A Beginner's Journey

“All beginners – over here!”  our jovial host called out.  Some twenty of us from six year old kids on up through middle-aged adults reported to the table at the side of the gym.  This tournament was a friendly little competition and not a qualifier for anything.  It’s a great tournament to go to for fun and/or for practice.  I recommend this tournament as a great first tournament for beginners who are a little shy about competition.

“All right – line up by height,” we were directed.  I scanned the line anxiously.  One of the guys a little older than me and roughly my size looked pretty tough, and beyond him was a bigger adult guy.  I was relieved when another adult lady showed up.  In most tournaments I’ve been to, competitors are divided by gender first, then age, then experience.  But this tournament isn’t a qualifier for State or Nationals, so anything could happen.  I could’ve been lumped in with the adult guys.

I felt pretty confident while beginning my warmup.   So what if the gal was bigger and younger than me – I’m used to that.  Heck, I’m old enough to be the mother of very nearly every student in my dojo.  I noted that her height meant I couldn’t throw kicks to the head.  I frequently spar with tall guys, so no kicks to the head didn’t worry me.  Then she ran through a sequence from her kata a couple of times.  Uh oh.  Yep – no doubt about it, she looked gooooood.  I gulped down anxiety as I worked towards breaking a sweat.  I noted as I worked out that she wasn’t doing much of anything to warm up.  I hoped that would work in my favor.

I was good and sweaty by the time we were called to the ring.  I know from prior experience that I was nowhere near exhausted.  I felt great – ready for anything.  I performed my kata confidently – the newest one I need for promotion.  The kata that had won gold in tournament last month.  I felt I did even better this time around.  When I was done, I waited in breathless anticipation for the whistles to blow and the colored flags to lift.  The judges snapped their red flags up and my opponent was declared the winner.  We bowed, backed out of the ring, and got our sparring gear.

“Wow, which kata did you do?”  I asked my opponent.  She’s from a similar style, so I understood her answer.  It was a kata more advanced than mine.  Clearly she was not only bigger and younger, but also on high end of novice in the beginner/novice division, whereas I’m only on the high side of beginner.  I knew I’d have a real fight on my hands.

“Wish I could’ve seen it, but I was a little busy,” I quipped as I strapped on my hand pads.

We bowed into the ring and faced off.

“HAJIME!”

In my eagerness to try for gold, I fell into an old bad habit.

I have a little trouble with relative distances, so when I go charging in, all anyone really has to do is stick out a fist or a kick and I’ll drive myself onto it.  This happened more times in a row than I care to admit (sheepish grin here).   Finally I started to move sideways to avoid that.  Then the fight really started getting somewhere.  I did make the same mistake a couple more times, but overall I started doing better.  The fight was fast and furious – at one point I did get a little wild and the judges called a foul on me.  I felt awful about that.  With the clock winding down and the points accumulating on both sides, I grew desperate enough to make up for my lag in points by throwing a kick to her head – the three points would mean ending the match with me winning 9 to 7.  Much to my surprise I was able to kick higher than I thought, but it missed.  Not long after, the fight was over.

“I have never had a fight that intense before!  WOW!  You really made me work hard!”    my opponent congratulated me as we stripped off our fighting gear.  I was still coming down from all that intensity and couldn’t do much more than grin at her.

I sought out my erstwhile opponent in the bleachers later and we had a great time chatting, comparing the two styles we study, and watching other competitors from our organizations.  She’s definitely had more training than I have.  She even went to Nationals last year.  Because of her, I’ve begun mulling over the idea of trying for Nationals next year.   Clearly my opponent had a tremendous boost from that experience.

What about me? Did I get a tremendous boost from being thumped soundly by a gal who is clearly better than I am?

The answer is a resounding “Yes.”

Old habits die hard.  Practicing with a stationary target (the punching bag in the garage) isn’t teaching me about relative speeds and distance.  My daughter is on hiatus from Karate due to medical problems.   Class meets only twice a week and the college dojo is on break for summer.  I’m going to have to figure something out.

One of the things I like about tournaments is they are good practice for promotion – all those expert eyeballs staring at you and the big audience…  And when I get feedback after a tournament match I know exactly what I need to work on with an eye towards my next belt test.  Feedback from two Senseis and one Sempai after my competition was very valuable.  I very much appreciate them taking the time to give me honest evaluations and advice based on direct observation.

After all the hormones had flushed out of my system and the aches started setting in, I asked the on-site doctor for an ice pack. I assured him, “I’m all right – it’s just my body’s way of saying that at my age I should be home eating bon-bons instead of getting beaten up.” Yeah, it was a joke, but as I walked away, I realized that I actually accomplished something even though I was beaten. I am pushing my limits. I am squeezing the most out of each day. I am learning. I am growing. And that’s something I wouldn’t be doing if I were sitting on the couch eating bon-bons and letting life pass me by.

I have a wacky sense of humor. If I am obviously smothering giggles in the dojo when nothing funny has happened, no doubt I deserve pushups for something I came up with all on my own.  So when I came to the middle of one of Andrea Harkins’ wonderful, inspiring articles – I couldn’t resist.   She wrote:

… every moment of my life presents another topic, idea, or interest that I can relate to martial arts. I can relate my hamburger, a tree, or a bad day to martial arts and find something positive to say about it.

Well, I’ve already done the tree.   Now it’s time for the hamburger.  I’d like to challenge all you martial arts bloggers out there to sometime in the next month relate a hamburger to martial arts in a positive uplifting article.

Here’s mine.

After a good hour and a half working out at a sister dojo, I decided to join my fellow karateka at one of my favorite restaurants.  Class times for the dojos I go to are during either dinner or lunch hours, so I’m used to wacky meal times and I eat according to what my body will tolerate.  Usually after class I eat lightly because bedtime isn’t far off, but this time around, I knew I’d be lingering, enjoying the company.  I wanted a nice big hamburger.

At the time we ordered, I was the lowest ranked at that end of the table, flanked by and sitting across from some of the highest ranked – purely by accident as we were the ones who arrived first, so we left easy access to the table for those who came after.  The particular burger I was craving was a little messy – uh oh, what would so and so think if I slopped food on my shirt?  I also realized I was sitting with someone who’s on a diet – and I’m still making an effort that way myself.  What would that person think of my very caloric, high-fat choice?  I suspect someone else might be a vegetarian – yike.

Yeah, feel free to laugh – I had second thoughts about my burger based on stupid assumptions I’d made about what other people would think.  I should know better by now – I’ve hung out with these karateka enough to know they’re not like the kids in my junior high school!

I scolded myself, confidently ordered the Bacon Blue Cheese Burger and promptly kept myself busy listening to my table mates and occasionally contributing to the conversation.  I enjoyed every bite of that burger.  And yes, I did get a little bit of grease/cheese on my pants.  But nobody, including me, cared one bit.

Maybe for some adults and teenagers the decision to take up a martial art could be muddled up with anxieties similar to those I had when I was considering whether or not I should order that burger.   What will my friends think?  How will I respond when they say it’s too dangerous for an aging body?  What if I become the school laughingstock?  Would Zumba or joining a garage band be better choices?

If you’re on the brink of that decision and are anxious about what other people think – stop and think.  I was hungry and I wanted that burger in all its tasty artery-clogging glory.  How badly do you want that martial art?  That night I was among friends who wouldn’t speak about my food unless it was to politely ask if it was good – maybe with an eye towards ordering the Bacon Blue Cheese Burger themselves next time.  Are your friends true enough to respect your choices?   Maybe there’s one friend who might even join you!

Go for it. Savor every bit of what you’re learning. And who cares what others think?

UPDATE: Responses to the challenge! Way to go!!!

Andrea Harkins – The Martial Art-Hamburger Theory

Perhaps in American culture we’re a bit too narrow in the message we send to kids about hard work.  The myth goes something like this: get good grades, work hard, and you’ll be able to raise a family in a nice house and retire in style.  Here’s the thing – sometimes hard working people don’t recover from the job loss, the hurricane, the medical condition, the war, or any number of things that could strike any of us at any time.  Some of the hardest working people live poor and die poor.  I think a better message would be, “Do the best you can with what you have.”

Karate certainly teaches us to do the best we can with what we have.  My lowly belt rank should remind me of where I am – yeah, I don’t have all that much skill.  Therefore I must maximize what little I have.  As long as I show steady improvement over time it’s all good.  At each promotion the understanding is I’m not perfect – I’m good enough to be ready for the next level of training.  Be that as it may, I am most definitely expected to show my best effort.

When I’m faced with a sparring partner who outranks me by a couple belts (or more – YIKE), it’s a given I’m going to get clobbered.  The expectation is that I will simply do the best I can with what I have.  If I focus on the “she’s gonna wipe the floor with me” part, I rob myself of an opportunity to learn just how well I can do.  I tense up, I can’t think strategically, and I miss everything that’s coming at me.  I perform a teeny bit better if I focus on wise use of my resources – I might actually manage to dodge a kick or hit my partner.  More to the point – I’ll be in a better frame of mind to learn whatever lesson I’m going to learn.

Doing the best I can with what I have is a very liberating concept.  It blows perfectionism out of the water and calms fear.  When I take a good hard look at the resources I have my focus shifts away from the negative.  I become proactive, even creative.  Even if it turns out what I bring to the table isn’t good enough, I’ll know that I tried.  That’s a lot better than shooting myself in the foot by giving up before I even begin.  And yes, my best effort will break down somewhere, but that’s OK – it means I’ll learn to be better.

Yes, I still have to work hard (my stinky sweat-soaked gi proves how hard I work), but working hard isn’t the end all and be all of my success.  Yes, I’ve written about success before, and nothing I’ve written in this post negates any of that.  Doing the best I can with what I have isn’t my latest magical formula for guaranteed success.  It is another tool in the toolbox – along with plenty of time, hard work, and help from others.  I’m not dissing striving for perfection either – I’m simply putting my drive to improve into a realistic framework.  Don’t worry – I am constantly being encouraged to improve.  As proof of this I offer the bruises from sparring and the stronger arm muscles from pushups.

The best I have is improving, and more so as I’ve recently discovered how freeing it is to focus on using whatever resources I have to the best advantage.   As long as I’m putting one foot in front of the other I’m on the right track.  I could even get knocked to the ground while I’m doing my best – proof positive that doing my best doesn’t automatically guarantee success.  The trick with that is getting back up again.

I could constantly complain about just about everything in Karate.  I could even make a case for quitting altogether.  I’ve been subjected to the tender mercies of Sempai Drill Sergeant – and that was just warming up.  I’ve been clonked on the nose, dumped on the floor, and grabbed (not inappropriately, but still).  Aching muscles and bruises have been a constant part of my life for about a year now.  I’ve been hit so hard I’ve had the wind knocked out of me.  And let’s face it, I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore.  I don’t heal in ten minutes like I did when I was a kid – more like ten days!  None of this is fun.

Assuming a good dojo the reality of Karate is training is far more gentle than a street thug or two would be.  We’re learning how to defend ourselves and that’s going to involve some hard knocks.  Could I train without all the unpleasantness mentioned above?  There’s plenty of room for opinions on this but what it all boils down to is any effective, legitimate training method is better than winding up in a shallow, hastily dug grave somewhere in the forest.  I’ve made my decision about where to train and it is the right one for me.  Otherwise I’d have long since walked out the door or never started.

Do I see the hard things about the system as opportunities for personal growth, or do I walk away to live the second half of my life sour, cynical, and maybe even fat?  How can learn to overcome adversity if there is no adversity to overcome?  I could say I’m too old for Karate or I could take the bull by the horns and learn some really awesome skills.  I could be more vulnerable to criminals or I could increase my odds of survival by training as hard as I’m expected to train, taking the lumps, and falling down seven times, standing up eight.  Yes this is tough talk.

Some of these things are what I say to myself during meditation at the end of a class if I’ve taken some lumps and am hurting physically and/or emotionally.  Then I recall the happy times.  I recall what it’s like to perform kata well.  I remember “the fierce joy” that comes on me from time to time.  I remember Gasshuku, the Christmas party and getting to watch Shodan testing right after being promoted myself.  I remember the clanking sound of medals on my chest.  I have hundreds more precious memories in my treasure box.   Yes, there are memories of hard lessons learned in that treasure box too.  After my self-talks I find I can continue, I can overcome, I can be the best that I can be.  To do otherwise would be to turn my back on a whole lot of potential that is waiting inside me.

I have a feeling the testing of my mind, body, and spirit is going to get harder as I continue in my training.  I know I have absolutely no clue about just how hard it’s going to be because, obviously, I’ve never “been there.”

Bring it.  Because the cold, hard reality is that a fight for my life could come at any time – maybe even in the parking lot after class when I’m already bruised and exhausted.  Some day I will break down and cry in the dojo,  but I will put the pieces together again and come back – as many times as necessary.  I have too many happy memories not to do so.  I am determined to bloom where I’m planted and gather many more wonderful memories.