Battered and Bruised

As I type this (my 50th post, BTW - whoo-hoo!), I've got ice on my Achilles (both of them), a neoprene sleeve on my right hamstring, a heat patch on my lower back and Tiger Balm on my achy left hip. Getting up to go to the kitchen or bathroom - both of which are upstairs from where I'm sitting - is an exercise in pain management. Just thinking about it makes me say "Ouch!"

In my life before karate - when my discipline was track and field and I spent many, many hours a day running in circles (OK, the track is oval shaped, but you get the point), doing plyometric drills, lifting ridiculous weights and jumping over things (my event was the high jump) - my body would cry uncle and tap out like this right before the end of the competitive season, which was around the end of July. For years, the only way I could get my body back on pointe for the next season was to take the month of August completely off - as in no running, lifting or jumping at all. My lungs sounded like a Mack truck when I returned, but my lower body injuries had time to heal, which gave me new wheels, so to speak.

Karate training is intense but in a very different way. I still lift weights and run, but not the same way as I used to when training for track. But still, it's training, which can be kinda rough on the body. Even with proper conditioning, break falls, spinning weapons and blocking/striking things with bare forearms and shins can take their toll over time. Resting the achy muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones is the one sure way to help keep things in good working order.

Yesterday, when I was prepping my body to get out of bed (seriously - I had to flex my ankles a few times to keep the Achilles from screaming at me in protest), I realized that the last time I'd taken more than four days off from training was in June - of 2007! - and that was because I had reconstructive surgery that forced me away from the dojo, treadmill, bike and weight room for almost six weeks.

These days, a month seems like an awfully long time to me. Those last six weeks away almost made me lose my mind! Trust me, had I been physically able to bend over, I probably would have waddled into the dojo with my stitches. I actually did go to class around week four, but I sat in a chair in the back - and it was worse than staying home. It's not a "no pain, no gain" thing at all; I just really hate missing the instruction.

But maybe my body is trying to tell me something.

Do you ever take time away to give your body a chance to rest and re-coup? How frequently? For How long at a stretch? Do you find it difficult to get back into the flow of things?

Shout Out to Gai.Ninja!

Join me in sending some "kick some booty and do the damn thing!" vibes to fellow karateka, blogger and Prince fan extraordinaire Gai.Ninja, who will be grading for shodan tomorrow (or in a few hours as she is literally on the other side of the world from me - living and studying in Japan). Can't be there to physically cheer her on, but I figure through the blog and with your help, we could be there in spirit...

All the best, Ms. F! I'm betting you'll look great in black :-)

If All Else Fails...

My training partner, Ed, says that we martial artists are strange people. We train to learn all we can about our respective arts only to hope that we never, ever have to actually use the techniques we work so hard to understand. We train through sicknesses and most definitely in health. Classes are a given when "richer" is par for the course - you know, when our jobs are secure and finances are sound - but when things get tight (cough* POORER * cough), we do what we can to figure out how the basic necessities - food, clothing, shelter and training fees - can be covered. The masters we train under and with have been studying their respective arts for most of their lives and seem bound and determine to train until their bodies just can't anymore - meaning they are being placed in their coffins or urns. Sounds a lot like a marriage, doesn't it?

And just like any partnership, life on the mat isn't always rainbows and waterfalls; sometimes you give more than you get, do things you don't enjoy or get pushed to - or even past - "the line." In the training hall, that means you may teach more than you learn, tear apart a form you absolutely loathe for a whole class or spar a senior who forces you to step outside of your comfort zone and thoroughly kicks your booty. Hard to look forward to that, huh?

Thursday night in class, Sensei had us pair up, face our partners and slap them in the face. My partner was a 16-yr-old white belt who started training about two months ago. Because my son is also 16, his face is the one I saw every time I reached out to slap my uke. And it most certainly sucked.

But then it was his turn to hit me. In the face. Over and over again. Yeah, temperance was my lesson for the evening as I found out that it's a difficult thing to keep your temper in check when someone is popping you in the face. I'd never been slapped before - and I quickly found that I hated it.

While my cheeks were getting redder and I was trying to ward off the instinct to block the slap, a quote I heard boxer Mike Tyson say once echoed in my mind: "Everyone thinks they can fight - until they get hit."

That, I think, was exactly the point Sensei was trying to make: You have to learn what is it to be hit in order to know what your response will be. A slap in the face doesn't necessarily warrant breaking someone's arm or choking them until they pass out - although it may feel like it while your face is stinging. Sometimes, getting hit, holding your temper and looking like you weren't phased may be all the fighting you need to do.

And trust me when I tell you that, even in the most optimal situation - say, a sparring round or training session where you are on top of your game - you will get hit. As Sensei M used to say, martial arts is not knitting but a live, contact environment. In the controlled setting of the ring or the training hall, your partner isn't trying to knock your lights out - but a "real" situation is a totally different story.

As fellow blogger Charles C. Goodin put it in a recent post, no karate technique is 100% effective 100% of the time. Only avoidance is.

The adage my training partners and I hear at the end of class about it most often is this:
Avoid before block...
Block before injure...
Injure before maim...
Maim before kill...
Kill before die...
For all life is precious.

But notice what it all starts with.

If all else fails, walk (or run!) away - and live to avoid another day.

My $10 Gi!

I bought a new gi at the tournament last weekend - a brand-new, fresh out of the package one for just 10 bucks!

If you've ever shopped online for a karategi, you know that you can find lots of size 000, student weight (seven ounce), white uniforms for that price - but the one I got was a 12oz size five in black - the color used in USA Goju. Usually, the relatively large size and darker color add another $20 to the cost even before shipping, so imagine my happiness when I found the one that would soon be mine on one of the tourney vendor's shelves.

For the longest time, I've trained in 8.5oz gis. I know that heavyweight gis give that amazing "POP!" during kihon and drills, but they end up doubling in weight by the end of class it seems because they soak up so much sweat. Since the 8.5 oz made just enough noise for me, I was perfectly happy until I noticed that my training partners at my new (now year old, LOL) dojo all donned heavy- and even super heavyweight gis. Interested in seeing what all the buzz was about, I saddled up to the Internet one evening with my credit card in hand only to find it wasn't easy to score a heavy-weight gi without a traditional wrap-around drawstring waistband in the pants (I'm kinda partial to elastic waist gi bottoms) - in a black size 5 for less than a small fortune.

Could a $10 gi possibly fit the bill? When I opened the package to try on the pants (because we know that all size 5 gis are not created equal, that's for sure), I found my elastic - and felt like doing a happy dance right in the aisle. Best part was that the pants covered my ankles without making my almost four-feet long legs all but disappear, the jacket fit my shoulders and the sleeve length was comfortable - even though it was stiff and made me walk like a mummy. Heck, even if one sleeve was noticably shorter than the other, I was going to buy it at that point because, well, it was only $10.

My sensei kind of smiled when I told him of my find and showed him my purchase - before mentioning that he'd never heard of that particular brand of uniform and reminding me of the old "you get what you pay for" adage. I only plan on using it to compete and grade in as I will stick to my lighter gis for his brutal two-hour classes. But seriously, if it fell apart after one washing, I think I'd be able to say I got my money's worth, don't you? And did I mention it was only $10?!?

But my gi hunt still may not be over. One of my training partners told me about a new gi by Century designed specifically for women's narrower waists and shoulders. Might have to look into it...

Do you wear a different gi style, type or weight for competitions or gradings than you do for regular class? Are you partial to a particular brand or weight or am I just thinking about this too much?

On the Road Again: Glitter Sticks and Musical Kata

Saturday, two of my female training partners, my sensei and I headed north to our state capital for a tournament. Billed as attracting martial artists from as far away as Canada and the mid-west, there were about 50 different divisions in everything from synchronized group kata and musical forms to creative board/concrete/brick breaking and about 300 competitors total. Although I traveled with my gear bag and competition headgear (I wear a shield for tournament kumite), the second I walked in, I'd totally changed my mind about jumping into the mix.

The biggest reason was because of the price: $60 for one event and $5 for each additional event. That is kinda close to the norm (usually about $50 in this area for two events), but waaaay steep when you consider that in the advanced (brown and black belt) female 35+ age division, there were probably only going to be a handful of competitors, if that many. So, I decided to stow my gear and watch the happenings.

Most of the competitors were from Tae Kwon Do schools. Not that there is anything wrong with TKD, but I think there were uniforms of every color imaginable in the room! Lots of competition glitter as well, mostly on the bo staffs, nunchakas and kama. The Shotokan (one competitor) and Kung Fu (three competitors) karateka donned more traditional uniforms and weapons is all I'm saying, so no hate mail, please, as I love my TKD sisters and brothers!

In the ring my sensei judged, we saw one bloodied nose (from a fluke head-butt), a badly strained hamstring that forced a competitor to withdraw and a knockout from a well-timed kick that was one of the most controlled techniques I've ever seen (no joke!). Of course that was all in the men's 18-34-yr-old divisions. The women's 35+ division had three competitors for kumite (surprise, surprise). Sigh...

I jokingly told one of my training partners that we should organize an all-female tournament in our area soon. She joked back that it would probably last about 10 minutes - and she's probably right. What is it about female martial artists competing in large tournaments? How come there just aren't many of us there?

For those of you who compete, what do you look for in a tournament? Low fees? Traditional vibe? Lots of different styles or just your style represented? Glitter sticks and creative forms? Close to home? Just wondering...

Have Bo, Will Travel

I finally made it to my first kobudo class last week. McCauley Sensei last visited our dojo in April. "Fluent" in Okinawan Goju-Ryu, he took us through the basics of bo reishiki and yoi before teaching us the beginning of kata Kihon no Bo. Thursday night, it was our turn to visit him.

His dojo is about 20 minutes from ours, which is about an hour from my house. Because his class began an hour and a half later than we normally start, he suggested we "warm-up" with a short class at "home" then swing by to work with his students. His is a very traditional dojo (I'm talking rice paper doors, tatami on the floor, etc), but still I didn't expect to see a room full of adults with bos in hand, ready for kobudo when we arrived. When I tell you there were 30 folks of every rank, shape and size imaginable, I'm not exaggerating. Everyone was most gracious and courteous, anxious to assist in any way and equally as eager to learn our names. The hour and a half literally flew by and before we knew it, we'd worked up quite a sweat from bo drills/running through the entire kata about a million times and it was time to formally end class. But my training partner, Peg, Sensei S and I stayed after a bit to chat with McCauley Sensei - who, although tired after teaching for most of the evening, generously presented the kata for us at what is supposed to be its normal cadence. Suffice to say it was a bit faster than we'd been doing it all evening. Now - if I only had another day each week, I'd perhaps be able to squeeze in a kobudo class with McCauley Sensei and his students. That's not too much to ask, right?

The most ironic part of the evening was the name of the dojo: Go No Sen, which means to wait for an opening or respond after being attacked (i.e. you get hit and you hit back). When I taught my first "theory" class at Sensei S's, the lesson and drills I chose focused on the koshi (hips) but the "sens" (go no sen, sen no sen [to strike back at the same time you are attacked - sort of like a simultaneous counter attack] and sen sen no sen [a pre-emptive strike]) were featured prominently throughout.

As my sensei so often reminds me: You can't make this stuff up...

Flowetry

Last night's class featured a special treat: Sensei S's sensei - Kyoshi K! Part amazing practitioner, part comedian, Kyoshi took us through kicking and punching drills as well as kata for three solid hours - but the self-defense intro that preceded all that was incredible. He still chided me for "fighting like a small person" but he recognized that some of the scenarios and add ons to the one-steps (ippon kumite techniques) we'd created on the spot might not work for someone my height (6'2"). Same for my 5'4" training partner - and he let us modify them accordingly, which was really cool.

But I noticed something while we were plowing our way through the ippons with various ukes: the three females in the room seemed to face a little bit more of a challenge when it came to making the techniques flow one into the next. The guys - the two senseis, a black belt (training partner, Ed), a brown belt and a green belt (two of Kyoshi's students) blended those suckers with hardly a hiccup. Although we worked similar add-ons two nights before and do them quite regularly in class, they didn't feel quite as familiar to me as they seemed to for the guys. Perhaps the fact that I've never been in a physical confrontation before except for sparring in the dojo or in competition had something to do with it?

Guys, it seems, kinda grow up tackling, wrestling or play-fighting. Constantly! I remember when my son was about three or so, his four-year-old cousin came over for a play date once and about two seconds after they said their hellos, they started wrestling. They slipped into it so naturally that is almost looked liked they'd coordinated a plan to play fight until they were sweaty and tired well beforehand. It was interesting to watch - especially since my son's female cousins never did anything like that when they got together for play dates. There doesn't quite seem to be a female equivalent to grabbing each other around the neck and wrestling each other to the ground. Eventually, the boys separated and played with Matchbox cars or something, but I still remember their impromptu match - 13 years later - like it happened yesterday.

A few weeks ago, my cousin, Mick, who is very much like a brother to me as we are close in age and hung around each other a lot as kids, came downstate for a visit (he lives in Rochester). Our family went out to dinner after church and while sitting in Chili's, his mom leaned over and asked him about an old scar he had near his eye. He said he'd gotten it way back in college when he was in a skirmish with a few guys. Five of them, he said, attacked him at once. He is quite a quiet and unassuming guy so it was sort of shocking that he'd been in an actual fight that drew actual blood once upon a time. Most every guy I know has been in a fight at some point in their lives. Not one of my female friends or relatives can say the same.

So perhaps things like reaction times and movements that don't look so forced or unnatural are easier for guys because many of them have actually been in real-life "block of get out of the way" situations before. Like most of my female training partners, I don't really have a strong reference point for that. My real-life "block or get out of the way" scenarios have only come in the dojo while facing an uke who is throwing a technique from a side he/she's already told me will be used. In other words, I usually know what's coming, where it's coming from and how hard/soft it will be arriving. My reactions are sort of rustily learned on the fly at age 43 - perhaps the same reactions that many of my male training partners started learning when they were three or so.

Getting the techniques to flow one into the next, I'm finding, is a bit more complicated for the ladies than the guys make it look.