent from time to time creates friction.

An example in Kata.  He tells one school hands are this way and another school that way.  When testing happens one school fails all the tests because their hands are wrong. How is the local instructor supposed to deal with this?  He teaches his students the other version and then they go back.  As you can guess this might create some feelings. 

To contend with this students are taught to expect flaky judgement at tests.  Not fair, but that's the way life is I guess.  Thankfully color belt tests are all done locally so that's all consistent with the local curriculum. 

So after long conversations with the new regional head guy everybody is on the same page about what katas are supposed to be learned.  Another area of contention, but everyone is on the same page.  We'll see how this ends up in a year.  The black belts all had to rapidly learn a relatively simple kata, pinan godan, and get ready to teach it to everyone in bites. 

This process started last night.  Thankfully, this first portion of the kata is fairly simple and the kids were able to absorb it.  We worked on that for half the class, but as the only other black belt I was instructing the kids again.  The little bit of delight in that was that one of the little girls didn't want to touch the boy across from her.  For their age group and skill level we will often have them touch hands so they know how far they need to be for the work.  These two would get farther and farther apart.  Hah! 

The second half of class was spent working on kata with a brown and green belt.  We didn't get to clean too much up, but the practice was nice. 

I ended up missing the second hour due to work.  Sigh.  I'm definitely not advancing at this point.  This summer is going to be a challenge to remain consistent.

Two Senseis And The Cramps

"That's the name of my band.  You've probably never heard of them."
The tongue and cheek comment of many young musicians who like to quote that line in the Rose city seemed appropriate today.  The ridiculous, but fun situations I end up being in made the perfect band title.

Our regular class was a play day because of Celebration on Monday.  In the beginning of class Sensei said, "you can play or you can train."  His wife and I ended up training on the same kata for the whole hour.  It was fairly well needed in my case, just because I hadn't seen regular training in a few weeks.  His wife hadn't even been taught the kata.  So it worked out for the both of us.

I will say this, the children realllyyyy enjoyed their time.  I've never seen 45 minutes been so animated, and loud.

After class was brutally hot in the garage, but I got Daniel and Reed as teachers.  I needed to complete my learning of Pinan Godan.  I'd had the first half down, but needed the last couple of moves.  A simple kata with complex moves.  I suppose they are all that way, but we are supposed to be starting to teach the color belts for the next year so I needed to know what I was doing. 

This year they are going to see if breaking the kata down into digestible sections will work better.  Each section will be taught with it's bunkai in an effort to get the understanding of what's going on increased.  I have to admit I liked doing it that way quite a bit.  The more esoteric movements suddenly have a foundation.

I got  home pleasantly tired, but as I was failing asleep I got a tremendous cramp in the my left foot.  As I brought my foot up to try to massage it my in thigh muscle (maybe the groin?) cramped as well.  The pain had me fall out of bed and try to sort out what position would create relief.  My wife mumbled in her sleep, "straighten your leg."  Which is normally good advice, but as I got to my feet I couldn't stand on the effected foot.  I worried that I had pulled a muscle and walked/drug my foot on my way to the bathroom.

Within a few minutes the muscles unknotted themselves and I was able to lie back down and go to sleep.  Thankfully when I woke this morning I was totally fine!  I'm breathing a sigh of relief.  That leg/thigh cramp was the first of it's kind for me and I was concerned it did some serious. 

Teacher To The Stars

I'm trying to be better at recalling the schedule Sensei has set for class, but because we are getting ready for Celebration (quarterly testing in other words) the content of class has been devoted to getting the under-belts ready. 

Sensei thought he was going to be late and wanted me to start the class, but he showed a little bit early.  I'd spent a couple of minutes practicing the bow-in and didn't realize my part was just Hajime mas.  "Begin we will,"  in English.

Before class Mark gave me a "thank you for training with me" gift!  He's a fine artist so I was fairly pleased but felt dorky since I don't have anything for him.  My wife was happy because that's going to go up on a wall somewhere. 

Since we had time we ended up practicing bo kata and then Pinan Godan or as much as we could recall.

Class started and I knew where it was going to go before we even bowed in.  Time to teach the girls. Sigh.  However, I was only given Niva and without her cousin it was like a breath of fresh air.  She paid attention and didn't get distracted!  I felt like a real teacher!

After about twenty minutes I was working on some self-defense with a group of four kids.  That went fairly well, but spacing and timing went poorly.  Again, it was pretty good considering the newness of the students.

A whole class of teaching!  Who would have thought.

Relativity

A big part of my life is wrapped up around people visiting during the summer months.  Our home in the Rose city is pretty big so having visitors has become a fairly regular.  This summer we have exactly no weekends free.  Our current visitors are my cousin and her family from PA and that's been pretty great.  I don't have a sister and she's pretty much the closest thing I've got in that case and I also get along pretty well with her husband.

While they get out and tour around I try to see what my schedule looks like and what I can fit in.  Thankfully I was able to go to the first hour of karate last night.  I thought we were going to be doing a false celebration to get the students ready, and I was partially correct.  I was given to the brown belts and told to run through their test.  We had forty-five minutes and I didn't think that was going to work.  The Black-belt exam is pretty extensive and usually takes an hour at the very least. 

However, I was given some unique instruction. Don't chit chat, and keep the flow.  Don't stop to critique.  With that we flew through a lot of the material, but they suffered in a few spots.  Their kata was fine, but remembering the sheer volume of bunkai bogged them down in a few spots.  When they didn't know something I had to move them to the next component.  I'd say they knew ninety percent of the material, but I got them through the whole test in forty-five minutes. 

My wife asked later if they would have passed.  "Oh hell no," I replied.  They've got four months or so to be ready.

Class ranks have swelled and remained fairly consistent.  We've usually got ten children regularly and now have a returning black-belt, Anthony, so the class can be up to 18 members at times. 

Maybe Wednesday I'll get a little more time to work out since the family will be out on tour.  I think my wife already has plans for labor tonight.

Random Stuff

I'm not sure I forgot to post in the last week or so, but the slew of summer visitors has now arrived and my attendance is a bit spotty as a result.  

Tonight was still warm, but Mark and I were there early and worked on the staff kata for a bit.  Thankfully Kyle showed up and helped with a lot of the basic work, but I was already sweating by the time we bowed in.  

We had a long and interesting warmup.  By that I mean that we were introduced to push ups and crunches.  We don't normally do this stuff, so it was a nice change of pace, but he wanted the young students to know about it for the future. 

I ended up working with four kids on downward blocks for quite some time.  Normally I hate that kind of thing, but all four are very dedicated and serious so the time flew by.  

We finished up doing a little back and forth with Nifanshi Oyo.  My two kids knew it pretty well and took instruction very well.

Off topic - I have a sunburn.  My skin feels very tight and it's of course very sensitive.  Ironically going to Karate made me feel better in the sense that sweating and moving seemed to loosen things up.

On an another totally unrelated issue.  My Mom's dementia seems to be kept in check for the last couple of weeks, but she told me that when she missed my phone call in the morning she couldn't remember how to hit redial or call me and just sat and cried waiting for me to call back.  That just guts me.  Thankfully Karate was there and I didn't have to think about that for an hour.  Sigh.

Burning All The Way

We lost every bit of Spring this year.  We went from the fifties to the eighties over night and it doesn't look we have any relief in site.  So this means Karate class is going to be insufferable due to the heat. 

Thankfully the club where we hold the class is air conditioned, but it appeared to be labored and just the barest activity brought the sweat out.  I probably wear the lightest of all our gis, but I was dribbling just trying to help a few of the tiny girls work on a kata.  There seems to be a regular ten children coming which is nice for the class, but it means that the old folks don't get to do much in terms of learning new stuff, but we are getting a lot in terms of teaching kids.

As I've grumped before that the kids can be challenging to me.  The two girls I got are cousins and love to laugh and giggle.  They are sweet and relatively nice, but they have a hard time digging into the details.  I'm afraid I'm not much of a teacher for that age group, but I know the kata they are learning so it's off to the races.  After a half hour I was much relieved to be given to Ivanna Sensei.

Ivanna is still in high school and is very quiet, but she's a second degree black belt and knows the material I'll be learning very well.  We reviewed Haku Cho and cleaned up some hand locations and chatted about the bunkai.  I hadn't realized that I needed to learn ten kata for my second degree.  I was under the impression it was five.  Whatever, I learn and move on.

Second hour (afterclass) was off because Daniel Sensei is moving, but Reed offered to go to the park if we wanted to train.  I wanted to train, but it was 92 degrees out.  No thanks. 

I surprised my wife by showing up early so we were able to have a date night on a Monday!

Laughing All The Way

I got in from the East Coast late on Monday.  For those of you that haven't read the past few posts, I had to travel out visit my parents.  Unfortunately my Mother has worsening symptoms around dementia.  It's absolutely the worse and my Father isn't in the best health to help manage around the house.  It's a soul-sucking situation. 

I'm normally very easy to laugh, but with the combo of jet lag and the situation I haven't found anything very light.  Every time I do laugh I feel guilty and so on.

I haven't sleep well for five days, but I know if I didn't get at least some exercise it would be even worse.  I opted going to the first hour knowing it was going to be sparring, but that suited me. 

The only problem is that the kids are so inexperienced that Reed Sensei is trying to get everyone to learn basic etiquette around the ring and how to handle themselves.  He's pretty clever so instead of working on tactics too much he opted to make it a game. 

We got pool noodle swords and had regular matches instead of punching and kicking we were waving around the swords.  I actually caught myself laughing for a really long time, but upon leaving class I was returned to reality.  Yuck.

On a side note we are starting to build a website for the class.  If we get one regular student out of it we will have paid for in one month!

I still have to order my belt with name and school.  Getting a translation out of someone who can actually read and write in Japanese is a bit of challenge.  I'm concerned that I'll get something silly by accident.

And So It Begins

Despite still being a bit wiped out from the weekend I was anxious to get to class to see what was next!  MaryAnn had planted a bug in my ear about the day after you get your sho dan (first degree).  You get to do something else! 

It hadn't dawned upon me that I was actually going to get to practice something else for once.  I've been working on Kyoku Roku Dan and Nifanshi Sho Dan for so a whole year so getting to look at something else was absolutely novel.

Regular class is taking on a new vigor.  A majority of the students are young folks from the ages of 6 to 13.  I think we have eight children most of the time now with new ones appearing all the time.  Last night we got a new kid and I was assigned to him after warmups to work on the basics.  Normally, I don't care for this kind of thing because kids have even less attention span than I do, but he did great.  Probably a half hour of straight work and he got better and better as time went on.  I was very impressed.

My guess is that this is going to be the nature of things for some time.  Work on getting the kids up to their next belt and then work on our own stuff in the background.  It doesn't feel fair since we pay the same amount, but the focus of the school to maintain the current students is very important if we want to ever expand again. 

To that end I hope to start working on a rudimentary website for the class/school.  Reed Sensei's wife is open to the idea and working on a possible e-commerce idea so folks can pay through the site!  Talk about forward thinking.  I was just hoping to have something folks could find if they were searching online.

After class was pretty exciting in that I got to learn a new kata.  Haku Cho is the first of the bird style forms I have to learn for my second degree blackbelt.  The next part of my life is two years of White Crane kata in order to get there.  I'm a big bird!

Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a Kama (little scythes) as well.

Post Confirmation - Shūdokan 140

I'm trying to reflect on the whole year and compress it into one post.  The simple fact is that I'm still processing what happened during the confirmation test and basking in the fact that that piece is done.  

Me and four others went to Yakima Washington to the main school there.  They have a rigid schedule of testing every four months.  We were unsure of the numbers of people testing, so it was some surprise that we found out it was Mark, me and a 12 year old boy doing the confirmation.  The confirmation is done one year after a blackbelt has been awarded, but the certificate has not been written up.  This is a measure to "weed out" folks that can't fully commit to what the belt means.  I gather about one third of the folks that passed the belt test are only the only ones that make it through confirmation.

The test only lasts about an hour, but like clock work we got through all the basics and then messed up during the big application series.  Somewhere on the second run through we got turned around and ended up completing the whole series as if I attacked again.  I was so embarrassed.  

The thing is that the confirmation doesn't come with any penalty connected to it.  So no matter how bad we messed things up we were going to get our certificate.  The point is to show commitment for a year be a good person.  I just felt chagrined that I didn't do the test as well as I could of, but I also feel chagrined that I put so much emotional stake that I felt embarrassed.  Mark was so relaxed about it.  He totally didn't care; he was just glad to be done.  

We spent the rest of the time judging other tests and reviewing the politics of the dojos and what new leadership meant.  Our Shihan is retiring and a leader from a nearby school is taking over.  There really isn't any wrinkles, but the minute details took hours of talking to sort out.  I surprised myself in taking an interest and hoping to participate a bit more in the workings of the dojo.  

I thought I would be more emotional at the ceremony, but I was too overwhelmed trying to figure out what to do and where to go to feel properly grounded in the moment.  I can say that it's better, because open weeping might have been too much.

Tater is second to the right

One Day To Go1

Tomorrow is the big day!  I'm having constantly rotating feelings of excitement and nerves (which I would assume are two sides of the same coin).  The calms I'm experiencing between the nerves allow me to reflect on the fact in scheme of things this isn't that massive a deal for anyone else but me.  All the senseis have pointed out this is confirmation so actual testing is off the table.  In fact clips boards are put down so the judges can sit and watch. 

I hear what they are saying, but my internal mechanisms push me to be the best that I can be.  My ability is a reflection of the training I've received in the last year and a reflection of the teachers that have spent time on me.  To do poorly shows a bad reflection on the teacher and school. 

To be honest I feel pretty good about the whole thing.  Just as long as we have plenty of time to warm up I think we'll be pretty good to go.  Mark and I look pretty good after three run-throughs. 

Case in point - we spent a majority of the class running through the test and identifying any quick issues we could change in the next day.   So by the after class we'd done the run-through about two times.  During the after class we had another technical run of the test.  We did fairly well, but had two sticking points which drive me bananas.  However, the judges said it was fine and we should do fine. 

The intriguing advice was to keep thinking about two moves ahead and not so much on the current one.  I guess trust that when we are in action we do great, but if we start thinking we have a tendency to catch ourselves.  Durp!

To add to the excitement of the big day MaryAnn told me that when they went to get hotel rooms there was only one left.  A fact that I told them two weeks ago.  Now they are all going to share a room, so I feel like I should share my room to ease the crowding, but I got the room so I could have my own space.  Ah well, for the good of the order I suppose.  But, it sure is some poor planning for a group of folks that's done this for years.  I guess it's rare that the hotel is ever booked up.  It's not like we are going to have a lot time to hang out though.  I gather the whole evening can last till 1am, so we'll head to bed and crash and then get up and do it again the next day for the under belt testing. 

I took the day off tomorrow so I can sleep in. I don't want tomorrow to be filled with yawns as the evening plows on. 

Protocol And Behavior

Class whistled by at high speed.  The new norm is all the kids need work on the basics and the ones that have been there are bored in the extreme about the learning process.  Of course that means that Mark and I get selected to help the young kids with the kata we are working on at the moment.  Nifanshi Sho Dan isn't necessarily a complex kata, but it has a lot of detail.  Trying to get 12 folks to pay attention and get most of it right is a bit of a challenge.  Not my best work.

Mark and I warmed up early and got some practice in.  He's exuding a lot of patience and calm, because his blackbelt test was so difficult.  However, he's vexing me because he still forgets two parts.  However, I'm not much better.  I still like to mess up a few spots, but I'm stressed because I don't want to do that.  But as Reed Sensei points out, get ready for when you make the error, because you will.

After class was all about the confirmation and what to do and how to act.  We literally spent the whole time covering all the questions that I could think of.  I was honestly a little thankful for the break.  I'm vaguely sore all over and Reed pointed out that he was very sore.  He's gone all in on training, but it sounds like a classic case of not giving himself enough time to rest.  Every day for hours at a time doesn't sound great, but he's a machine. 

Friday is the big day!

The Run Down

Reed, Daniel, Mark and I met on Saturday and ended up working out for three hours.  I was glad to have the time to work on everything, but I was left amazed that we spent that much time on all sorts of things.  I'm not sure I'm going to remember everything (or much for that matter), but the take away continues to be - you're doing great and you are always going to have something to work on. 

Hand locations, deeper stances, what to do when you forget, etc.  They all littered our conversation the whole time.  And I couldn't believe they were spending all this time on us!  Reed has been working on his test materials for three to six hours a day!  His wife and kids, all of whom are in class, understand this, but I bet he is straining things a bit.  We only have a the remainder of this week to get ready and my blood pressure is up. 

I don't think it's only because of the test, but my family issues are changing on the hour and emotionally robbing me of my ability to be in the present.  Thankfully, Karate keeps me in the present, so I'm hoping tonight's practice goes well. 

The Run Through

Now that Sensei has created a schedule he appears to be sticking with it.  This means that one Wednesday will be self defense and one will be sparring.  The whole class was mostly children so Mark and I popped off to the corner to work on our test.

Previous to class we worked tirelessly on getting rid of bad behaviors and this was pretty good during the class time, but it was a different story later.

After about a half hour Reed asked to help out with directing the kids behavior during the self-defense practices.  It wasn't for me to say, but I thought he was going into some pretty complex moves for fairly small  kids.  For my troubles, the six year old accidentally gave me an elbow to the face and I chomped my tongue.

I was often selected as Uke during the demos and this meant taking falls on the hardwood.  I mean I'm glad he knows that I can do it, but damn after the fourth or fifth fall I thought I'd said something to piss him off.  Part of the setup was a grab at the shoulder and his hands were taking handfuls of my skin.  When I took my top off later I could already see the black and blues starting.  That's going to look stellar tomorrow.

So that wore me down pretty well, but it was off to after class.  They had us run through a practice test.  We had four judges and then made us do everything twice to make it a bit more difficult.  I was wheezing horribly at midpoint, but we made it through.  Without going into too much detail about the corrections (because at this point it's become ad nauseam) the main point I came up with is to keep my mouth shut and try to recover as smoothly as possible after an error.

Today's practice was from 3:45 to 7:30.  I still have to pick my wife up at the airport at 10pm.  I see a short, hard night of sleep tonight.

10 Days To Go!

"So how do you feel about things?", asked Reed Sensei.

"If you asked me a year ago that I'd even have any of this vaguely looking like I knew what I was doing, I would have said you're probably crazy.  That being said, I'm pretty darn happy that everything looks fairly good after a year of hard work.  My biggest concern being that I recover from an error without looking too bad," I replied.

Not the most auspicious conversation, but it was illustrative of where I'm at in the process.  Normally Reed will simply state, "You are doing great and could do the test no problem; I just like to see things more refined".  He no longer says that, but asks how I feel about my progress.  

Mark likes to point out that that Reed will try to refine our moves up to two days before the test.  At that point he says, "you are good to go".  That got me a chuckle, because Reed could always find something to address, but he knows at a certain point we just aren't going to be able to much more.  Frankly, I'm still fascinated that he's spotting stuff that I've actually forgotten and have had to re-add.  

I finished my on-call week on Friday, but didn't get any additional practice this weekend.  Which is a shame, but at the same time I need a break from it.  I'm definitely at the point where the repetition is becoming onerous.  I'll be glad to be doing something a bit different. 

So I returned to the regular class last night and it was back to the schedule.  However after warmup was complete Mark and I were directed to run through the test.  I welcome the practice.  Since Mark hasn't been able to practice for nearly a week his rust was showing.  After three runs we looked pretty good.  However, I notice if we do it around six times he starts mixing up portions of the kata.  If I make a mistake we fall apart as well.  

After class we ran through the class with only a few corrections in the kata portion.  Almost no corrections in the bunkai and then it was on to the applications.  We had a few hiccups, but the second time we looked pretty good!  

Now to make hotel reservations! 
 

Uke

Daniel and Reed are getting together whenever they can so they can knock of Reed's requirements for his test. I believe he's going for his 5th degree?  He has to show 10 kata and create bunkai for all of it.  Very exciting stuff. 

We meet at the garage again around 5:30 and got started going through my test requirements.  Although there was a lot of notes on the my first kata we were able to get through all the requirements and do some extra refinement before my alarm went off. 

Since I really didn't have anything important to get back to at home I drug my leaving out.  Thus I got to participate in their bunkai contstruction.  Our school requires that the moves from a kata need to show a practical or impractical move to go with them.  Since there is no right or wrong move the imagination of the presenter can make for some interesting interpretation.  

Reed wanted me to work with Daniel so he could see how it looked.  This meant taking a lot of twisting falls.  Since I was warmed up it was enjoyable to be helping, but last night after I got out of the shower I noticed I was pretty stiff.  This morning was not enjoyable getting out of bed.  Urgh.

However, the savagery of the session was what I needed.  The continuing flow of information about my Mom and Dad is like being punched in the gut over and over.  Karate provided a nice escape for several hours.  Coming back to the empty house wasn't great.

Speed Test - 14 Days!

I'm still on call so I was only able to go the after class last night.  Which turned out to be fairly awesome.  Daniel Sensei and I chatted for some time and I realized no one was showing up.  So we ran through my test and I don't recall ever going through things so quickly before.  I was literally wheezing by the time we finished up. 

I hadn't realized that Mark and me have a pace that we go through and we tend to stop and rework things off and on.  Consequently it takes us about 15 to 20 to finish.  I think it took Daniel and I about 10 minutes altogether. 

Reed showed up a little later and ran me through my Kyoku kata.  He originally wanted to run through my whole test, but we ended up reviewing a lot to work on in the kata.  I can't say that I was frustrated, but I sure thought I was doing a bit better than his corrections would indicate. 

Due to the feeling of pressure to get ready, Reed and Daniel are trying to meet as much as possible.  So we'll be meeting again tonight to run through stuff again, but I was unable to practice much.  So hopefully I'll fix a few things tonight.

18 Days To Go

I keep telling myself that I am feeling pretty good about the test coming up.  I've been studying this stuff for a year and Mark and I get through it pretty easily, but there is always errors.  I don't think we've gone through our application song and dance without at least one hiccup.  I had my wife video us but I'm actually dreading looking at it.  We hadn't warmed so we were a mess to be sure.  After about three run throughs we looked okay.  

I'm currently on call so I'm living a weird schedule.  I can't be farther than 20 minutes away from a computer at any given time so going to class is out of bounds, but that's more because if falls before 5 pm.  My real time shift ends at five.  So Mark took pity on me and came out to my place to practice for an hour so I could be close to work.  Although I didn't get any emergencies I was able to get work done during the hour I had to sit here.  

After class was just a run through over and over again of our long application string.  We picked up a few fixes (open hands with closed fingers, and step this way not the other), but by and large we looked pretty good.

I'm glad we are fairly decent because my mind is occupied with all kinds of issues with my Mom.  My wife, who is retired, is heading out to the east coast tonight to be with my parents for a couple of days.  Organizing care and getting insurance to pay for it is a learning experience for everyone.  I'll be going out the weekend after my test.  

Submitted!

It was kind of a big deal last night as I turned in my Black belt paper/thesis.  I went through six revisions and two modest rewrites to come to a grand total of five double spaced pages. What a joke.  I remember suffering through writing my masters thesis and some other big research papers that probably took less time and effort than these five pages.  I mean I love what I wrote, but I'm guessing after it's read once or twice it's going to go in a folder somewhere and influence exactly no one.  My wife enjoyed reading it though and it provoked a few good discussions.

I also turned in my testing fee last week (or farther back), so I'm on track.  I just need to rent a hotel room for the night of testing and I'll be ready to go. 

Reed Sensei wants to put a little structure into class so one Wednesday a month we'll do self defense and another we'll do sparring.  That makes for something to look forward to! 

Mark has returned from a bit of illness and was ready to go.  We practiced before class and got the first half of class to work on some of the test material.  The second half was dedicated to "self defense".  In actuality we worked on our elbow techniques.  The moves are considered something of a Shudokan thing.  I don't think we are doing anything that would be considered earth shattering or unique, but they are "fun" and interesting.  About half way through we went into choking.  We worked on escape and such.  At end of class everyone had red necks and messed up hair.  A sign of a good class.

After class consisted of me and Mark going through the test components.  Lots of fine tuning, but by the time I left we were looking fairly good.  With 21 days to go I think we can still work on being better, but for the first time I'm feeling very good about where we are at.

23 Days To Go (Shūdokan 130)

I like to reserve this blog for writing specifically about class but my regular life is feeling like it's impacting things at the moment.  My Mom started developing Dementia symptoms a few years back and they've been accelerating at an alarming pace lately.  After a bout of sickness that was mishandled by my Dad and her she had to go to the hospital.  Things are in a messy state because my Dad is having troubles making clear headed decisions.  My wife has volunteered to travel to the East coast to help him out while they try to put their affairs into order.

I'm consumed with guilt about not being there, but it's not that I could have done much except fretting and generally pulled my hair out.  It all seems so chaotic with no clear idea of what to do next. 

Last night I was just starting class and got the two little girls (much to my chagrin).  I didn't have much patience anyway, so when my brother called I had to leave class to get the latest details I felt mixed dread and relief.  I ended up talking to him for forty minutes.

I got to go to after class and had Daniel Sensei work on my testing stuff.  Concentrating on the details was a nice way not to think about my problems. 

I guess technically this is my 130th class because Reed and Daniel came over to my house to work out Sunday morning for a couple of hours.  We go one in, but they were able to point out a huge amount of corrections in the simpler of the two kata I have to do.  Being able to make those corrections in the next twenty-three days will be a challenge, but nothing they gave me we was horrible. 

Before they left they started talking about what was next for me.  Mark has apparently told them that he no longer wants to work on testing or a next rank, but simply train.  The wear and tear and/or boredom and repetition was bringing him down.  I have the choice of three schools of style to chose from which is a departure from both their experience.  Apparently, students are not pleased with the next sequence to 2nd degree.  But honestly I don't know any better so I'm fine with whatever they have to offer. 

28 Days

Well, there's no zombies in this post, but I'm under 30 days until confirmation.  When I start thinking about how far I've come I get electric feelings in my hands.  I remember this from my old school when I was just starting to learn stuff.  My feet felt like they were alive with lighting.  It's a bit of a let down to know that it's a by product of adrenaline bursts, but when it happens I feel like Iron Fist for a second.

I went to class with a lot of dread assuming I'd be teaching the girls all class again.  I went really early so Mark and I could practice as much as we could and we got a solid half hour of work in.  I ended up leading the warmups and gritted my teeth when class assignments were handed out.  Low and behold Mark and I were told do the Nifanshi Shodan Oyo!!  I've never been so happy to do repetitive work.  We literally did the same thing for the whole hour.  Reed would come up every couple of minutes and correct some portion that needed some love. 

At one point Mark was lamenting how frustrated he was on such a small kata and why was it taking so much effort to clean up.  I pointed out that within a half hour we'd cleaned up 80% of our errors with no problem.  Honestly, I was feeling the same, but I noticed that we could fix almost everything within one session.  That in itself was tremendous.  To compare, it's taken us a year to learn the basics, relearn the basics and continuously refine.  A half hour is awesome.

After class was more of the same with even more refinement.  Hopefully Mark and I can get together this weekend and get a little practice in, but organizing our schedules is going to be a nightmare. 

31 Days To Go

Blissfully, it appears that we are going to be working on refinement for the rest of the month.  The only problem being that regular class is treated as regular class, so Mark and I don't get time to work on test items then.  To address this Mark and I try to show up as early as we can and get working on the material early. 

In our rush to get going and review material neither of us warmed up at all.  This led to Mark pulling a butt muscle and me twisting my shoulder and neck.  What a couple of idiots.  Although we laughed through it Mark surprised me with the pronouncement that he was probably going to quit after the confirmation test.  Although he said that he was tired of teaching children when he was paying to learn I think the long litany of complaints over the last year have culminated into a feeling that he needs to be a lot more careful with his body.  I'm twelve years younger than he is and I've been thinking the same thing!

That's all in the future, and once we get going on practice all that stuff leaves us behind for the time being.  Reed Sensei has asked us to practice the test each Monday and then work on the bits and pieces that need to be addressed each Wednesday. 

Mark and I howled through the test and needed refinement here and there, but it looks like we'll have enough time to look pretty as we can be for the big show.

We go up on the Friday and test that evening.  We overnight and then we can participate in the Color belt testing the next day, but I imagine Mark and I will head back in the morning.

---

The part of the class that tends to disgruntle Mark is that as Black Belts we are expected to teach as much as we learn.  However, I'm about worthless because I know none of the beginner kata.  So Reed will often teach me very quickly and I'll be directed to teach the youngest children.  Last night I got two 6 year old girls.  About half way through class I was starting to thinking my karma was coming back from something I did long ago. 

However, I would probably complain about whatever he passed my way, but if I have to do it every class session I can definitely channel my inner Mark. 

A Visit From Eli

We rarely get visitors to class due to the time.  We start at 4:15 and a majority of folks probably do these classes around 7 pm in the real world.  So we are a combination of after school and pre-dinner.  If we wanted to expand the student body we'd have to have a better time slot at the health club.

So when someone shows up in a gi that we don't know, it's a moment of excitement to be sure.  I'd forgotten that Reed needed to pick up a final kata before May.  He's going for his next rank (fifth?) and wanted to pick an old friend's brain.  Eli Sensei is from a Shotokan school and had the day to work with Reed and the gang on that one Kata.  

Eli no longer has a school to go to, but has been practicing non-stop since he's been 5 years old.  His background is based in the older, more physically demanding schools of the past.  His hands are an uneven testament to breaking; sporting broken knuckles and uneven surfaces.  With that kind of life I assumed he'd be like the hardened, condescending folks I've met off and on, but this guy is the exact opposite.  He has an incredible sense of humor about the art, himself and everything around him.  When he's doing the kata he's very earnest, but that's where it ends.  I don't think I've even met such a silly man.  Every story is filled with matching faces and usually self-effacing references which in something horrible has happened to him.  

I spent a majority of the class working with the three new kids.  We worked on the first elbow technique ad nauseam, but they didn't complain.  The only thing I had to work on was their family dynamics.  The standard, "you're kicking too hard", "no the other way", and so on.  However, I believe they'll have it down pretty good by the next time they have to do it.

After class Mark and I worked on the "test".  Each time we work together it gets better and better. I stumble here and there and so does he, but it's getting smaller and smaller in the overall scheme of the work.  That's a distinct pleasure.

37 Days To Go

Previous to class Reed Sensei will send out a group text to let us know if we are having an after class in Daniel Sensei's garage, but he'll also let us know if something is up.  Yesterday he included the note that we might be having three new students. 

New students are a small reason to celebrate.  If anything the life blood of the school depends on new people coming to force growth and development.  I think I've been the only new student that's been consistent for the last couple of years which is a shame because injection of new folks here and there have been fun and interesting, but the bottom line is that it means that money isn't really coming in.

Reed has pointed out that he's horrible about advertising or growing the business and Daniel has a marketing background, but seems stalled about what the next step is.  In the past the natural feed for new, young students was via home-schooling gym credits.  After there was some shift in that process the school took a massive hit to membership.  I believe all the kids grew up! 

So our three new students were probably 7 through 10 and seemed keen on learning the basics.  I got them for the first half hour to teach them walking through zenkutzudachi and added some punching.  I gather there interested came from watching the Karate Kid movie.  I wonder how old Ralph Machio is now days?

Just before we were leaving to go to after class I got called out to work.  It was extra frustrating because when I finally got all the information I ended up not being needed.  Thankfully Mark and I both showed up early and practiced before hand and then got to spend the end of the class practicing.  I would like more of course, but we are getting a nice groove going on and I'm feeling a little better each time.  Hopefully Wednesday I can have two hours worth and we can get a lot of practice in then.

I just need my wife to proof my paper and I'll be able to turn that in with the testing fee.  I just don't want to forget that until the last minute.

44 Day To Go

I'm coming off a week of being sick couple with the start of allergy season so my hoped for relief is disappearing before my eyes.  Thankfully, when I'm moving/exercising my runny nose and sneezing dries up.  The only time it became an issue was when Mark held me in an inverted position and my nose would start to run. 

Everyone was in pretty good spirits after a weekend of tournament.  We had relatively good placement for all our players, but most notably was Daniel Sensei picking up first place for weapons.  Reed Sensei might have picked up first place for sparring, but some bureaucratic snafu got him skipped in one of his classes.  However, second place was pretty good I think.

Mark visited a tournament that was fairly local run by the head of Yoshida teriyaki sauce.  I guess it's pretty spectacular.  They fly folks in from Okinawa to run the seminars and the have the top competitors from all over the world come to compete.  There is even money to be won!

I've got 44 days until we go through our confirmation up in Yakima.   Naturally, I want to be the best I can, but I find it very tough to really fine tune a lot of what we are doing.  This is a problem because I don't want to be so burned out on the work that I can't pay attention to detail, but keeping it fresh is tough.

To this end Reed gives us small challenges to keep us in the moment.  Last night it was to count how many times we had a heart guard in one of our katas and then to rate each other on how correctly we are doing it.  I count six, but I'm unsure how well I'm doing it.  Wednesday, Mark will judge me and we'll find out.

Reed said that we were pretty much ready to go, but the month will be all about being as best as we can.  Correcting this and that, but the biggest change is how I do the kata now.  One; one-two, pause.  Giving the kata proper and/or dramatic timing to show control and power.  I so used to just running through it.  This gives it a fresh take. 

---

A week off and post cold I was pretty washed out during the first half hour of class.  After providing critique to others I did kata and was pretty winded.  Hopefully the allergy symptoms will pass in the next month and I'll be well rested. 

Fight Night Review

Pride goes before the fall; or so they say.  I was into my third match and hardly making any points.  Sarah has completely shut me out and Kyle and I had gone to sudden death.  I got one point on Reed because of an error on his side. It was only late into one of the matches that I realized that I wasn't trying anything particularly interesting as a result was paying a price.

As part of the prep for tournament Reed Sensei has been doing a bit more sparring practice.  A big piece of that is strategy.  He said he originally had 57 tricks of the trade, but over the years found that the jab and follow up punch was what got him all of his medals.  So that's what we focus on a lot.

This goes into conflict with so much of what I'd been doing at my old school.  Most often we led with kicks for judging distance, but that doesn't get any points.  So it's that clash of semi reality and sport karate that's so frustrating to me.  However it is fascinating to finally understand what the judges look for and play the old tapes of fights in my head.  I had literally won three of four matches in previous competitions by getting walloped by over enthusiastic competitors, not by any fancy moves on my part. 

I've got a big bruise on one ankle that's going to take a while to heal (a week?), but I didn't break anything so that's good.  Reed caught me on the chin pretty good at one point and I got to see some sparks, but nothing horrible. 

After class was just practicing the application portion over and over again.  This time it was all me as the attacker.  This was my original position and I've become quite rusty so that took a lot of going back over.  We finished up working on the bunkai and cleaning up a lot of stuff. 

I made the decision not to go to the Yakima tournament.  I'm going to be gone the next weekend so I can't give that up and fall behind on work at the house.  Frustrating, but in the end the best choice I could make.

A Tourney

The regional tournament is growing near (March 18th) and Reed and Daniel Sensei are going.  Due to the time and money involved I didn't really think it was a good idea for me, but their enthusiasm is making me question my decision.

The class got converted to a testing laboratory last night.  Mostly it was talking and discussing the classes and weights for the various competitions.  I found out that I'm in the rarified group (Masters) that doesn't have a lot of membership.  45 and older has no weight class nor weapons which I found interesting.  Just sparring and kata. 

The problem with Blackbelt only sparring is that even though I'm a 1st degree, I might be going up against very high ranking folks.  What a joy.  They are most likely sneaky and thoughtful.  Although I'm not to that point yet, I see that I would probably get suckered easily. 

The other part of competition, since it's an open tourney, is that there is no public demonstration of Kyoku kata.  So I'd have to dust off one of the few I know on the side and present that.  So the rest of the class was spent on practicing the kata even if were weren't going.  I have to admit it was a nice change in pace to practice something different and focus on cleaning it up.  So I was back to Wando with Mark and MaryAnn Sensei.  With the three of us at it at the same time we were able to generate a very clean presentation. 

After class was dedicated to practicing the Kyoku application till we were blue in the face.  Since Mark and I have switched sides we have a stuttering approach to the kata.  So I broke each section down to were he couldn't remember a piece and made him do it over and over again.  I thought we looked pretty good, but we when went back to our original sides (where I was the attacker) we fell apart.  I couldn't remember a lot of transitions.  More practice!  Only two months to go!

---

Good stories from past tourneys.  One part of the process is called "entertainment". 

 - A bunch of folks dress in Star Wars stuff, with light sabers, having a sword fight.  A child dressed as Yoda comes in and beats them all.

- An old guy comes in and does a kata and some guy heckles him from the audience.  He ends up coming down and getting beat by the old man.

- Big choreographed fight scenes.

It might be the head Sensei's last tourney.  He's getting a bit older now and this takes a lot of effort.  The 40th anniversary!   

Test Run Through

I think the count till the test is around sixty days.  With that in mind, Reed used the after class to run Mark and I through the test.   

The test consists of:

1. one run through of Kyoku Roku Dan
2. one run trhough of Nifanshi Sho Dan
3. demonstrate all ten bunkai - two times each
4. two run throughs of the KRD application; once as defender and once as attacker.
5. two run throughs of the NSD oyo; once as defender and once as attacker.

After looking fairly well through most of this well completely fell apart on the NSD oyo.  We'd been doing it wrong for so long that it was messing us up.  So that'll have to be retooled.  Just two moves, but we were crappy with that anyway so a relearn is going to take a bit.  The problem is that if we have an issue we need to go directly to Reed to confirm.  The other folks have long forgotten the moves and tend to cement our bad behaviors.  

Reed gave us a sheet of notes, but thankfully a lot of what we did was good, but the stuff we need to work on doesn't seem insurmountable.  In fact this morning I was able to remember one or two points to work on.  

In addition to this confirmation the review committee with ask if we want to add anything.  Assuming we can learn some more stuff we might be showing European blocking or the advance elbow techniques.  Time will tell.

Regular class was a bit of a blur.  I worked with the kids on a new move so we all stumbled through that a bit and then did my kata a bunch of times.  

The countdown is on!

Shūdokan 120!

After a week and half off I was excited to get back to work.  Of course a week and half off means that I'm going to forget a few things and it was apparent right away.  

Mark was at class super early so we went over a lot of basics as quick as we could.  Of course we forgot two areas which mess things up.  The first was in the Oyo for Nifanshi.  We forgot the second kick and then everything just gets messy.  Later we spent a good ten minutes reconstructed the final moves of the Kyouku application.  Not an auspicious return and with about 60 days to go.  Yikes!

I did find out last night that after the confirmation we are allowed to have 6 months of "fun" before returning to the process of learning the 2nd degree material.  I chatted with Daniel about his favorite weapons kata and thought I would request a Kama kata.  I was hoping for something flashy, but it really depends on what they have available or if I can make my own.  I'm not pro, but I'd like to see a lot of twirling.  This guy has a pretty nice one:

I'm getting ahead of myself, but it's fun to look forward.  

I spent most of the class judging the brown's practice their test materials.  They have a huge amount of kata to remember with 40 bunkai.  Yikes!

Tears Of Innocence

My wife and I don't have any children.  It was a combination of choice and circumstance and we're pretty okay with it.  She was a teacher for twenty plus years and acts as a Doula on occasion so she has enjoyed young people around her over the years.  As I've mentioned in past posts, I'm not much of a child person.  As such, my old teacher made sure that I had to teach kids classes for a stretch.  I'm not sure if that was a practical joke on his part or just helping with the whole teaching process.  Maybe both.

In my current school the classes can be incredibly small, so Reed Sensei can cycle through each student and give them individual attention.  However, the class can get just big enough that we should either all be doing the same thing to make it manageable or break into groups with separate teachers.  In the second scenario, available black belts will act as the extra teachers.  

We have a new young fellow (maybe six) named Everett.  He is enthusiastic, but not saddled with hyperactivity like so many others that have passed through.  Reed had me work with him on C-steps, downward blocks and punches.  He did pretty well with that so Reed had him work on the very first kata, which is just downward block and punch.  I was excused to work on my kata, but kept a vague eye on his interaction with Reed.  

Reed exudes some kind of vibe that makes people pay attention and it works with all ages.  It's like earnestness combined with a laser focus,  but it doesn't feel so intense that it's weird, but it helps you/me pay attention.  Anyway, he was working with Everett and then moved on.  The instruction was just to do the beginning of the first kata and repeat that over and over.  

After I got through most of my long kata I noticed that Everett was pretty much in the same place, but I heard some tears gearing up.  The two girls we have in class looked a little disoriented; unsure of what to do.  I finally went over and had a bit a chat.  

The weird part of this interchange was that I would normally hate this kind of thing, but I was drawn to figure out what was causing the problem.  After a few minutes I found out that he was upset because he forgot what he was supposed to do.  After I got him somewhat calm I pointed out that we all forgot, but that's why we practice.  So I worked with him until he relaxed.  

At the end of his class his Dad says, "well, I was going to buy a gi, but I guess we'll see if he wants to come back next time."  Well said Dad.  

---
After class was short for me.  I had a dinner with the neighbors so I could only get in about 30  minutes.  I worked mostly with Daniel Sensei and things went fairly well.  I got to work with Reed for about five minutes; specifically on removing what he calls "quarter movements".  These are the pieces where hands or hips move not in relation to what's going on.  I've had a problem with this in the kata, but hadn't put that in context with the application.  More to focus on!

Mano A Mano

In keeping with my Spanish theme from my last post I thought I'd try start with a bang.  A literal bang.  

Regular class was taken up with Celebration, the seasonal testing for under black belt grading.  For once I was able to concentrate on what was going on because I knew the kata and techniques well enough.  I just had to judge two people in the middle of their brown belts and there were doing all the same techniques, so I was able to compare and contrast.

Just as we were leaving to go to afterclass Reed Sensei said that Daniel wanted to practice sparring because he was leaving to a tournament soon.  The normal spike of adrenaline I normally experience wasn't really happening.  I guess I was tired.  

When I got to the garage, where after class takes place, I was the only person there for about ten minutes.  I stretched out and tried to go over some common attacks and counters that I thought might help me out with Reed.  I've never sparred with Daniel so he was an unknown.  Reed likes to blast in super fast when you show an opening so dealing with that is miserable.  I'm just not anywhere near his speed.

Once I got a little practice out of the way (on my application) we went to sparring. Daniel is a big thinker and not overly aggressive, preferring to be a responsive player.  So I often felt like I was pushing him into a corner, but as I got close he'd strike.  Before we worked out that dynamic we both exploded at the start with right punches and, bang!, both our fists contacted.  I actually had to stop for a minute from the pain - fearing that he broke one or more of my knuckles.  My hand functioned fine, but by the end of the night I had already developed a bruise.  My concern was a boxer's fracture; where the two knuckles over the ring and pinkie fingers are crushed.  Lucky me, this morning doesn't appear to be damaged.  

However, through the course of the evening, I had all kinds of impacts, but didn't really notice them due to sweet, sweet adrenaline.  When I got out of the shower last night I noticed my middle toe was black and bleeding out of the nail.  So I'm not sure it it's broken or just smashed to pieces.  I'm walking very slowly and taking ibuprofen. Definitely not optimal.  Doing kata this morning was terrible and that was only made worst by a terrible night sleep.  Hopefully, this will be good by Monday and I can go about my business in class with minimal degradation.

Las Rodillas Dolor

I'm not sure what I did last night, but half way through the class my knees started sending out alerts related to their dissatisfaction. I presume that I hit a stance incorrectly or got my knee too far forward at some point which filled the rest of the class with punctuated yelps of pain.  

We had a new student in our regular class who was about 6 or 7 and we had Reed Sensei's daughter come back after a month off so the dynamics of the class shifted quite a bit.  I ended up going over Nifanshi Shodan with Charlotte and Neva for quite some time.  After that I worked on Kyoku Roku Dan three or four times with Daniel Sensei correcting different pieces and parts.  

After class I got to practice my weak side of the application about three or four times with a lot of focus on weak spots.  Since Mark was out sick I worked solely with Daniel which meant I was able to really move fairly quickly.  Thankfully he's incredibly patient with me and was totally tolerant about going over my week sections repetitively. 

My knees are better this morning, but still feel a bit janky.  I'm studying Spanish on the side and thought the direct translation of sore knees was hilarious.  The knees sick or sad (that would have been triste, which is funnier).  

Getting Up Is Hard To Do

And in the title I'm not referring to getting out of bed, but that comes with it's own challenges after 40.  I'm referring to getting off the floor after a foot sweep ends up putting you down.  

Before 40 and possibly a few years after I don't recall ever thinking about the process of getting up, but as time trundled on I became aware of the fact that doing a sit up was getting harder and harder.  I've completed several rounds of physical therapy for back problems and have always come out pain free, but as a result of the evaluation I had to give up certain exercises and learn new ones.  I honestly thought I was doing great, but the back thing has a certain way of compensating incorrectly and very subtly.  

My L5 has some issues that have been corrected by exercise and stretching.  Before I addressed it I would get the most exquisitely painful back seizures.  I haven't had one of those in over three or four years.  However, the damage has crept up the spine and now an area higher appears immobilized.  I don't experience pain like with the L5, but I occasionally get a twinge that feels like someone put my finger in an electrical socket.  

Ironically, the subtle nature of the infirmity was helped along by my old school.  We were big on seiza (being seated on your knees with feet crossed in the back).  And to stand from seiza you don't use your hands to stand up.  So over the course of several years anytime I was on the ground (working in the yard or what have you) I'd stand from a seiza like position. 

Fast forward to the last couple of years.  Now that I'm in a school that puts me on my back more and more frequently and the getting up position is never from seiza.  I'm literally flat on my back and I'm not supposed to be rolling on my side and pushing myself up.  I have now been taught now to rock myself up, tuck my leg underneath me, go to a one knee kneeling position, and then up into a zenkutsu-dachi.  I can do this but it doesn't look very smooth.  Kind of like a turtle getting back up, but less elegantly.

So I went to my PT and he gave me some very basic exercises to regain flexibility in my lower back.  I can see the progress when I try to bring my leg up to put on socks and things like that, but to do a sit up remains an activity fraught with pain. I should mention that I do everything I can do keep a healthy gut.  I do daily ab work containing crunches, climbers and hanging knee ups.  So I know my stomach is strong but if I can't get past a certain point, like 1/4 of the way up all the muscles in the world can't move me beyond that point.

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This griping came as a result of class last night.  Mark and I are learning each other's side now and it got a bit smoother after we did it about 10 times.  I'm hellaciously sore from the activity, including my right knee whiched is bruised enough to be sensitive this morning just doing some exercises.  Weeee.