Coming to understand my own heart
Oct. 5th, 2006 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrAnother thing has occurred to me as I have been mulling over this week my decision whether or not to continue with karate. As you know, I have been defraying part of the girls' tuition by taking pictures during the belt tests each month. To do this, I have to actually enter the dojo space during the tests, in order to take pictures close up. These pictures are then e-mailed to the webmaster and posted.
This occurred to me for the first time last night, and I think it is rather telling: I realized that I have never stopped bowing when I enter and leave the dojo space. It seems to me to be a telling insight into my own heart. If I was entering that space as a karate parent, only there to take pictures, I don't think I would have felt the necessity to bow. I have never seen any other parent do so. But even now, months after I ceased taking lessons, I still bow every time I enter and leave. And the reason, I think, is that I have never stopped thinking of myself as a karate student.
This small detail has helped me to finally discern the true wishes of my own heart. I will speak to Ms. Lykken, the sensei who earned her way to her black belt by cleaning the dojo, and then I think I will go ahead with the one month experiment and see how it goes.
This occurred to me for the first time last night, and I think it is rather telling: I realized that I have never stopped bowing when I enter and leave the dojo space. It seems to me to be a telling insight into my own heart. If I was entering that space as a karate parent, only there to take pictures, I don't think I would have felt the necessity to bow. I have never seen any other parent do so. But even now, months after I ceased taking lessons, I still bow every time I enter and leave. And the reason, I think, is that I have never stopped thinking of myself as a karate student.
This small detail has helped me to finally discern the true wishes of my own heart. I will speak to Ms. Lykken, the sensei who earned her way to her black belt by cleaning the dojo, and then I think I will go ahead with the one month experiment and see how it goes.
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Date: 2006-10-05 07:21 pm (UTC)