Karate Talk

Another Day of Training

This morning, my husband and I arose at 3:45AM after two hours of sleep and made the pilgrimage to the main dojo for the last morning of Kangeiko.  We hadn't been able to fall asleep early despite our best intentions, so we figured adrenaline would carry us through as long as we needed, and we could come home and collapse when it was all over -- which was pretty much exactly how things went!  It was his first and last day of Kangeiko, and my second.  Turned out that what the body was telling me a few days ago was that it was fighting off quite a nasty bug which flattened me for most of Tuesday and Wednesday, and had me in recovery mode Thursday and Friday.

Last day is always so crowded and there were probably at least 60 people in the dojo this morning.  It's not that roomy of a dojo so space was at a premium!  A good training, combinations followed by semi-free (jiyu kumite) sparring and then some katas.  After the last Kangeiko training on Saturday morning, they hold a kata tournament for the attendees.  Participation is not mandatory, but it's certainly encouraged.  Anyone who reads this blog will know that I have mixed feelings about competition, to put it mildly, and quite possibly my least favorite venue would be in a small dojo with a lot of senseis watching, along with a fair number of spectators, and all of them up close and personal (if I must compete, I much prefer many rings going at once in a large venue, so I can fool myself into thinking that no one is really watching me!).  My husband, on the other hand, is a strong competitor with good confidence in his abilities, so he never worries about looking foolish in those circumstances!

Which makes it somewhat ironic that he had the worst day of competition I've seen him have in well over a year, maybe two years, and I had one of my best.  I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the lack of food, perhaps I should try competing on no sleep with low blood sugar more often?  LOL  yes, I'm joking about repeating it, but I'm not kidding when I say the dojo was actually starting to spin and get a bit fuzzy by the time I went out, despite having eaten half a banana as quickly as I could when I realized how badly I was crashing.  Anyway, I won my first round, and tied twice in my second round with a girl who went on to win the whole thing.  I was also told by multiple people that I performed strongly, good feeling and possibly the most relaxed and confident they've seen me.  I'm amused but pleased, and I get to briefly treasure the rare (for me) feeling of coming out of a tournament knowing that I finally gave a performance that reflects what I do in regular dojo training.

My poor husband, on the other hand, had a bit of a nightmare.  His first round was quite strong, and he won it handily.  Second round, suddenly, he crashed.  Lack of sleep, lack of food, and probably stress from the past week all combined to suddenly knock everything out of him.  His next round katas were flat, the timing and dynamic off, some of the techniques even looked pushed.  You must understand, this is really rare for him.  He also tied twice in that round, as I had, before losing.  His opponent went on to take second.  Normally, this is an opponent that can push him, but not beat him... but, he had a great karate day, my husband had a bad karate day, and that is how it works sometimes!  All due credit to our friend who took second, he's been working really hard and it showed.

Despite the differences in outcome, both my husband and I are motivated by the results.  I am pleased to have performed solidly and gotten some props for it.  He is not pleased to have performed under his abilities, and is determined not to have that happen in the next tournament.  So we will both work harder, with essentially the same goal in mind:  To come out of the next tournament knowing we performed solidly.

We got home around noon, ate lunch, and spent the afternoon asleep.  I'll be calling it an early night tonight, I'm still so tired!  But it was worth it, all of it.  Not because today ended well for me, but just because.  Because it was a good day of training at the end of a week where you focus your attention on karate and on your goals, in and out of the dojo.

The Body Talks

A sudden increase in training, whether it be training harder than usual, more often than usual, or some combination thereof, often leaves the body feeling tired, achy, stiff and sore.

This sensation is not unlike that of being sick.

Allergies can give you a headache, a sore throat, a sniffly nose, and watering itchy eyes.

This sensation is also not unlike that of being sick.

I mention this because I got home from training last night and had all of these symptoms.  In fact, I had so many symptoms that despite two trainings in one day, and despite having arisen at the ungodly hour of 3:45AM, I could not get to sleep.  I tossed, I turned, I whined, I complained, and around 1:00AM I finally slipped into a restless sleep. 

Which helps to explain why, when the alarm went off at 3:45AM this morning, I buried myself under a pillow instead of getting out of bed.  I thought about getting up and going to Kangeiko training, I really did, but while I was thinking about it I fell back asleep, the body taking over and making the decision for me.  No, no, definitely not, said the body.  Not getting up in the cold and dark after 2-1/2 hours of sleep, not driving an hour each way, not training.  What are you, nuts or somethin'?  Debatable whether I can even get up.  You're sick, said the body, you have all the symptoms.  We're gonna stay home and rest.

My mind, at this point, tried to argue that perhaps I was just tired and stiff and tired from keeping unusual hours, and from doubling up on two trainings in one day.  My mind pointed out that I hadn't taken an allergy pill that day.  My mind mentioned that frequently, once the body got up and moved around a bit, it felt much better and might just rethink that Kangeiko training, and wouldn't I feel better about life in general if I went?  The body told the mind to shut up, and it went back to sleep and didn't wake up again until 8:30AM.  The extra sleep, might I add, did not help.  I still ached, was stiff and sore, had a raw throat, my ears were popping, and I had a distinct tendency to whine.

I have been waiting all day to feel better, and it's starting to occur to me that it ain't gonna happen.  It might be argued that I actually feel worse, but I'm trying not to believe that.  I'm still undecided what combination of factors I am dealing with here, if it's simple training aches plus a bad allergy season, or if something more sinister is at work (there's a nasty bug going around). 

It doesn't bode well for how I'll feel at 3:45AM, but the alarm is set nonetheless.  Hey, it's Kangeiko.  I have to at least try.

Happy Karate New Year!

I have just returned home from the first day of Kangeiko.  As usual, I am both energized and tired, happy to have done it, happy to be done.

Our dojo does not have its own Kangeiko, we go to the main dojo an hour away.  Trainings start at 6:00AM, so in order to make it, I have to get up at 3:45AM.  I allow lots of extra time in case there's an accident on the freeway on the way down, or bad weather, and I also want to arrive early enough to get changed and do some warming up before things get too crowded.

It wasn't quite as crowded as usual for first day, and some faces I expected to see weren't there.  I'm both surprised and kind of disappointed by this; some of those people are vying for spots on the regional team, and they live close by.  They don't have any excuse not to be there, and I expect they'll be hearing about their absence!  On the other hand, there were five people from my dojo (including Sensei), and four from another dojo that's also an hour away.  There were several color belt kids, fun to see them there although I would have liked to see some color belt adults too!  Good spirit, good feeling.  Training wasn't overly rigorous -- it's being there and trying that counts.  I am not at all used to training at 6:00AM, and I struggled a bit.  My outraged body did not wish to bend and flex and twist, it wished to be back home in a nice warm bed!  Ah well, it may not have been beautiful, but it counts.  At least I was there.  At least I tried.

I don't know how many Kangeiko trainings I'll make it to this year.  In years past I've sometimes done all of them, sometimes one or two, sometimes none, depending on the circumstances.  That alarm felt awfully early this morning, and it's hard to drag yourself out into the cold and dark.  If you have a busy day planned, it can be hard to fit everything in, especially since we have regular training tonight.  When I've done the whole week, I am so exhausted by the end that after Saturday morning's final Kangeiko, I will go home and sleep the rest of the day.

But I feel great for having gone, and I'm so glad I made the effort.  I really feel that I got something out of it.  My body warmed up eventually and things felt okay, my mind woke up eventually and started functioning properly.  It's always great to see people, especially a sensei and his son who came from Israel to be there, and a former member of this region who moved to Las Vegas but came back just for Kangeiko.  There's a definite communal feeling that goes far beyond the training itself.  We were all encouraged to remember that spirit training isn't just for karate; think of things in regular life that we maybe need to be working on, and set ourselves to work on those this week also.  Walking out of the dojo and heading back home, I really felt up for the challenge.

Kangeiko.  Winter Training.  Spirit Training.  Happy New Year!

The Touch of the Teacher

As I was watching people do kata tonight, I really realized something that I've thought about before in passing, but not really seriously.  The teacher, the sensei, who formulates your basic karate, usually leaves their mark all over your technique for years, if not the rest of your karate life.

There were three black belts and three brown belts in attendance this evening.  Of them all, I was the only one who has trained with this same sensei from my first day in the dojo.  True, I've also trained with other senseis and masters, both routinely and on special occasions.  But I think that it's safe to say that my karate was pretty much shaped by my current instructor.  This is also true for my husband, and when I watch him do karate, sometimes I see Sensei in there so clearly!  In particular, when my husband does back stance (kokutsu dachi), I see our Sensei, who has what I now feel is quite a distinctive back stance.  My husband's back stance has so many characteristics that are similar.

Of the remaining people there, three have trained in Europe, two of them extensively.  Again, I see this influence the most strongly in their back stances, but it also shows through in how they make their knife-hand block technique (shito), and in overall stance length.  This is true even for people who maybe spent a year or two with a European instructor and have since spent much more time in the US; the karate hands that shaped their most basic techniques show through, in ways both small and large.

One of these people did his basic training in a town an hour or so away from me, with an instructor I used to train with once a week.  This man's stances and techniques remind me so much of that dojo and that instructor!  In this case, it's not so easy to determine precisely what it is, it's one hundred little things, but even before I knew he'd started off in that dojo, I thought perhaps he had.

As I thought seriously about that, Sensei reminded us that we have to work so hard to perfect our techniques not only for ourselves, but for the benefit of those who come after.  When we demonstrate to the lower belts, when we assist in teaching, they are watching us.  They learn from us, not just in what we tell them to do explicitly, but by mimicking.

All of these things I have known, and have thought about before.  This time, for the first time, I wondered what other people could see in my karate that would tell a knowledgable person who my main instructor has been.  Would it be my back stance, like in the case of my husband?  Or something else?  I am conscious of mimicking (or trying to mimic!) those that I admire; does the observer ever see any pieces of those people?  How successful have I been in integrating that?

I worked with two little beginner girls during the first class, teaching them their first kata, Heian Shodan.  They learned the first half and are doing quite well, considering it's only their second class.  I was happy with how they picked up what I was trying to teach them.  Now I wonder, what did they learn from me that I wasn't trying to teach?  Was it good or bad?

I enjoy teaching, and hopefully the Instructor Training program is teaching me to do it properly.  Still, I realize that a lot of personal things will show up in my students, less tangible and not things that are covered in the program.  In years to come, if people watch my students, what will they see?  Will they see me in them, and will that be good?

Motivation

Motivation. 

I didn't have any last night.  My day was turned upside down first thing in the morning, and it threw me off balance completely.  Nothing bad, you understand.  It was fun, but it wasn't what I had planned for the day.  I had a very specific plan.  I got, let's see... ya, I got none of it done!

I've been running really tired the past few days and both the husband and I are fighting off a cold.  We aren't sick, exactly, but we've been tired and achy and grumpy.  By the time we got home yesterday, I was wiped out.  I ached, my head was spinning.  I laid down on the couch to rest and hopefully shake it off.  Two hours later, I tried to get up.  It didn't go well.  I was miserably tired, my head weighed about 100 pounds and was just too much effort to lift up.

At the same time, I knew that I had trained when I felt worse, without whining.  I knew that if I went to training, there was a very good chance that I might sweat out, work out, some of what was ailing me.  I'd probably feel better physically.  If nothing else, I could be sure I'd feel good about trying.  I didn't care.  I wanted to cuddle up with the kitties where it was warm and cozy, I didn't want to put on a gi and go out into the cold and have to work hard.  After much going back and forth, the husband and I talked each other into going.  Show good spirit, we said.  We'll feel guilty if we don't go, we said.  We know we can get through class, and while we have excuses for not going, we have no real good reasons.

So we went.  My idea, I'll be honest, was just to survive class.  I wasn't sure how much I had in me, it was definitely going to be a "dog it" kind of night.  Not fitting spirit to go into training with, I admit it, and I'm not proud of it.  But something is better than nothing, and sometimes, just showing up and getting through is about all you can ask.

I had barely gotten to the dojo and gotten my jewelry off when Sensei started calling black belts out to do some katas with the color belts, who recently tested and are learning new katas.  I didn't want to look bad with all those people watching me, after all, they knew I had just passed a test too, so I felt I had to live up to my new rank!  Had to show focus, timing, spirit.  It forced me to overcome my resistance and train like I normally do.  Second class started, and there weren't many of us.  I had trouble with the combos and was getting frustrated, but I figured, I'd started off strong, so I was going to just go ahead and give it all I had, for as long as I could hold out.  I pushed myself, especially as we did katas late in class (Gojushiho Dai at the end of class is just evil!).    As we went home, I was beat.  I was sweating, and tired, and my head was pounding. 

I also felt better than I had all day.  Today I feel... better.  Not great, by any means.  But better.  And very glad that I overcame my own weakness and laziness.

So here's the gist of this post.  I had no motivation of my own.  Try though I might, I just couldn't care yesterday.  I could barely even get myself to the dojo.  Once I got there, though, I got my motivation from the color belts.  I didn't want to be a bad example, I wanted to demonstrate well and motivate them to train hard.  So, my motivation came from my desire to motivate someone else.

Motivation can come from many different places, some of them really unexpected.  Sometimes it comes just from the act of doing.

A New Karate Year

Last night was the first training of 2006 for our dojo.  Schools haven't started up again yet (at least I don't think they have!), and I knew a lot of people would be on vacation, so frankly I wasn't expecting much in terms of turnout.

Boy was I wrong!  We pulled into a parking lot that was full, came in to see that the first class had full attendance plus one new student.  The second class, while not full, had a respectable number of people.  This is a good sign for a good karate year!

It was an interesting training.  Sensei is working on foundations, so we actually did our kihon warmups in hangetsu (half moon) stance.  This inside knee pressure stance is usually easier for me than for a lot of people, and I worked hard at getting good rotation while keeping rooted.  We then did some pretty basic sparring drills and went into kata, starting with Tekki Nidan, kata of the month for this month.

After two weeks off from regular training, I had rested up sore joints and muscles, eaten a lot, and in general refueled my body.  I was therefore surprised at finding myself go jelly legs about 15 minutes before the end of class!  Today I am stiff and sore, much more so than I expected or than I think the training really warranted.  Guess that means I gave it my all, which is good, but obviously I still have a long way to go to regain my former high levels of fitness!  Still, it's a good kind of tired to be, the kind that comes from working hard and pushing yourself physically.  It's a good kind of stiff to be as well, since the muscle sets that I'm feeling are the ones I should have been focusing on to do those stances and techniques properly.  It's a good litmus test that I'm performing properly!

As a final comment, it was very odd to stand above someone in the line to bow in and bow out, when they've stood higher than me for some 4 years now.  He tested for Nidan a few months before I did, and then did his Sandan test a few months before me as well.  However, he too got a retest and just hasn't had the time to train as hard as he needs for a retest, so I attained the rank first.  It's quite strange to me because I consider him such a gifted martial artist that it feels not quite right to line up in front of him, or be considered higher rank than he is!  I've always considered that he had an edge on me in skill, and he's trained longer than I have.  Hopefully he'll complete his retest this March, and then I can feel that things are back to the way they should be -- with the two of us more or less equal status in the dojo.

Hope that everyone had a good holiday season and best wishes for a happy new year!