Cleaning the dojo

[pegkerr]

In 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.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

So if the girls get up at 6, they get 9.5 hours sleep (I have no idea how much sleep girls their age need). I do find myself curious about whether *you* are getting enough sleep. But mostly I find myself partway between weepily impressed at your dedication and glad you've got this time for centering and indulging in peace alone with yourself.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Aww, what a wonderful way to gain tranquility and insight from something which sounds pretty dull and boring. v Zen.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"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."

I know. Right.

B

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

That occurred to me immediately, too: there are smarter places to try to attack someone than outside a karate dojo.

But not all criminals are smart. The dojo (and/or the owner/other tenants) would be doing a public service if they installed a light out there--not just for you; lights do discourage criminal activity.

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

All in all, the more I hang out with cops and other folks in the system, the stupider I find that criminals are, and when it comes to picking stupid locations for a robbery, just outside a dojo doesn't rank awfully high on the stupid-o-meter, by comparison to, say, http://snopes.com/crime/dumdum/gunshop.asp or (and I can't find the link) the one who tried to hold up a bar that was known as a cop hangout (in part because it's named something like "Just Another Cop Bar"), the guy that tried a knifepoint stickup at an SCA wedding in a park . . .

That said, I'm glad that you haven't been mugged, of course, and hope that if there's an attempt, it works out well for you, and badly for the mugger.

[ckd]

Assuming it's not apocryphal, the winner is still the guy who held up the bank next door to an FBI office.

On payday.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

This DOES sound very meditative. Thanks for posting it!

And, yes -- someone would be VERY stupid trying to mug a woman coming out of a karate studio.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I too find I enjoy doing cleaning and laundry and grocery shopping more when I'm listening to podcasts.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Like Snapecast!

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

You put the girls to bed by 8:30? That is all kinds of amazing in my eyes. We never had a set bedtime, and I recall going to sleep after 10:30 many nights when I was in grade school. Often I've called home late, and my little sister, who was then in fourth or fifth grade, would answer the phone around midnight.

And we are/were all off to school at 6:45 every morning. It's a wonder we function at all, in comparison to your girls.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, I should say I put the girls to bed by 8:30, on a good night. Rob is terrible about enforcing bedtime, and there have been nights I have entrusted the task to him and come home and found them still awake at 10:00 p.m.

But then Rob labors under the misconception that he doesn't need sleep like mere mortals do. He gets maybe three to four hours of sleep a night.

And he wonders why on earth he has memory problems. Duh.

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

All those moves are great, but you really just have to be willing to rip the guys eyes out with your nails.

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I have to say that while I think if my full time job was something like cleaning, i would hate it, and I do in fact hate cleaning my room/kitchen/bathroom etc. However, one summer I really needed a job, and our secretary at CSU had extra money in her budget for an assistant and paid me to paint, clean, and reorganize the offices, and also to rake her entire yard (she lived on like two acres). I spent a month working on all this stuff, between school ending, and my new job starting, and I think I learned a lot about myself--I was on a media fast at the time, so no music for me, but I remember it as a very reflective time.