![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feb. 22nd, 2007
Cleaning the dojo
Feb. 22nd, 2007 11:05 pmIn part of our effort to retrench the budget, I have started cleaning the dojo, bartering the work for part of the cost of karate tuition. (No, I'm not doing it so that I can take lessons again, but just so that the girls can continue. Shut up.) I've been doing it for a couple of months now. Theoretically, the girls and Rob are supposed to help share the work. It doesn't make much sense for the girls to go at night though, since it's way past their bedtime (I clean starting at 9 p.m., when the dojo closes for the night, and the job takes about an hour and a half. The girls have to be out at the bus stop at 7:00 a.m., so we try to get them to bed at 8:30 p.m.) And whenever I've gone on the weekend, aside from the first time, they've had homework or chores to do. And as for Rob . . . well, anyway. I've done most of the cleaning.
The job, as I've said, takes an hour and a half. Before I go, especially if I'm tired, I think about it with loathing, but I find that once I get there and the work is underway, it's not bad. Two things that really help: a radio, so that I can listen to NPR's The Story, which is on from 9:00 p.m. until 10:00, and then my iPod, so I can listen to music or podcasts after that.
I stack all the chairs, vacuum the rugs, sweep the tiled entryway/parents' watching area, and then sweep the mats in the dojo itself. Clean the mirrors and observation glass. Clean the bathroom fixtures and then start mopping, first the tile, and then the mats. Take out the trash, and then I'm done.
The last half hour, which is mopping, becomes meditative. The big glass windows look out on the street, and I can see traffic going by, but everything is dark out there. It is peaceful and quiet. When I turn out the lights and lock up, it is satisfying to take a last look around, knowing that the space is clean and ready for the next day.
The area behind the building where the dumpster is kept is dark and creepy looking, and it does make me a bit nervous to take the trash around there. But then I think about the kata coming from deep within the belly, the elbow smash, the hammer fist to the groin, the side stomp, all the escapes I studied. Anyone who decided to try to mug me would have to be really really stupid to try to pick on a woman coming out of a karate dojo.
No one has bothered me yet.
The job, as I've said, takes an hour and a half. Before I go, especially if I'm tired, I think about it with loathing, but I find that once I get there and the work is underway, it's not bad. Two things that really help: a radio, so that I can listen to NPR's The Story, which is on from 9:00 p.m. until 10:00, and then my iPod, so I can listen to music or podcasts after that.
I stack all the chairs, vacuum the rugs, sweep the tiled entryway/parents' watching area, and then sweep the mats in the dojo itself. Clean the mirrors and observation glass. Clean the bathroom fixtures and then start mopping, first the tile, and then the mats. Take out the trash, and then I'm done.
The last half hour, which is mopping, becomes meditative. The big glass windows look out on the street, and I can see traffic going by, but everything is dark out there. It is peaceful and quiet. When I turn out the lights and lock up, it is satisfying to take a last look around, knowing that the space is clean and ready for the next day.
The area behind the building where the dumpster is kept is dark and creepy looking, and it does make me a bit nervous to take the trash around there. But then I think about the kata coming from deep within the belly, the elbow smash, the hammer fist to the groin, the side stomp, all the escapes I studied. Anyone who decided to try to mug me would have to be really really stupid to try to pick on a woman coming out of a karate dojo.
No one has bothered me yet.
