Karate and physical limitations
Oct. 8th, 2006 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI had a long talk with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijjohnson on the phone tonight about our respective exercise obsessions. If you don't follow her journal, Kij is my age, and just as I got into karate last year, she got into rock-climbing. (See, for example, this entry.) We talked about how they are both usually the sport of people younger than us, and mostly male (most of her climbing companions are guys in their 20s.) I talked to her about going to the karate tournament this weekend, and feeling just overwhelmed when I watched the grand competition in the evening, where the best of the best compete. The people who competed there were astounding; their feats seemed superhuman. I mean, I saw an eight-year old who, just standing there, did a standing back flip, landing on his feet. That was just the START of his form. It was hard, watching them, and feeling, I'm never going to be able to do anything close to that. I'd never be able to get my body in the shape I'd need to be. It's too hard, and I'm too old. It turns out, Kij has been thinking a lot about these issues, too.
"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Both of us have chosen pretty extreme sports, mostly done by guys half our age. Both with an element of danger."
It's true. I picked karate partly because I want to be the sort of woman who does that--who doesn't just hop on an elliptical machine to keep in shape. No, I put on a padded helmet with a wire cage over my face and get into a ring and try to whip the butt of a twenty-year old guy six inches taller than me, even though it terrifies me. She climbs on rocks with impossible handholds, knowing that every moment she could fall--same thing.
I am sure that there are many of our friends who don't entirely understand why we feel driven to do these things, but somehow we are fighting, really fighting, a rear guard action on the aging of our bodies. Trying to force our physical selves to do things that seem impossible. It reminds me a lot of the way I felt when taking ballet as a kid: as when I take karate, I was learning a physical art form with hundreds of years of history, which has a very entrenched teaching history. And I was continually frustrated then--as I am now--that my body can't physically do what I am trying to make it do. And yet, when I stop to think about it, what I can do is so much more than what my age-peers can or are willing to do.
One other thing I saw at the tournament, which put things into perspective a bit. I saw a division which was for people with severe handicaps, some physical, some mental, I think. I watched one man do his form. He was a brown belt. He was also a quadrapalegic in a wheel chair. I think he had cerebral palsy. To do his form, he hit the power stick on the chair with his partially paralyzed arm to turn it in all the various directions. And he did the arm movements (high block, low block, sudo block), as best he could, with the yells. It was fascinating to watch.
I thought about this tonight, and talked with Kij about it. As frustrating and humbling as it was for me to be there at the tournament, watching the performances of people who have practiced so hard that their forms seem superhuman, how much more frustrating for him, when the simple act of walking across the room is impossible for him? And yet there, he was, performing within the best of his capabilities. He is a brown belt. I am sure that he earned it. They don't just give those away.
Something to think about.
kijjohnson on the phone tonight about our respective exercise obsessions. If you don't follow her journal, Kij is my age, and just as I got into karate last year, she got into rock-climbing. (See, for example, this entry.) We talked about how they are both usually the sport of people younger than us, and mostly male (most of her climbing companions are guys in their 20s.) I talked to her about going to the karate tournament this weekend, and feeling just overwhelmed when I watched the grand competition in the evening, where the best of the best compete. The people who competed there were astounding; their feats seemed superhuman. I mean, I saw an eight-year old who, just standing there, did a standing back flip, landing on his feet. That was just the START of his form. It was hard, watching them, and feeling, I'm never going to be able to do anything close to that. I'd never be able to get my body in the shape I'd need to be. It's too hard, and I'm too old. It turns out, Kij has been thinking a lot about these issues, too."It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Both of us have chosen pretty extreme sports, mostly done by guys half our age. Both with an element of danger."
It's true. I picked karate partly because I want to be the sort of woman who does that--who doesn't just hop on an elliptical machine to keep in shape. No, I put on a padded helmet with a wire cage over my face and get into a ring and try to whip the butt of a twenty-year old guy six inches taller than me, even though it terrifies me. She climbs on rocks with impossible handholds, knowing that every moment she could fall--same thing.
I am sure that there are many of our friends who don't entirely understand why we feel driven to do these things, but somehow we are fighting, really fighting, a rear guard action on the aging of our bodies. Trying to force our physical selves to do things that seem impossible. It reminds me a lot of the way I felt when taking ballet as a kid: as when I take karate, I was learning a physical art form with hundreds of years of history, which has a very entrenched teaching history. And I was continually frustrated then--as I am now--that my body can't physically do what I am trying to make it do. And yet, when I stop to think about it, what I can do is so much more than what my age-peers can or are willing to do.
One other thing I saw at the tournament, which put things into perspective a bit. I saw a division which was for people with severe handicaps, some physical, some mental, I think. I watched one man do his form. He was a brown belt. He was also a quadrapalegic in a wheel chair. I think he had cerebral palsy. To do his form, he hit the power stick on the chair with his partially paralyzed arm to turn it in all the various directions. And he did the arm movements (high block, low block, sudo block), as best he could, with the yells. It was fascinating to watch.
I thought about this tonight, and talked with Kij about it. As frustrating and humbling as it was for me to be there at the tournament, watching the performances of people who have practiced so hard that their forms seem superhuman, how much more frustrating for him, when the simple act of walking across the room is impossible for him? And yet there, he was, performing within the best of his capabilities. He is a brown belt. I am sure that he earned it. They don't just give those away.
Something to think about.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-09 04:57 am (UTC)When I was first learning to climb, maybe the second or third week of class with James, I was on a wall and I just couldn't figure out what to do next. But of course I was tiring out just staying in place, and my hands were starting to sweat, and everything goes right the hell donwhill when that happens.
I was going to yell Take and then Lower, let go of the wall and have them bring me back down, because I was clearly muffing the climb. Better to just start over again.
And James knew that's what was going on, because he called up to me, You can fall, but you're not allowed to let go.
Oh. 'Effing. WOW!
Date: 2006-10-09 01:07 pm (UTC)"You can fall, but you're not allowed to let go.", is another one. Thanks.
Gads, I'm surrounded by the most amazing people.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-09 02:02 pm (UTC)I think that is part of the reason I love you.
Both of us are trying to live our life in such a way that neither of us deliberately lets go.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-09 01:11 pm (UTC)Not that belly dancing was all that dangerous, but who could pass up a straight line like that?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-09 02:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-09 05:03 pm (UTC)Oh, speaking of martial arts classs with/for disabled folk, did you hear the interview on last night's Speaking Of Faith with a paraplegic yoga teacher? My favourite line was from a session he* was teaching, & telling a student. "Ok, put your hands straight over your head like you're Superman...Yeah, I know you can't do it, neither can I, but do it anyway." in a perfectly charming voice.
_____
*Sorry, his name escapes me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-16 09:33 pm (UTC)Anyway, the whole message is interesting. (I followed your link from Kij's journal, which I read after meeting her yesterday.) My wife and I have discussed some sort of physical activity, I suppose for the same fighting-against-age motives you mention. But we haven't found an activity that really inspires us.
I was into bicycle touring (hardly an extreme sport, but still good exercise) when I was just past the guys-in-20s group you mention, but somehow fell out of it. She bicycled too, but only as transportation where bus connections were poor, not as sport. Still, that might be worth another try.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-17 01:47 am (UTC)