Peg Kerr's Journal

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.

Has everyone seen/heard kijjohnson's essay on NPR on their segment "This I Believe"? Check it out. I'm so proud of her.

(Great pictures, too.)

Karate last night, with pazlazuli teaching. I arrived vaguely out of sorts, with girly cramps and consequently disinclined to move. Fiona had the black belt class before me and practiced her kama form. I cannot tell you what a joy it is for me to watch her practice, her round kicks reaching to the ceiling, her moves crisp and precise, her face fierce and beautiful, a battle maiden, as she whips the kamas around.

Just three students in my class last night: C., me, and Mr. N., who is brand new to National Karate, but who earned a black belt in a Tae Kwon Do discipline on the West Coast. I am fighting serious envy every time I watch him kick--his discipline particularly emphasized extension, and he kicks really high, with a great deal of power. I'd guess he's in his twenties; he's been practicing since he was fourteen, and it really shows. C. is in high school and, I think, has some subtle physical disability that I haven't quite figured out yet--he moves in an odd, shambling way sometimes, as if he is a marionette with overly loose strings. He works hard, though, and is continually improving. Although I thoroughly despise myself for it and frequently scold myself, I always secretly feel better about how I'm doing when I compare myself to him.

Then, of course, I compare myself to Mr. N. and feel ten times worse.

We did karate marching basics, which felt good--it's a great workout. I found it easier to emphasize the three different moves on the inside forearm block/punch/palm heel when I vocalize with a fierce "sst, sst, sst" through my teeth. pazlazuli was urging us that as we punched we really rip back the opposite arm, high and tight to the ribs. Still trying to deepen my stance, too, keeping the shoulders square. I like karate marching basics.

When pazlazuli said we'd work next on spin kicks, my heart sank. We did the spin hook and the spin wheel. Never even got to the tornado. The wheel kick isn't so bad, but I still don't feel comfortable with the plain old hook kick, much less the spin hook. I'm always afraid I'm going to throw my hip out because of the problem I have with my hip ligaments (it's a problem on the tornado kicks, too), and that indeed is what happened last night. I was so mad and frustrated. Mr. N., of course, made it look effortless, and went on to working on jump spin hook kicks. It was like rubbing salt into the wound.

I limped out to get some water at one point in the lesson and caught Fiona's eye, who was lounging at the side of the class, waiting for mine to end. "I hate this," I groused to her. "I feel so old."

She gave me a hug. "You're not old," she said.

I'm older than every single person in this dojo right now. I thought. Even Sensei's younger than me. And then I had to admit to myself, And yeah, how many people your age are even attempting karate? Give yourself credit for that.

pazlazuli gave me a great suggestion for working on the spin hook kick: start by doing a back leg round kick, first, and then the momentum will help carry me through the spin hook. And Mr. N. offered a good tip, too: he told me to try it grasping my lapel with my trailing hand. I tried it and it helped--he'd noticed that I dropped my hand and consequently let my upper body lurch downward on the turn, and that was throwing me off. He has offered me lots of helpful tips--I guess, being a black belt, he has experience teaching. It makes me feel even worse about envying him so desperately when he's so nice to me.

When Fiona and I went out to the car after class, I sat in the driver's seat and cried a little bit. Fiona reassured me again, telling me that she didn't get comfortable with spin kicks until she was a single black stripe. That helped, a little. I thought about it as I drove home. I'm a brown belt. I'm forty-eight years old, and I'm feeling it. Remember, too, that I'm also the mother of two karate students who have all the advantages of higher rank, youth and greater flexibility. No wonder I get envious. I'm trying really, really hard to become a strong, fast, flexible, powerful athlete. I know I'm much, much better than I was, and I'm in so much better shape than most people my age. I guess it's an indication that I want it so much, that I'm really dedicated and competitive, that I'm sometimes so disatisfied with where I'm at.

I'm working on it.

It turns out that I didn't have enough classes taken at the brown stripe level yet to be eligible for pretesting. That's just fine with me; I really don't feel ready yet. Sensei gave me some things to work on: work on making movements forceful: explode the kick, the block, the punch out, instead of placing it out. Work on knowing my body's limitations and working with those parameters to improve (last night I yelped a few times while kicking, because I'd hurt myself--my hamstrings were really abnormally tight last night). I want to further refine my timing on my form, too.

My balance was definitely better, which was a relief. Still need to work on it. I was talking with Delia about it, and she says her balance is definitely always better on one side, too.

We worked on marching basics, which made me sweat hard. I am still having trouble with the shift--I tend to turn on the ball of the foot on the trailing leg, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. Should turn--well, not exactly on the heel. But when the hips turn over on the shift, it's as if they pull the trailing leg after them. Hard to put into words. My challenge is that my Achilles tendon is too tight (argh) which makes it difficult to do the shift correctly. Also need to sink deeper into the stance. I'm better at keeping the shoulders square, I think, than several others in the class. I think I'm also pretty good about keeping the back hand high and tight against the ribs--usually. It's a lot to keep track of. Exhausting, too, if you're doing it right. But it's fun.

So, I'm not testing this month, but I'm entirely happy about it.

I'm loving getting back to karate. Absolutely loving it.

I find myself practicing folds and blocks as I walk down the hall at work. I do slow kicks in the kitchen while waiting for my coffee to come out of the coffee machine. I go downstairs to the small gym we have in our office building and practice my form.

Last Monday night, pazlazuli was going over classical marching basics with us, giving us painstaking corrections on placement of hands, feet, elbows, shoulders. We started in chumbi position, toes pointed straight forward, arms bent at the elbows, tight fists hovering an inch apart, one inch above our belt knots. We broke it down into the constituent parts:

"Fold!" pazlazuli barked. One hand thrusts out, pointing toward the opponent's solar plexus, hand in tight "knife" position. The other hand goes on top, bent at the elbow, hand in "knife" position up by the ear. Elbows are pressed tightly together.

"Step!" We step forward into a back stance: one foot forward, but weight mostly on the back leg which has a foot pointing to the side, knees bent and pressed out so that the legs are at a 90 degree angle. There is about an inch gap in the line drawn between the two heels, as if you could roll a golf ball between the two.

"Block!" The hand pointing toward the opponent's solar plexus whips back to rest, palm up, at my own solar plexus as the other hand whips from the ear to the sudo block, elbow at belt level at a 45 degree angle, tips of the fingers at the level of the eye.

"Shift-punch!" The front leg, still bent at the knee, shifts over a shoulder length to the side as weight shifts to the front leg. The opposite hand punches forward--hard--to the opponent's solar plexus, the back leg straightens, and the back foot swivels so that now instead of facing the side, the back foot is facing forward. Shoulders are squared to the front.

"Fold!" and the whole thing repeats on the other side.

Folds must be fast and crisp, with as much power as the strikes themselves; that's what helps give power to the blocks.

I absolutely love watching Fiona doing classical marching basics. The group moves in sharp unison, the folds are crisp and clean and dazzlingly fast, the students march forward, inexorably powerful, and you know you'd damn well better get out of their way. There are about a half a dozen ways to do classical marching basics. The one I've just described is the sudo block-punch. There's also the high-block punch, the low block kick punch, etc., etc. The one that's really cool to watch is one I haven't tried yet: inside forearm block-punch-palm heel (I think?).

When the best students do it, it looks simple, but the precision of perfect classical marching basics is exhausting.

I love it.