Thinking about identity: Being a karate student

[pegkerr]

I have gone through both athletic and non-athletic phases in my life. I studied ballet as a kid, and i really seriously wanted to become professional for awhile. I got to the point where I was studying toe, but then my teacher moved out of town, leaving me high and dry. I was probably an above-average ballet student; I was certainly enthusiastic, but I wasn't great. Toe was painful, too, damn it, and I knew I could expect more pain if I continued. It was difficult to find a professional caliber teacher to continue. And, kiss of death, I read a book (don't remember the title) which advised that if you want to be a professional, you should expect not to go to college. Well! I was probably ignorant to take one person's word for it, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to college. So that was the end of my ballet career.

I grew up in Illinois, the one state in the country which (very sensibly, I think) required daily gym classes for all students all the way through high school. I participated quite willingly in gym, in a wide variety of physical activities, but never got involved in athletic teams--I was too busy with studies and drama. I flirted with running for a little bit in high school, in the interests of physical conditioning, but quit before long. I hated running (and still do).

In my thirties I got interesting in working out, again out of a dutiful sense of I should do this, and I bought a few exercise videos, but again, only did it sporadically.

Then in my late thirties, I was put on some medication that made me gain twenty-five pounds in about a year and a half. For the first time in my life, i was overweight, if only slightly. I started reading more, bought more exercise videos and DVDs and started exercising regularly four years ago.

It never really occurred to me, "I want to do karate!" Oh, I saw the Karate Kid movies, but I never was into Hong Kong action flicks. Karate was something other people did. Not me.

I have never been attacked physically, whether by friend or stranger. But as a woman growing up in America, I have often thought about protecting my physical safety. And I have had some scares, incidents that made me uneasy, things that made me think I might have been in danger, but the situation defused itself, the (possible) predator moved on. I have mentioned that I took a self-defense class in high school, which I appreciated, although I wondered whether I would be able to use the lessons in an emergency. Could I really defend myself if needed?

And then I had two beautiful little girls and, as I said, my internal underlying chant changed from protect self became protect them.

For a variety of reasons which I won't enumerate at length, we received the recommendation that Delia study karate. I asked kiramartin for advice, because I knew her son was studying, and she directed us to our current dojo. We have been there ever since. I genuinely like the teachers, it is convenient, and it seems a pretty good fit with our family.

I have covered much of what I've learned in my various karate entries (see here). Because of the way we started it, with Delia being the first to start, then Fiona, and then me, my experience of studying karate is wrapped up in my parenting. I have to balance what I am learning with what Fiona and Delia are learning. It has offered all sorts of opportunities to talk about discipline, tenacity, success, failure, healthy bodies and positive body issues, self-defense, assessing threats, sportsmanship, performance anxiety, and a host of other issues.

i have my own issues, too, some of which I don't talk about with them. I find that I am re-living some of the experience I had studying ballet: I am trying to learn about a precise art with a long history, and I am both pleased with my (slowly) growing mastery and immensely frustrated with my body's limitations--I'm getting there, but a lot less quickly than I would like. I want to be perfect instantly, but alas, that is not possible. In ballet, my biggest problem was an inflexible back and faulty foot alignment. In karate, it's my hips and (lack) of general flexibility. Like ballet, karate eats up more and more time as you get more serious about it. It is a real conflict with what used to be my writing time (and I wonder if I've turned to karate because it gives me an excuse not to work on the book). It is also very very expensive, and I fret: is it better to study karate than to put aside more money for college? Retire credit card debt? How about retirement? Am I being profligate and selfish, or are the benefits to the girls worth it? How do I balance my needs with theirs?

We were doing marching basics last night, and as I executed the crisp folds of the sudo block, low block, it felt like the joy I used to feel about executing a perfect pirouette. But more than that, when I do karate, I feel dangerous in a way I have never felt before. When I think about facing a predator now, I think not only he might do this, I might do this. I also think about his surprise and his fear when he suddenly realizes What the--damn, I picked the wrong woman to mess with. This is curious, exciting, unsettling, even intoxicating. I feel I am becoming a warrior, a secret one, who drives an old used car and hectors her kids about homework, but when backed up against the wall, can (someday) kick butt with the best of them and save the helpless under my care. And when a man inches taller than me and sixty pounds heavier stares at me fiercely and then throws a punch and I block it with a snap (*hesitates to post this and then says in a rush*) it feels dead sexy. Ahem. I feel dead sexy.

(Whew. I'm going to have to think about that some more. That feels mighty strange to admit.)

I feel that by taking karate, I am fighting a rear guard action on my body's aging, one that most woman wouldn't think of doing. And I feel rather proud of myself for taking this risk, for throwing myself into this study the way I have. Or perhaps it is not denying my body's aging, struggling against it, but a vote of optimism in aging: yes, you may be getting older, but see, you are still powerful, yes, your body can still do things. It is a vote of confidence in myself.

But I have to face a big decision: Should I go for the black belt? Sensei is asking again whether we want to sign the long-term contract.

It is a huge commitment. Money. (And even MORE money, the longer we wait to contract; they want you to lock rates in early.) Time. Possibly the risk of physical damage. Possibly a setback to my writing career (what writing career?) It is particularly fraught because it is a decision for all three of us. Fiona definitely wants to go for it, but Delia is more doubtful, because she doesn't like sparring as much as Fiona did. If Fiona decides yes and Delia decides no, that makes my decision particularly difficult. We started Delia in karate so she could feel mastery over her sister in something. What if the girls don't want to do it at all and I do? Will the family put up with my absence night after night?

Good lord, I've written enough. If people have questions, I will flesh this out if need be.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Reading this series of essays (which I did for the first time yesterday), it occurs to me that your choice of language is causing more than a little of the problem. (I guess, more accurately, it's the English language that's causing the problem -- and not you in particular.) The thread runs though all these essays, but is most prominent in the first, where you're asking whether or not you're a writer -- the noun -- when it would make much more sense for you to ask if you write: the verb.

I think the noun/verb problem is central to all of this. Writer, secretary, karate person, even mother -- these are not things you are. These are things you do.

I blame our culture. American society is tied up in identity. Everyone needs a compact expression of who they are. "I'm a X." is the answer to one of the first questions you get asked when someone new meets you. X is assumed to be the thing you get paid for, which makes people who don't work very uncomfortable in these situations. And if you don't have a good X, or an easily definable X, or if you don't particularly like the X you have, you're also uncomfortable.

In your second essay you're looking at the X that's based on your paycheck -- secretary -- and observe that it somehow isn't you. Of course it's not you. It's just your job.

In your first essay you're asking if you're allowed to have "writer" as X. In other words, how much of the verb do you have to do before you get to claim the noun? The honest answer is that it depends. Even more interestingly, it depends on the beholder. You said it yourself when you asked whether you consider Walter M. Miller, Jr. to be a writer even though he only wrote one book. You can consider him a writer -- the noun -- because all you know about what he did in his life -- all the verbs -- is write. Or maybe you know a few other details about him. In any case, most of the verbs you can assign to him are "write," so he can be summarized with the single noun of "writer." If you were his daughter, you wouldn't think of "writer" as his X. If you were his best friend, or barber, you might not think of "writer" as his X. If you know the many things he did in his life, your picture of him would be more complex and "writer" might not be the single X that jumps out. But from your own personal perspective, he's a writer.

Similarly, all those people on your LJ friends list who don't know you very well are more likely to consider you a writer than those people who know you more intimately. People who don't know you just see your writing; your intimates see all sorts of verbs.

I read these essays and see all different verbs. You write. You mother. You work as a secretary. You take karate lessons. (To me, those all feel more correct as verbs than nouns -- especially the last one.) You also cook and exercise and garden and etc. What's your X? It's the sum of all those verbs. It's unique to you. And as someone who sees you at your most complex and intimate -- you yourself -- it is perfectly reasonable that none of the labels quite fit. Even I can't imagine assigning a single X to you.

Save the nouns for the things that are truly nouns. You're a mammal. You're human. You're female. ("Mother" is a tough one because it is both a noun -- you are a biological mother -- and a verb: you mother your children. Most of the time the same person is both; in adoptive situations they are separate. Your essay is clearly about the verb, not the noun.)

As for the verbs, you can have as many as you want. You can have them in greater or lesser amounts, changing over time, never constant. I don't think they're your identity; I just think of them as things you do.

B

[aome.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was well said.

(Although as an adoptive mother, I disagree with the idea that my noun/verb status is somehow different.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"Although as an adoptive mother, I disagree with the idea that my noun/verb status is somehow different."

Are you saying that you believe you are the biological mother of your adopted daughter? That can't possibly be what you are saying.

I mean that the noun mother is the biological mother -- think lobsters -- and the verb mother is the nurturing one.

B

[aome.livejournal.com]

But I don't understand why you think I cannot be a mother (noun) just because I didn't give birth. (And I'm missing the 'lobster' reference.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am making the distinction "between being a mother" (the noun) as "giving birth" and "mothering" (the verb) as "the multi-year process of mothering a child." Lobsters give birth, and then completely ignore the eggs. You, as an adoptive mother, did not give birth but are mothering a child. AsI don't know you, and know nothing about the state of your reproductive organs, I have no idea what you can or cannot do in the future.

If you consider the nouns to be the small limited set of things you are -- human, female, alive -- then "mother" clearly doesn't belong in that category. (Although honestly, I don't care. I just didn't want to use "mother" as a verb and have Peg complain that it isn't a verb because it technically has nothing to do with what she does day to day, but is a physical fact about her body.)

B

[kmonlift.livejournal.com]

wow--nice job. right here on little ol' livejournal