Peg Kerr's Journal

My next screening is on February 18.

I'm trying to do slow kicks every afternoon. Well, I'm trying to do cardio at midmorning and slow kicks every afternoon. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I skipped cardio yesterday and today.

I try to alternate day by day: one day I work on balance (slow kicks without the bar). I am trying to do fifteen of each kick on each side. On my right (bad) side, I can sometimes get through ten without falling; I pick myself up and then finish the remaining five. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can do twenty on the good side.

On the alternate day, I work on strength (use the bar, but I do the kick, lower the leg to the floor, raise it up, and rechamber).

I just came back from downstairs, on a strength day. God, this is SO DISCOURAGING. Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this? DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD SLOW KICKS ARE?

I am assailed by doubts, tired of my body's betrayal. Maybe it's the cold weather. Maybe it's the unrelenting stress in other areas of my personal life. I don't know, but I'm sick of the doubt, and depressed and discouraged. I'm tired of dealing with the aftermath of injury in my ankle, my hip, and my knee. My teacher say I can do this, I can pass the screenings, but I have to keep fighting off the fears, especially every day I face the balance kicks. And even if I get through the slow kicks (my traitor mind says), won't the paper kicks defeat me? They are really not something you can practice by yourself.

Am I practicing enough? Probably more than 90% of the kids who are trying to go through this, but maybe not enough to get a 50-year old woman through the screening process.

My fears are ravaging my courage.

If it were easy, everyone would have a black belt.

I just don't know if I ever will.

I've taken the next step to resume regular training. I've started taking the one class a week at my actual belt level. Yes. I now am going to the dreaded Tuesday night black stripe class.

This is the class which is devoted to readying people for black belt screening. It's also the first mixed level class, where adults and youth take class together. I hadn't realized quite what a big deal that is, but in class tonight, with about nine students, I was actually the only person over the age of, uh, eighteen.

Our instructors run a pretty tight ship, but still. Fourteen year olds can be pretty distractable.

The emphasis is picky technical detail, as well as building stamina through brute strength. We also start doing "paper kicks" in this class (actually kicks aimed at a piece of X-ray film held by a partner). These include spinning kicks: spin hook kick, tornado kicks, etc. I'll have to take these very carefully, at least at first, as I determine what my knee can handle. I can expect to be wringing wet when I crawl out of there every Tuesday night.

Tonight, we did slow kicks at the bar. Slow kicks help you develop balance, muscle memory, and strength. Slow kicks should be done every day, ideally, although we don't live in an ideal world, do we? Tonight, we did pyramid slow kicks, meaning raising and lowering the leg. This time that meant extending a round kick slowly, at low height, bending it back, raising it up to medium height, extending it out and back, then raising it to waist length or higher, extending it out and back. Go back to the low position and start again. Each person called out the sequence low/medium/high seven times then on to the next person, who calls low/medium/high seven times, then on to the next. Nine people. That's almost 190 kicks, done veeeerrrryyyyy sllloooowwwwlyyy. The slower you do them, the harder it is.

Then you switch and do the other side.

After awhile, the supporting leg and the kicking leg both start to cramp. I did have to stop a couple times to stretch out cramps, but I picked up the count again as quickly as I could. You have to keep the hand not holding the bar up in the blocking position, fist tight, to guard your face. People have failed black belt screenings because they didn't keep their fists tight. You have to keep upright, obliques crunched tight as you raise the leg, as your hip screams in pain. We were doing slow kicks for probably twenty minutes. It seemed like an eternity.

I wasn't sure whether it was smart or I was ready to go back to the Dreaded Black Stripe Class. But standing there at the bar, even as I battled my cramping hip and supporting leg, what I had to battle the most was myself. For adults in particular, my senior instructor says, the biggest challenge in getting the black belt is mental. Your hip hurts and your leg is shaking, tough. Raise that leg and keep on going. Keep that fist tight or we have to start all over again from the beginning. Sweat runs down your face, and your breathing becomes more labored, tough. Keep on going. Everyone else hurts, too, and there's no pity to spare for you. Suck it up, buttercup. You may be almost fifty and you have a wonky knee and everyone else at the bar is at least thirty years younger than you, tough. Do another slow kick and another and another. Keep your face stoic. Don't complain. Crunch your obliques still tighter. You don't know where you get the strength, but reach deep down inside yourself and raise that leg higher. Higher. Higher. You must do this. If your leg shakes uncontrollably, surreptitiously shake out the foot, try to take your rest in the low position, but raise it every time to hit medium and high. Just do it. Do another kick, grasshopper. There is no 'try.'

Twenty minutes at the bar taught me this: I am ready to do the black stripe class.

One more marker on the road to black belt.

pazlazuli showed us a variation on slow kicks last night that just about killed me. But that was good. I have been thinking that slow kicks have been getting easier lately (see my description of them here), but this variation on them just about laid me flat.

In short, you extend the leg out for the kick, slowly, and then--this is variation--lower it slowly until it is just above the floor. Then you raise it slowly back to the waist level position, and then rechamber. Start with one, rechamber, then extend the kick again, raise and lower, raise and lower (i.e., twice), and rechamber. Next kick, raise and lower three times before rechamber. Then four, then five.

OMIGAWD. Brutal. Besides the leg muscles, of course, it targets the abs, particularly the obliques on the round kick, which are the muscles that help keep your torso crunched up as you kick.

Evil, you are pazlazuli Evil! As hard as they were, I'm thrilled to learn this variation, and I'll definitely be adding them into my rotation.

Now that Fiona has passed her double black stripe test, the schedule has changed yet again:

Monday:
both girls

Tuesday:
Fiona
clean dojo

Wednesday:
Delia

Thursday:
clean dojo

Friday:
both girls (sparring)

Saturday:
both girls

Sunday:
clean dojo

You will note that I am at the dojo seven days a week, unless Rob picks up the Thursday or Sunday cleaning. (He says, however, he will take over most of the cleaning when his job stops, after next week).

As I took pictures of the belt tests last Saturday, I felt the longing welling up again. Being there every day is like rubbing my nose in it: I wish, oh I wish I could be taking it, too. Besides the fact that we can't afford to have me take it, what with the layoff, interweaving my classes with the girls' classes is a scheduling nightmare. (See here and here.)

I try to tell myself it's okay. It's only temporary. Maybe I'll be able to take it when the girls get to black belt class, or when they go away to college. I try to tell myself that I didn't really like the sparring part of karate anyway. I try to tell myself, don't you remember the way it made your hips hurt? Don't you remember how frustrated you used to get because your hamstrings were so tight and you couldn't kick high enough?

But the karate student in me still craves to study. I still bow whenever I enter or leave the dojo. I still can feel the urge to pick up and rotate for a side kick. I still do slow front kicks at the coffee maker at work when nobody else is around. I walk down the corridor at work, and I can feel my muscles wanting to do turn-step-step-offensive side kick, or practice classical marching basics (sudo block, low block, lift, front kick punch, front kick punch, front kick punch . . .)

Yesterday, I went outside for my midmorning break as usual. Instead of going for my walk over the Stone Arch Bridge, I wandered over to a concrete area in front of the bridge that had a railing around it. I could practice slow kicks here, holding onto the railing, I thought. It's the perfect height. I took off my shoes, until I saw a piece of glass, and then I put them on again. I did some slow kicks, and I did some classical marching basics, and then I did as much of one of my forms as I could remember. The muscle memory is still there, but it is beginning to fade.

I was fighting tears as I left to go back inside.

Edited to add: I'm not asking anyone to solve this for me, nor asking for advice. I'm just venting.