Shisochin

It's a kata I'm working to understand. And it's BEAUTIFUL! But don't just take my word for it - see for yourself:

According to an excerpt from fellow blogger Dan Djurdjevic's The Academy for Traditional Fighting Arts page:

The standard kanji of Shisochin mean “four directional battle.”  This is said to be an Okinawan attempt to pronounce the Hokkien/Amoy reading of the characters (pronounced "xi xiang zhan" in Mandarin).  Shi/si means "4", so/xiang means "direction" and chin/zhan means "battle."

That makes sense to me. It is very symmetrical form, as you can see that moves pretty evenly in all directions. Not sure if you can tell, but so much of the action in this form is precipitated and finished with/by the hips. Trust me when I tell you that bones are being broken on that imaginary adversary.

My sensei is currently in Okinawa training with Taira Sensei (whom you just watched in the video above). I just thought that was pretty cool and wanted to share :-)

The Kareem Syndrome: Knowing When to Say When

Everyone who has ever competed has lost on occasion. But they'd all probably be lying if they said losing was fun.

I don't always win the three or four times a year I actually compete on the mat. I didn't always in track and field throughout high school and college and I didn't in grade-school baseball or math team, either. I also didn't in all the card and board games played with my family when I was a kid (my dad hardly ever "let" me win), so I should be used to it by now. But, honestly, on the mat when I spar, I've done pretty well. And on the occasions where I've gotten beaten - especially when I've gotten beaten badly - I learned so much about how to think on my feet, how to better use my 41" inseam to my advantage, etc. etc. Because I always learn more from the loses than the wins, I can't really say I have a problem losing.

But I can say that how badly I feel about the loss and how much I learn from it depend on how I lose. As horrible as I feel about being out-classed/out-gunned (as in not-really-in-the-same-league-as-my opponents), I feel even worse when I don't do the best I can on that particular day or when I let my head get in the way, y'know? For me, it usually plays out a little something like this: work for months on particulars ---> map out a specific game plan ----> have said game plan fly out of the window as soon as I bow in ----> get my hiney handed to me ----> spend the next week or so berating myself/wondering why I even compete at all. It's exhausting.

That was my reality after a tourney last month. My kata went horribly wrong and I actually forgot that I had legs when it was time to spar (because I never used them). It. Was. Awful. So much so that whenever a sliver of memory from a piece of my last fight or the kata presentation ran through the grey matter, I let out a grunt and a face/palm (if there were people around) or a little scream (if I was alone or at home). Sometimes it was while on my computer at work, which made my office mates poke their head into my space to see if I was OK. Sometimes it was while I was brushing my teeth or making dinner which made my housemates wonder if I was still sane. Each time I flashed back, it felt like I was right back in the thick of it, stinking up the joint. That was my reality for a solid two weeks. And it sucked. A whole, whole lot.

I lost, and that's fine, but the real me - at her best without the deer in the headlights fear - wishes competitor me would have at least competed better. And I'm most upset that I didn't. (I just screamed again, dang it!)

The benefit of hindsight is knowing now what you should have known then, making it easier to see how you coulda/woulda/shoulda done this, that or the other differently. The craptacular part about it is knowing that you can't change the outcome one freakin' iota.

Yes, every trite but inspirational phrase you could ever think would apply in this case has already been thought about and meditated on: It didn't kill me, so I'll be stronger, I hope. It was a pretty dark place emotionally, so the dawn can't be far behind. I didn't succeed, so I will be trying again at some point, I know. But it still stings and I still feel crappy about it.

But in my introspective month since the tourney, a tiny nugget of truth has been trying to poke through: my competition confidence is really, really shaky, often getting derailed with even the slightest breeze.  It sucks - mostly because I haven't quite figured out how to change that reality. I get so nervous about how I'll possibly be perceived - a relatively new-to-karate, former track person who, at 46, probably should not be out there trying to bounce around on a tricky knee against people who are young enough to be my offspring. It sounds lame as all get out, but there it is. I'm afraid I'll end up looking like Kareem before he retired.

The legendary Sky-Hook

OK, so Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was an NBA phenom long before he dueled Bruce Lee in "The Game of Death." A 7'2" mass of wiry arms and legs, he was best known for his incredible offensive style of play complete with his amazing sky hook. He is the all-time leading NBA scorer who also has six championships and six regular-season MVP awards under his belt - but I can't get the image of his 1989 season out of my mind - because in the last few months of his 20-yr professional career, Kareem looked like time had finally caught up with him. His offense was much weaker than usual and his beloved sky hook just wouldn't fall most times. I remember watching a Lakers game mid-season and thinking "He probably should have retired last year." It was kinda hard to watch and very sad in a way.

Although I might never be as great in the ring as Kareem was on the court, I still don't want to look like my best days are behind me. My biggest confidence shaker and derailer is that I possibly could each time I step into the blue lines that are the ring. It sounds totally stupid, I'm sure, but it's true. But, like I said, what to do about that is the $64,000 question.

Wow. Guess I've licked those wounds to a nice shinny glow, huh? Onward...

Misty, Water-Colored Memories

I remember the first woman I saw in the dojo. She was a green belt, I think - and I was still in sweats and a T-shirt (hadn't even gotten my gi yet). Back then, I was so busy trying to figure out these hand, foot and body movements that I didn't realize I was one of only two adult females in a class of 30 people.

I also remember the first female black belt I ever saw. She was fierce in the dojo but really nice and humble out of it - and I still train with her to this day. Shortly after that, I met another female black belt - a sixth-dan who no longer really trained (although stories about how she had to sneak into the YMCA in a baseball cap to train with the men back in the 70s and how she once knocked out a guy she was sparring with a ball-of-the-foot roundhouse kick to his temple were legendary). So yeah, three women in the span of about four years.

I also remember every time I was made to feel like less than in the dojo because of my sex including:

• How everyone thought it was a cute that the female first black belt I ever met knocked some hardened Marine on his butt his first night on the mat (when she was a teen) after he volunteered to be her uke for a self-defense technique. He was apparently so embarrassed that got up, walked out the door and never came back. 
• Crawling on the floor after class looking for that same black belt's contact lens after some thug of an instructor sent it flying during sparring because she'd taken him to the ground during another training session a few days earlier. His payback was because he was also embarrassed about  being "shown up" by a woman whom he out-ranked.
•  Being shown techniques by an instructor that would, as he put it, keep women from damaging their "freshly manicured" fingernails. 
• Training as a brown belt and having every guy in the room wanting to turn up the dial when it was time to spar because no one wanted to get beaten by a "girl." 
• Hearing a not-so-energetically done technique being described not as weak or inefficient, but as "girly" to the very young woman who had just done it.
•  Witnessing a student with amazing potential be told that she was going to be a great female martial artist someday. 

Frankly, I'm tired of letting it go, ignoring it or assuming the person who said it didn't really mean it "that way." What other way is any of that supposed to be taken, I wonder? - because whether meant as an insult, said as a joke or uttered without ill intent doesn't matter; the result is still the same.

When I meet other female karateka at tournaments or seminars, I feel like we are kindred souls somehow - and they seem to feel the same. We almost always start out by asking and answering the same questions to/from each other: What do you study? How long have you been studying it? How old were you when you started? Is it easy to fit training into your busy life? To me they are students of their respective arts. It still shocks me to realize that in some places, we are thought of as FEMALE students, as if the distinction is a very necessary one. I don't quite get that, truthfully.

We've managed to show that phrases like "Stop acting like a retard!" or "That is so gay!" are so ridiculously insensitive. We've also managed to weed them out of our everyday vernacular as well. Here's hoping we can do the same for anything that ends with "...like a girl!"

10 Rules for Large Tournament Competition

For weeks I'd been prepared for a rather large tournament - and between the anticipation of stepping into the sparring ring again after a six-month absence from competing, working out some kinks in a kata I'd never presented before and figuring out whether to stay overnight between competition days or drive the two hours home, those weeks before were kind of a blur. But before the memory of the one emotional high (getting into my sparring gear not once but THREE times!) and that awfully ugly low (missing the women's kata grand championships because I could not hear the announcer call it even though I was standing smack dab in front of the speaker. I know, I know...) totally fades into the outer recesses of the gray matter, I thought it prudent to jot a few things down so I won't forget them when the next rather large tournament comes around.

Without further ado, I present "Large Tournament Rules for a Successful Competition"

1. Pick a spot to stash your gear so you can go elsewhere to warmup (or just move around a bit) without having to tote all your stuff along. Consider this your home base for the day.
2. Locate the bathrooms early and try to keep home base as close to one as possible. It is inevitable that your efforts to stay hydrated will conclude with a mad dash to the restroom just as your event is announced. If you start near one, it will be easier to get to it, finish quickly and get where you need to be without working yourself into a panic.
3. Find out if the event is run on a timetable without assigned rings or on a flat "Women's 40 -49-yr-old kata in Ring 3 sometime after all the other events assigned in Ring 3 are done" schedule. It matters - especially when it comes to deciding when to warmup and when to eat.
4. Bring food - especially if you are an adult black belt - because you will not compete until near the end of the entire tourney. The bagel and OJ you had for breakfast will be long gone by the time you need to warm-up for your competition.
5. Know how to find the announcer in case the noise from the event makes him/her start sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher, because you will need to know if and when your event has been called.
6. Do not stand up/walk around for the entire day as it drains your energy and can really zap your legs (which you won't realize until you are standing on said zapped legs trying to present your kata). Find a chair or a quiet spot near your home base and use it.
7. As...umm...different as the glitter bos and kamas may look in musical and extreme form competitions, do try to keep your mouth closed while you are watching. You can learn something from the precision of their footwork and timing.
8. People can and do warm up with their 6' bos almost anywhere - so be careful when you get near what looks to be a non-live ring so you don't get whacked in the shins or poked in the gut.
9. Keep your phone or paper and a pen handy. You will run into at least a handful of folks your age who are out there doing what you do. Trust and believe you will strike up or get pulled into a conversation with at least one of them and you might even want to exchange cell numbers or look each other up on FaceBook. You might also forget their names as soon as you pack you gear bag into your car, so writing it down helps.
10. Have fun. Easier said than done - especially when the butterflies start to flutter or the kumite gets a little heated, but worth it in the end. Think about it: if it isn't fun, what's the point?

These rules can apply to smaller tourney competition as well, I suppose. They all become important at different times during the course of the competition day, but the last one is my favorite. Feel free to add some if you'd like :-)

The White Gi Blues

After wearing black gis for eight years for my USA Goju training, I've been wearing a white gi for Goju-ryu for the last five months or so. Where I liked training in a lighter-weight black gi (about 8.5 ounces), the light-weight white ones kinda suck, so the training gi I use now is about 12 ounces.  The one I compete in is even heavier - about 16 ounces - because I like the crisp, kinda stiff look and feel. That is until it comes out of the wash.

What is it about heavyweight white gis that make them ball up like a crumpled sheet of paper after washing? I've tried line drying, drying them totally flat and even tossing them into the regular dryer for a few minutes - only to have very wrinkled mess on my hands when they finally do dry, rendering them totally unwearable until ironing. My 16 oz competition black gi almost never needed ironing, so why do my white ones?

My household iron is barely a pound when it is filled to capacity with water. It is no match for my white gis, which seem to just laugh at my lame efforts. After sweating and straining with my trusty iron for 30 minutes or so, my gi still looks like I slept in it for a few hours (instead of all night, like it did before I ironed). Not cute at all.

A few weeks ago, I finally broke down and took it to my local dry cleaner just to have it pressed. The owner literally sighed when she felt the material. "Wow," she said. "So heavy!" I'm not kidding.

It looked great when she was done, but because it is usually sweat-soaked and stained (because some bit of dirt always, always, ALWAYS finds me when I have it on) after training, I cannot go more than one class without needing to have it washed, which necessitates a trip back to the cleaners, which is getting expensive. I swear, keeping my white gi cleaned and pressed is going to send me straight to the poor house.

Anyone have any ideas for keeping it at least a bit more wrinkle free after washing?

Warriors and Princesses

Came across this great post on FaceBook today - which reminded me of sitting in the audience of my niece's dance recital a month or so ago. She'd done karate for about a year - about the same amount of time she'd been dancing - but dance was starting to become her main focus, which is cool because she really seemed to have a passion for it. "She liked karate, but didn't like karate," her mom told me after she stopped coming to the dojo. Since dancing doesn't require punching, blocking and kicking while learning new footwork and movements, I totally understood. Truth was, she didn't really want to be on the mat all that much anyway.

But during the recital, there was one young girl who didn't seem to want to be on stage at all. About a full foot taller than the rest of the dancers in her group, she was a little thicker than the other girls as well. It's not that she didn't have any grace at all, but her body moved and her face looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but in a glittery pink costume and ballet shoes.

My cousin leaned over and told me that the girl's parents made her participate as a way to stay active and lose weight. I felt so very badly for her! But sadly, I've seen similar movements and that very same look in the dojo as well.

We had a student once who was also taller than everyone else in her age/ability group, including the boys. Her guardian grandparents thought it a good idea to put her in karate to "burn some calories." She had one of the absolute heaviest reverse punches I've ever been hit with (seriously!) as well as a natural affinity for stances, but she never seemed to be into karate all that much. Once she turned 12, nail polish, secret crushes and sleep overs with her besties moved to the top of her priority list which forced karate to take a back seat. She was training only because her grandparents wanted her to.

I can't really fault anyone for starting karate for the great workout (it is the reason I initially stepped onto the mat, truthfully), but it can be an issue, I think, if that's the ONLY reason you're there. Let's face it - not every class will have push-ups/sit-ups/jumping-jacks that make you sweat buckets. If your goal is to get the ol' heart-rate up and keep it there for two hours, kihon and kata may prove to be the things that force you right out of a gi and right into the spinning class down the street.

But maybe the real issue when it comes to the younger set being in gi (or soccer cleats or gymnastic tights or running shoes) has to do with the reason they suit up to begin with. Perhaps some of them are there because something is wrong with their bodies. Or because they or someone close to them thinks there is something wrong with their bodies Those feelings aren't innate - they are learned.

Maybe, instead of telling the girls they are "pretty," "cute" or "hot" we should be telling them they are "kind," "courageous" and "brilliant." Maybe compliments to the women in our lives should be no more about what they look like than they would be to the men in our lives. Maybe everything - even physical stuff done in the dojo - doesn't need a gender role or identifier attached to it.

Last weekend during class, one of my training partners told a 12-year-old greenbelt that the self-defense technique she was working on wasn't really working. What he meant was "I don't see any fire or umph in it." What he said was "It looks too 'girly'." And, yes, I interrupted, telling her the technique, as she'd just completed it, had no GRRRRR. Then I told everyone within earshot (read: the rest of the class) that "girly" was condescending to women because it just isn't possible to degrade something by calling it overly feminine without attacking all that is feminine in the room, which simply ain't fair.

The words we use are important, whether we are critiquing a kata, a child's toy or the color of a vehicle, so it's important to use them in ways that are conducive to all who hear them, IMHO. Even when the bite isn't intentional, it doesn't hurt any less.

Stepping off my soapbox now...

Self-Defense: The Death of Trayvon Martin

The verdict is in: George Zimmerman was found not guilty last night for the murder of Trayvon Martin, a  Black teen who Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman,  admitted he shot one rainy February 2012 night in a gated Florida community as Trayvon walked from a local 7-11 back to the townhome he was staying in with his father. Trayvon had turned 17 only three weeks before. Even though Zimmerman got out of his vehicle to find Trayvon after he took off running through the complex, his defense centered around self-defense, claiming that Trayvon confronted then sucker-punched him, broke his nose and slammed his head onto the concrete, causing him to fear for his life and shoot Trayvon through the heart.

For the record, I think it's a shame that a young man is dead and his shooter will not be held responsible for that. But, as thinking about how poorly the case was tried from an evidence perspective makes me horribly upset (really, the prosecution did a pathetically piss-poor job), I'm doing my best to understand this tragedy from a self-defense perspective.

When I teach self-defense workshops, I take my students through the basic tenants for staying out of the fray - awareness, avoidance, de-escalation and a noisy escape - each based on the assumption that the tenant before it was ineffective or simply not enough. When detailing and describing them to my female students, I always remember an adage I leaned from one of my senseis when I was just a white belt:

Avoid before block.
Block before injure.
Injure before maim.
Maim before kill.
Kill before die.
For all life is precious. 

In other words, there are steps you must take to not only keep from ending up needing to defend yourself, but also to stay out of the nonsense for as long as possible - and that is exactly how I explain those four tenants to my workshop participants.

Based on the reports Zimmerman gave Sanford police during his initial interviews, he was certainly aware that Trayvon was in his neighborhood, looking "suspicious" by walking slowly, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and actually turning to look toward Zimmerman when he seemingly became aware that he was being followed by a strange man in an SUV. But because Zimmerman said he got out of the car to find the "suspect" when Trayvon ran and disappeared, there isn't much in the way to suggest that Zimmerman's goal was avoidance. 

Zimmerman also told police that he thought Trayvon doubled back to confront him (according to Trayvon's friend, Rachel Jeantel, with whom he was on the phone with while walking, she heard Trayvon say "Get off!" moments before the phone went dead). Zimmerman did not tell Trayvon he was a community watchman, nor did he ask Trayvon if he was lost or needed assistance. If he made any other attempts to verbally de-escalate the situation, he did not mention them to the police. Zimmerman claims he was unable to escape because Trayvon knocked him to the ground, straddled him and slammed his head on the sidewalk concrete repeatedly (although Trayvon's body was found in the grass at least 20-ft. away from the sidewalk and at least one eye-witness reported seeing  Zimmerman on top of Trayvon shortly after the shooting - but I digress). Folks living nearby who called 911 to report the disturbance said they heard someone screaming for help and in one recorded call, screams that stop immediately after the single gunshot rang out can be heard in the background. Forensic experts and family members of Trayvon and Zimmerman all disagreed on which of the two could be heard screaming. 

As far as Trayvon goes, he apparently was aware that he was being followed because his friend, Rachel, testified that he told her that he was. She said she told him to run and he did. Whether Trayvon came to Zimmerman or Zimmerman approached him is not clear (Zimmerman's account via videotaped interview from the scene two days after the shooting was inconsistent to say the least), but Zimmerman said that Trayvon asked him why he was following him. A physical confrontation followed and although forensic evidence showed no blood or other DNA of Zimmerman's on Trayvon's hands or clothing at all, Trayvon was shot at virtually point-blank range.

So what went wrong? Many say Trayvon should have just run home after he initially got away from Zimmerman. I don't happen to be totally sure that he didn't try as the evidence doesn't (or can't, since the only person who could have told about that part is unable to share it) show that he could have gotten turned around in the dark or decided to just lay low until the threat disappeared. 

But for me, the real question is this: If Trayvon had an obligation to get away, why didn't Zimmerman as well? How come he wasn't expected to "just go home"? Making Trayvon the one at fault because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time strikes me as so wrong on so many levels. That any Black teen should be thought suspicious for simply walking home is the real tragedy. Or at least, it should be.

Of course a guilty verdict yesterday would not have brought Trayvon back. It would not have ended his parents' pain, stopped Black moms like me from sudden urges to give our sons safety instructions for walking down neighborhood streets, and it certainly wouldn't have washed away comparisons of this tragedy to those of Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Rodney King, Eleanor Bumpurs and so many others, but it might have demonstrated to the world that you can't just shoot an unarmed Black kid through the heart and walk away scott-free. 

I hope there won't ever be a next time, but because I remember that it was 46 days after Trayvon's death before Zimmerman was even arrested, I'm of the mindset that there unfortunately may be. 

And when there is, I'll pray that it won't take so long to try to hold the person who pulled the trigger accountable. I'll pray that insane laws suggesting that being able to legally meet perceived threats with deadly force is forever banned in every US state and territory.

Until then, I'll pray that people start to "get it" and understand that deciding whether or not someone is a threat should not simply default to prejudices and erroneous assumptions about skin color. 

What are your feelings about the shooting, the trial and the verdict? Do they leave you with the same feelings of sadness and disgust as they do me? Please feel free to disagree with what I've outlined - just be aware of how you express that disagreement as I reserve the right to refuse to delete any comments that are blatantly disrespectful or argumentative. 

This is a very sensitive subject for me. Thanks for your understanding...