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.

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