Peg Kerr's Journal

Yesterday night was the dreaded double-black stripe class. There were three other students, all of them younger than fourteen--and me. "Today," Mr. Sidner said, "We're going to test your endurance. The screening is coming up at the end of August, and so I'm going to be looking at your readiness today on the kicking section."

Shit I thought.

The sequence goes: front kicks slow, front kicks fast, round kicks slow, round kicks fast, hook kicks (fast only), side kicks slow, side kicks fast, multiple side kicks. We always start on the left side. You switch and do the other side on each type of kick before proceeding to the next type(in other words, do all the front kicks on the left side, then switch sides, finish on the right side and switch back to start the next type).

Front kicks are easiest, round kicks are medium difficult. Hook kicks are okay since we only do them fast. Side kicks are the hardest of all. And of course, you do them at the end, when you're most tired.

The hard thing about starting on the left side is that my right leg (the supporting leg on that side) is the injured one so my balance is much, much worse. And when I am continually falling out of the kick, as I was last night, it mucks up my self-confidence, so I'm considerably rattled by the time I switch to my stronger side. You pick a point to look at in the mirror to focus on to help you keep your balance. One problem I had was I kept picking a point--but there was a young black belt in the back of the classroom who was waiting for the next class. Because he was bored and messing around, he was idly doing a bunch of distracting things. He'd step in front of my focus point and do a cartwheel. It just about drove me nuts.

I absolutely sucked. There were some kicks I just couldn't do any of them right. I couldn't keep my balance on any of them. I kept waiting for Mr. Sidner to stop the class and order me to take off my belt and give it back to him.

The kicking went on for a half an hour. Picture that...kicking for half an hour. Once we were totally exhausted, we paired up for paper kicks. Your partner holds up a piece of X-ray paper and then you do ten round kicks in a row--demonstrating the correct knee motion--hitting the paper every time. Then jump scissor kicks. Then spin hook kicks. That section lasted about ten or fifteen minutes.

Well, none of the other students were much better than me. At the end of the class Mr. Sidner gave us the little expected lecture. We should be doing slow kicks every day, etc. etc.

The thing is, I HAVE been doing slow kicks. I stood there at the end of class in the line-up line, swaying with fatigue, wanting to cry. And this was only 1/3 of what I'd be facing during the screenings. Next week we'll do karate marching basics and form. The following week we'll do pad kicks and sparring.

The thought kept welling up: I can't do this.

Mr. Sidner tells me I can do it. Fiona (who has been teaching at the dojo this summer and so is used to seeing and evaluating students) tells me I can do this. But I still really don't believe it myself. And, Mr. Sidner has told me, that's the toughest thing for adults to get around to get the black belt. Not the physical requirements, but the mental state of mind you have to have, the determination, the refusal to give up.

But I honestly don't know if I can. Last night I felt as if it were hopeless.

I drove home, fighting tears. Besides the balance issue, I need more endurance, I thought. So even though I was exhausted, I put on running clothes and went out for a jog.

Note: I hate running. I mean, I hate hate HATE running. I've tried several times to develop the habit but despite diligent attempts I've never gotten past the point where I loathe it. But I jogged (extremely slowly) eight blocks and then came home again, walking almost as fast.

I don't know what it's going to take to get me through this. I haven't figured it out yet.

But it's really hard.

Delia told me last night she honestly didn't think she could get her black belt either. "But you were so good," I told her rebelliously. And she was. Her kicks were the wonder of the school. "You're so much better than me."

She sighed. "Being better than someone else isn't the point. It's just about being the best that you can be."

True. I just don't know whether the best than I can be is good enough for a black belt. Right now it isn't.

I don't know what to do to get myself to the point that it is. And I'm having a tough time visualizing whether I can get there at all.

Fiona passed her second section test (three are needed before she starts screening for second degree):





Come and see the awesomeness! Pictures and videos below the cuts.

( Marching basics )

( Multiple round kicks )

( Kick combination )

( Spin hook kicks )

Multiple Tornado kicks (10 in a row):




( Jump Scissor kick )

( Then they started doing form )

( Self Defense demonstration )

( Next was pad strikes )

( She passed everything and got her section star )

Then she came home and she conked out, falling asleep right in her Daddy's arms:





Section tests are hard.

I really wasn't in the mood to go. But I did. Much to my consternation, sensei decided to concentrate on free-standing kicks for most of the class. I don't mind kicks, exactly, except I just get so frustrated over balance issues.

But last night, mysteriously, my balance was solid. Wow. That felt great! I felt like a real brown belt, instead of an imposter masquerading as one. Only hitch was toward the end, when we started doing side kicks with the right leg. The jolt from the lock-out started hurting the knee I bolluxed up doing spin kicks in class a week ago. So sensei told me just to continue practicing the side kick pivot chamber. I felt like I was getting away with something.

I love it when karate actually goes well. It would be nice if it happened more often.

It seems to be our senseis' mission this week to make me look as clumsy as possible. This is the second class in a row that we've worked on 360° kicks. (Tuesday was the spin hook kick).

For the tornado kick, you go up on your toes and spin in place, winding your legs up until they cross. As you come around back to the front, you push off, lifting your front leg into a sort of prance, and then as you come down, you swing your back leg up and over in an arc from the outside toward the center line of your body (i.e., a crescent kick, the opposite of a wheel kick). Hips are kept squared, facing toward the front. As in all 360° kicks, the rotation is what gives the kick the power.

It's not easy (this is one of the kicks you have to demonstrate on the black belt exam). Mr. Pallesen, who was teaching last night, said that he worked at it for about six months before he landed one that felt like he was doing it really right. ("And then it was probably another six months before I felt as if I did it right again.")

I tried it, and yeah, it felt extremely clumsy and weird. I didn't have a chance to work at it much, though, because on my third attempt, I felt my hip wrench as I brought the back leg around. Surprised by the pain, I yelped and swore--and then just about collapsed in mortification at my lapse in front of sensei. I apologized profusely but he made light of it. I still felt terrible.

And frustrated, because he told me to just watch as the rest of the class continued working on the kick. The hip, I fretted to myself as I watched, always the damn hip. How am I going to get my black belt if my hip keeps doing this to me? Then the class moved on to the 360° round kick. For this kick, you wind up the same way, but instead of keeping the hips squared to the front, you pull your shoulders back, thrust your hips forward, and turn the kicking leg's hip over, and you throw a round kick as you come around to the front. Again, I just mostly watched. The red belt I was holding pads for, Connor, looked just as clumsy as I felt as he practiced. So yeah, I guess these kicks are difficult.

I talked with sensei a bit after class, and we discussed how I may have physical limitations (the hips, relative lack of flexibility compared to younger people in the class), but that they wouldn't preclude my getting a black belt. "If there's something you can't do, you simply have to learn other ways to compensate for it. But you are already kicking at belt level, which is perfectly sufficient to pass black belt, even if you may pine to kick higher. Frankly, these 360° kicks may look cool, but you wouldn't necessarily use them in a self-defense situation--unless your goal is more to absolutely pwn your opponent by humiliating them, rather than purely trying to defend yourself. The self-defense move I like best is a good, solid side stomp to the knee, and that's something even white belts can do. As far as your hips go, just keep doing slow kicks and working on your stretches."

"Well, I am doing slow kicks every day." I sighed. "This reminds of when I was doing ballet as a kid. I was serious about it; I actually got to the point where I was studying on toe for awhile. But just as in karate, what I wanted to do usually fell short of what I could do. I find that really frustrating."

He nodded. "I used to feel that way all the time when I was sparring Mr. Dingmann," he said. (Mr. Dingmann is one of the fourth degree senseis who is a champion fighter and crazy flexible--like Delia--and can do really high ax kicks, round kicks, hook kicks and spin kicks to the head.) "I would get so frustrated because I could see an opening and know, if I could only do a high ax kick there, I could absolutely nail him--but I wasn't capable of doing it. It was only when I gave up worrying about what I couldn't do and started focusing on what I could do, like a good punch when he gave me an opening, that I actually started scoring against him." He made a face. "Not enough to beat him, usually, though."

I laughed. "Tell me, what am I doing right?" I asked.

"Oh, you are turning your hips over perfectly on the round kick," he said immediately. "I was watching you, and you did it every time. You were the best one in the room."

"Really?" That made me feel better.

Well, I'll try to do that--to focus on what I can do rather than what I can't.

I see, more and more what our senior sensei says, that so much of achieving black belt, especially for adults, is mental rather than physical.

The hip still felt a little weird as I was doing slow kicks on that side today. Hope it'll be better in time for tomorrow's sparring class.

Holy cow, I thought the hook kick was bad.

Last night at karate, Mr. Dingmann started us out with kicks: the hook kick, the hook kick/round kick combination, and the side kick. I had my usual frustration with the hook kick and my usual uncertainty over whether or not I was doing it right (he said that I was, but I had a hard time believing it. It still feels so very odd). But I was balancing better than usual on my side kicks, so that was some comfort.

He stopped the class, however, because the majority of the students seemed to be having difficulty. "Well, I can see you're getting frustrated, so let's leave that for the moment and try something completely different. I'm going to show you the ax kick."

I've never tried it before. You pivot your supporting leg all the way around as you would for a side kick, and bring your opposite knee up toward your chest, chambering it as you do for a side stomp. But then instead of kicking down, you open the leg up, as you would for a front kick, and then slice it on a downward diagonal, across your opponent's body. It's a good kick for forcing down the opponent's blocking hand. If you're sparring, when the leg comes down, you can shift your weight onto it and perhaps followup with something like a backfist/punch.

So I tried it. If I thought the inflexibility in my hips made the roundkick hard, it makes the ax kick impossible. I mean I literally couldn't open my leg up with my leg chambered in that position. My wonky hamstring isn't helping either. Guess I'll have to wait on that kick until I get the ligaments in my hips sorted out and I'm more flexible. But how long is that going to take? Another six months before the kicks start opening up? A year? Longer? If I let myself, I would get sooooooo frustrated, both in class and in sparring, because I can barely kick waist level on some kicks. I'm trying to hang onto the mentality that they teach you to develop in yoga class: be patient, do the best that you can with your body the way it behaves today, and be satisfied with that, and simply try again tomorrow. It's hard. I want to be able to kick to the head the way that the 20 year olds in my class can do. The way Delia and Fiona can do. The way that I could do, for heavens sake, when I was a kid.

Besides the exercises that cloudscudding gave me to try to help the hamstring, pazlazuli suggested I do wheel kicks, starting low, and working up to waist height, and then, when I'm warmed up, taking them up to full extension. I'll try those every day, along with the hamstring exercises. Perhaps that will help open up my damn hips.

I was watching Delia's class on Tuesday, and Mr. Dingmann went down the line of the students, one by one, and had them demonstrate how low they could go doing the splits in each position. When it came to Delia's turn, and she plonked down immediately in a perfect splits without the slightest bit of strain, I watched in pride and some amusement as at least half the parents in the waiting area stood up from their chairs and craned their necks to see her, gasping in astonishment. She truly is incredibly gifted with flexibility. (See pictures here and here)

I used to have that flexibility. I did! And it just about kills me that I don't have it anymore. I want it BACK.