Peg Kerr's Journal

Yesterday was my second lesson back after a hiatus of several months. Last week's lesson was a bit mortifying, because I'm restricted mostly on kicking, especially spin kicks, which I can't do at all. And what were they doing at that lesson? Kicks, the entire time. Including spin kicks. So I found that particularly discouraging.

But yesterday, we were doing karate marching basics, and one part of the red belt form Zhang Du Moon, which is mostly front stances. I'm working in the red belt/brown belt class, which is the class below my level (I'm a black stripe). One of the other students there, Spencer Anderson, is just resuming training after a long hiatus, too. He's just a brown stripe at this point, but it was clear to everyone that he was really gifted (I'll freely admit that he's much better than me), which is why he was put on the instructor training track. But then he tore the ligament in his leg, and so he's been out for a long time, too. Our instructor, Mr. Sidner (fifth degree black belt) has a surgical boot on his leg, due to a sprained ankle sustained at a tournament a couple weeks ago. Injuries everywhere.

We were practicing the shift from back stance to front stance. Weight shifts from 70% on the back leg to 70% on the front leg, and the stance widens from two inches to shoulder width. The front foot shifts straight to the side--not forward nor back. The back foot especially isn't allowed to drift further backwards on the shift. Mr. Sidner explained that the way to do that is to shift on the heel rather than the toes of the back foot--which is very difficult for me, especially on the side we were mostly working on (left side, meaning the right foot is in back) because my right ankle is much, much stiffer than my left ankle. That's one of the things I've been working on with my rehab exercises (and also reminds me that I've forgotten to do the foot exercises this past week). I've been helped the most by one of the tips one of the other instructors gave me: when you do the shift, really use the momentum of your hips torquing over to give you power on the shift from back stance to front stance position. That will keep your back foot from drifting back; instead, you'll end up dragging the entire back foot forward a few inches, and that's okay. I do a pretty good job of keeping my front leg bent enough, most of the time. Both front and back stances really work the quads. I also pay a lot more attention than most students do to keeping my shoulders squared and my back hand high and tight.

We did that short section of the form one by one. One thing I've gotten from watching SO many belt exams is that I really do know exactly what the instructors are looking for when students do form. I managed especially tight snaps on the front kicks, for example (unlike one of the other students, who was ordered to do his front kick repeatedly because the snap was really sloppy). When I was finished and watched all the other students, I was pretty convinced that I'd done it the best of all of them. Which should be the case, of course, since I was the highest belt, but it was especially sweet since I've been out so long. Not bad for an old broad who hasn't been coming to the dojo for months. Mr. Sidner told me afterwards that I looked really solid. So, after last week's discouragement, I'm quite pleased. Pain has been minimal today. Well, okay, so a little pain is there. About 2 out a scale of 1 to 10. Nothing terribly dire.

I was quite curious to see what my Gruve device would indicate when I synched it today. It said I burned only 64 calories during last night's class. I don't think it can really accurately assess calorie burn during a martial arts class. Karate marching basics really do make you sweat because the stances are so deep. It's really exhausting and, as I said, works your quads strenously. And the power of the punches, etc., I suppose, can't be accurately picked up by a device that you wear at your waistband.

It's funny: the longer I work at karate, the more keenly I am aware that my body can't quite do everything I want it to do. It's as if my abilities go up, but my desire for what I want it to do goes up even faster. A couple of years ago, I just wanted to be able to do a side kick without falling out of it. Now I can do that (most of the time) and I'm frustrated because I can't get the kick up high enough, or I'm not hitting the target precisely for where I'm aiming at the pad, or because I have trouble combining it with the hook kick. It's the glass half-empty syndrome, maybe.

Last night we worked on karate marching basics and on the first half of the Zhang du Moon form. On marching basics, we were working on precise placement of hands, keeping our stances deep (ooo, my quads!), increasing the explosiveness of our blocks. On Zhang, sensei went through the form step by step, slowly, teaching it to the new red belts. I've not been practicing it for a month and a half (I'd been concentrating on drilling with my bo instead, in preparation for the brown belt form, Discovery). I was a little shocked to realize how some of the details on Zhang have already gotten sloppy again (and I knew it, because I did it when I tested for my brown belt). Failing to chamber the knee hard when folding for the elbow smash, for example. I still screw up half the time when I do the fold for the chop: one hand is fisted and the other is knife-hand. I tend to have a brain fritz and do either two hands fisted or two hands knife-hand.

After sensei had led us through the first half of the form, step by step, she had the red belts step aside, and the brown belts, including me, did the whole form on our own count, at speed. It's only about two minutes long, maybe, but I'm frequently panting by the end, from trying to make the stances deep and the moves explosive. I snapped the hands out for the chumbi at the end and lined up with the rest of the class for the bow-out rather gloomily, thinking of all the ways I'd screwed up details. (I still didn't chamber that knee on the elbow smash, even though I was thinking about it.) As we headed to the back of the dojo to grab our coats and bags, one of the red belts exclaimed to me, "Wow, you were good! You were so intense!"

It startled me, when I had just been thinking about how badly I had done. When you're a white belt, you watch the upper belts and think they are soooo cool and can do everything so well. And when you get there your standards have changed, and you realize how far you still have to go.

Fiona has her new kamas and she LOVES them.

Fiona receives her new Kamas February 13, 2008

I tried to get some videotape of her practicing her new black belt kama form. Unfortunately, another class was going on while she was practicing (you can hear sensei's voice instructing some other students) so I wasn't able to photograph from the front, and she was feeling a little camera shy and objected to my taking footage, so I only got a few bits and pieces. Here is enough to give a little of an idea. I hope to get better footage of the whole form soon. At least you can see how high she can kick now! Hope I can kick that high when I'm a black belt myself.

( Three short video clips are under the cut. )