Beginner's Mind, Eureka Addiction and Naihanchi

Slowly, very slowly, my voice has been returning and, with it, my strength and ability to concentrate and work out. Interestingly, running came back to me much more easily than karate. Running is a much harder physical workout but it requires very little mental or emotional investment. I have managed to sustain a healthy relationship with it so far. Any effort feels worthwhile.

Karate, on the other hand, is an art form and one in which I invested a great deal. So I have expectations. 

For example, my expectations of my students are that they show up and make an effort. That they be respectful and honest. And that when it is time for them to move on, that they will have the integrity and confidence to look me in the eye and say goodbye. 

I used to think that was not a lot to ask. I have learned that it is.

As for myself, I am still trying to figure out what my expectations are. All I know is that they are high. High enough that I often have to drag myself up to the dojo to practice. With no colleagues to hide among and no students to teach, I'm all alone there on the dojo floor. Me, my perfectionism and I.

Lesson #1: Beginner's Mind is NOT... avoiding practice knowing you'll always fall short of your own expectations.

This week I had the privilege of substituting for one class of a Karate/ Martial Arts Instructor Course. The Head Instructor asked me to teach about my style. Once i accepted, it didn't take long for the demons to catch up with me. 

How could I possibly represent my style? All I could do was run mental clips of George Donahue, Paris Janos, and Chris Walton, not to mention Shinzato-sensei and think: "Look at that. I can't do that. I'm still a Beginner (6-7 years later); how can I show them anything?"

After far too much time worrying,  I finally got to teach the class: relaxed, enjoyable. No problem. 

I started with a little history of Okinawan karate to help them understand the context of the art, in particular how it is related to Shotokan karate, the style most of them represent. We ran through some concepts: moving from and through the center, koshi, Figure 8s, arches, compression, torque... and did some exercises that play with those concepts. And I threw some of Sensei Rosati's Yakusoku Kumite at the end, just for fun. 

In other words, there are, in fact, some things that I know and some things I can do. I don't know them or do them nearly as well as my teachers, but I still have plenty to show to people who either don't do them at all or haven't had the opportunity to focus on them as I have.

Lesson #2: Beginner's Mind is NOT.... insisting that you still don't know anything.

So, today, I was ruminating about what to practice. That's Something you don't have to worry about when you run--- Just turn on the music and run. And it's something you don't have to worry about when you go to class. Someone else does the worrying for you. When I finally managed to skirt around all the obstacles I threw in my path and got upstairs to practice, I decided to practice Naihanchi. And Naihanchi. And Naihanchi. And Naihanchi....Over and over again.

Not my first kata. Not my fanciest kata. Not even a wall-to-wall run-through of all of my kata. Just the one kata that, according to Kishaba Juku, serves as the basis for rediscovering and revitalizing them all.

I think I  may know what I am looking for every time I climb those stairs up to the dojo. I'm looking for a mini-epiphany. I have had so many of them since I began to practice Kishaba Juku that I am thoroughly addicted. I expect at least one every time I practice. Totally unreasonable. What teacher could possibly meet an expectation like that? And, because I am alone, the teacher that I expect to be that brilliant every time s/he steps on the deck...is me.

So, I have plenty of meditation and spiritual practice ahead on taming my Ego. Tormenting myself doesn't seem to work. Neither does selling myself short...

And, about that epiphany? Yeah. I had one. Something about the looseness of the arms, the snap it creates and changing directions. I've already started worrying about whether I'll be able to remember what it was next time I practice.

Addiction-1, Reasonable expectations-0. And counting.

Lessons from Silence

I can't speak. Really. 

I had something brewing in my throat BEFORE I spent four hours teaching self-defense to a group of 30 Immigrant and Volunteer Soldiers in a northern base. And then I taught them to break cement blocks. I stood next to each one of them, running through the physical technique, getting them to YELL, yelling with them as they raised their fists and, then, shrieking with joy as each one shattered her block and, along with it, her illusions of what her limitations were. 

As I drove home, I tried to make a phone call. My voice was gone.

The next morning, still no voice. I taught again. Two hours. I whispered my way through it. As the day went on, I starting feeling worse and worse. I headed for bed. In the morning, I still had no voice... but I also had zero energy, total body ache, a headache and my cough was worse. So much for the flu shot.

I woke up this morning feeling better but still, no voice. I was supposed to teach at a Shorin- ryu Family Seminar-- the first ever, today and tomorrow. I couldn't even make the apologetic phone call. My husband did that for me.

No voice.

Now, let's assume for a moment that I was a "normal" karate instructor. From a "normal" style. Teaching a class without a voice would be do-able. Definitely. In fact, in some ways, it would be an advantage. I could just strut up there confidently, do the first few moves of a form or grab some unsuspecting student ,indicate that they should punch, intercept and twist them into a pretzel. Maybe once. Maybe twice. And then, mouth the words: "Do that." In Japanese.

Several rounds. Walk around. Make a few wordless corrections like grabbing someone's hand to say: "Right hand, not left" or pushing them into their opponent to say "Move in".

And make them do it over and over again. Change partners. Over and over. Throw in some serious calisthenics. Watch from the front.

Fake it the whole way. Two hours would fly by like nothing.

And you know what? They'd love it. I'd be hailed as a true master--- since I had mastered the typical Japanese model of instruction.

But I would feel like a jackass.

Without being able to explain, without being able to adapt to the mentality and well as the physicality of the students, without creating analogies that could help them recreate the feeling of the mechanics of their own bodies--- what would I have done? Given them a few new ideas? A little karate-based entertainment. Maybe.

But I would not have lived up the the example that my teachers have given me. 

I find it very challenging to represent my teachers in the public arena. I know that, at best, my karate is a pale shadow of theirs. But I feel if I can stimulate a fraction of the excitement I feel when I manage to pick up some minor piece of what they are trying to teach me, then I have will have done something amazing. 

So, like my teachers, I use the entire toolbox: demonstration, analogy, explanation, cognitive behavioral therapy, black humor, whip-and-chair, carrot-and-stick...anything. As long as it works. 

While my physical workout suffered this week--- illness this time--- my  mental and emotional workout was in full swing all week. Preparing for this seminar. That I can't attend. Because I have no voice.


Karate would be so much simpler for me if all I thought it was a couple of hours of calisthenics and permission to whack people. Teaching would be so much easier for me if I didn't have such incredible role models to imitate. And life would be so much easier if I thought that No One was watching. 

But I know better. And that makes all the difference.

.

On One Foot

... So there I was running along the grassy median, ostensibly to provide extra protection for my joints, when I stepped off the curb and... owww! 


And being a True Warrior, the second thought to enter my mind--the first is unpublishable-- was " Damn! Rohai!".


Now, for all of you non-Shorin Ryu-people out there, Rohai is the name of a Tomari-te Shorin-ryu kata. Its name means something like "Vision of a Crane". You know. The kind with feathers.


The Crane is one of the Five Animals of Southern Chinese Kung Fu and Chinese Medicine. Okinawan karate is an amalgam of a native Okinawan fighting called "Te" and Kung Fu transmitted through forms or "katas" that arrived on the island from China via travelling merchants.


Anyway, the point is that the signature move of this kata is a pullback into a one-footed stance. What goes up must come down, so the foot we lift has to get back to the floor. For that, we have basically two choices: the smart way and the lazy way.


The smart way is to bend the knee of the supporting leg, loading it like a spring, and to gently place the foot down. The lazy way is to slam the foot down as quickly as possible and get on it. 


Guess which way most of us do it.


Now guess how I injured my foot when I stepped off the curb.

Today's workout involved a bit of Passai and, needless to say, a lot of Rohai. I was pretty limited in  turning and direction changes because of the pain in my left foot, but I figured it was worth it to do it slowly and reinforce doing things the smart way as opposed to the lazy way.


And then I noticed it. It had never occurred to me that all four times in the course of Rohai that we do that one-legged stance, we raise the right foot and use the left as the supporting leg-- which hurt, by the way, but that is not the point. 


The point is that I can do Rohai from now until Tuesday and not learn to lower myself by bending my right leg so my left leg will land softly. That kind of learning doesn't cross from one side of the brain to the other. I either have to do a mirror version of Rohai that forces me to reverse my stances (as if I am aware of when I use my left and when I use my right) or find some other section of some other kata that helps me reinforce the right habit.


And that's one heck of a bad habit to tackle. As a right-footed runner, I have lived my entire life pushing off with my right and leading with my left. As a new runner, I haven't slammed down my left foot and caused myself nearly enough pain to have learned my lesson that way. Not yet, at least.

So what's the solution? Just unmitigated, unrelenting mindfulness? AGAIN?? Just sort of makes me want to bury my head in the sand... But that's a bird of a different feather...