study a martial art

The way of no way.

always wanted to.

Yesterday wasn’t actually my first day, but it was my first day with a class full of other people. My karate yelling practice hasn’t come into play yet – they tell us all to just breath out when we hit.

I pulled the skin off my knuckle, punching a bag forty times. It was the knuckle that I was supposed to making the hits with, so it’s like a badge for good form! Yay for the beginner!

Since I am now taking classes, I am replacing my “study a martial arts” goal with “get my __ belt” goals. First up, gold belt. Good luck everyone! :)

So, I really wanted to get the yell right, and I had an epiphany. Okay, so maybe not an epiphany, but a realization: the yell is almost the exact same thing that I do when I pick up something very heavy that I need all my strength for.

So, I went to the bedroom, and picked up D’s big, heavy weights, and heard myself go, “Uh!”

I translated that to the “eeah” sound, and practiced doing that while lifting the weights several times. Then I made the same sound while practicing the moves I learned last week.

This might all sound kind of silly, but I’m posting just in case there’s anyone out there who’s felt any kind of anxiety about yelling in front of people. I made the sound for D, and he said it was good, but I needed to be louder. We’ll see if I do a good job tonight at practice. :)

I really need to work on my karate yell. D says I can’t just yell… I have to grunt, or do that “hee-ya” thing, but people don’t actually say “hee ya!,” they just make a soun that sounds liket hat… and this makes me feel like if i start trying to do my yell in class, people are going to hear me doing it wrong and not take me seriously.

D thinks i’m being neurotic, but I can’t help it. Yelling in front of people makes me nervous. I’ve always been shy. I guess I’ll work on my yell while I’m alone today.

D and I had our first karate class together yesterday! It went quite well. Because he already has a background in martial arts, he could have bypassed the first beginner’s class, but he went ahead and took it with me anyway. It was just the two of us and an instructor, who introduced himself by his first name, not as “Sensei” anything, so we weren’t sure what to call him. It is Americanized karate, so maybe they don’t use the term… ? I’m not sure.

Anyway, I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with D, and the instructor gave me a bit of extra attention. I was afraid to yell. I didn’t think I would be, but with just the three of us there, I felt weird. I know I have to get over that. I also had a hard time with the kicks. When we learned them in slow motion, I kept almost falling over. Then, when I kicked, my hips would pop and it hurt like hell. I have the body of an old woman.

Still, the instructor was very encouraging. He had a lot of patience, helped me with my form, and told me when I did a good job at something. D was very encouraging as well, and showed me some stretches that will help me with my hip problem. He reminded me that he has about twelve years of experience over me with this, so there’s no reason to be self concious about being new at this. I am determined to do well.

I thought this goal would never get accomplished, but D and I finally visited a couple of school, and it looks like one of them will be able to suit our schedules. We’re going to start taking classes pretty soon!

I took karate for the better part of a year. It’s been more than a decade since I quit, so I don’t remember much. Maybe one of these days I’ll go back to it. I loved the karate itself, but hated the dojo politics.

I kept forgetting to bug the b/f about it, but last night a lightbulb went off in his head, and he said, “Oh yeah, we need to look up schools.”

He already knew what to look for (since he has a background in martial arts already) so he found a couple of sites for some schools that are nearby, and we discussed the possibilities.

It looks like we’ve made a choice – this school we like has adult classes that include all different belts, so if he gets ahead of me, they won’t seperate us. Also, we can take morning or evening classes, which will work well with our schedules. He works really odd hours, and I will probably be going to art school in the mornings, soon enough, so it’s great that we found a place that can be flexible. :)

Every week my b/f and I are like, “Okay, lets check into the martial arts school this week!”

We never do. I’m going to write a note on MY forehead with perminent ink, so he’ll think about it every time he looks at me.