There May Be No Crying In Baseball, But It's In Karate

Karate makes me cry.

 

I feel like that’s something important to admit. As both a Brown Belt and assistant instructor I know that there are those who look to me for inspiration, guidance, and training. I’ve said many times that Kenpo is the best thing that has ever happened to me, that is absolutely true. Eight years ago my life changed for the better and I’ve never regretted a single day. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have hard days, that doesn’t mean that I don’t screw up, and that definitely doesn’t mean that I haven’t shed my fair amount of tears because of what’s happened on the mat.

Yesterday I was instructing one of our teenagers and I could see her becoming more and more frustrated which was a shame because she was doing well. After about the 10^th exasperated sigh I stopped her mid form and said to her, “you’re doing great. You’re an excellent martial artist, I’m just here to help make you better. My only expectation of you is that you try hard. Any other pressure that you’re feeling is pressure that you’re putting on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with high expectations, but you have to be careful not to be your own worst enemy.”

I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with what I said to her, I just wish I would have taken it one step further. I don’t want her to feel that her emotions aren’t valid, and I wish I had explained that. Too often we equate sadness and frustration with failure, but it’s only failure if you quit.

Not 30 minutes later there was a complete role reversal. There I was, in front of Gene, (Mr. Braden on the mat) and I was the one beating myself up while he was the steadfast voice of encouragement. I was the one who felt like she didn’t deserve the belt that she wore. My biggest fear has always been that someone will think that Gene gave me a rank because we’re together. When there are portions of my forms that need tweaking, or entire sections of techniques that need to be fixed I feel that fear come barreling to the forefront. So back to the start, karate makes me cry. There’s no shame in that, as long as that isn’t where it stops. I’m going to cry about missing the mark, then when I’m done I need to work. Sweat equity, that’s what it takes. A simple however painful lesson, but if rank was something easy to obtain then it would also be worthless.

Like a lot of things in life, progress often comes as the result of falling short and learning from it.  Sometimes people don’t admit that this Journey includes fears and failures and trying to overcome them both. I want to be as honest as I can, so I’m willing to share the hardest parts of my Journey along with the joyous ones.  

 

The Spaghetti Arm Kenpo Struggle

I’m a terrible blogger, let’s just go ahead and get that out of the way. The older I get and the more things I add to my life the more sporadic my blogging becomes. I hardly remembered the password to this old thing, but I still think on it often, and occasionally am inspired to write up a post or two.

Today is one of those days;

I guess I always imagined that when I lost a lot of weight (85lbs so far) that I would just become Super Kenpoist and nothing could stop me. Actually, that’s precisely not the case, clearly I have one hell of an imagination. Lately I’ve noticed that once again the biggest struggle I’m facing with my own training is fighting against myself. Before I had no energy, I always felt weighted down, and there were some things that I just could not do because I didn’t have enough command of my body. I didn’t have enough command of my body because there was too much mass.

So I began to shed the mass, and after say losing 40lbs I felt awesome! There was this great ratio where I felt in control of my motions and had a good balance. Then I lost another 45lbs and now I’m in this odd stage where I don’t know my body. My limbs seem so much longer, and I’m weirdly lighter all over. Now don’t get me wrong, when I race my puppy up the stairs at my home I love how light I feel. But when I am in class and I hit someone with my spaghetti arm I’m not as happy. In fact I’m irritated.

I’m struggling to generate torque, I’m struggling on how to utilize back up mass because, well let’s face it, there’s a lot less mass there. Guys I’m just struggling all around, I need more muscle in a bad way, especially in my upper platform. It’s so very frustrating, I’m learning all over AGAIN! So now in addition to the cardio that has been a staple in my life for over a year and a half I’m adding some strength training. I use the word strength training very lightly, just like my weights are right now. “More reps less weight” I mutter to myself as I struggle through 20lb curls and promise myself there are tacos in my future.

I know this is just another bump in the road towards that Black Belt, and I know that I can overcome it with time and perseverance. Doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Have any of you experienced this before? How did you “get your groove back?” Anyways, I’m still working on Operation Build a Better Kenpoist. Good thing I know this is a life art!