I've tried but you're still the same
Sep. 12th, 2009 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I think I'm going back to karate in earnest. Twice a week, 2.5 hours in total. I want my first dan by the end of next year: I'd forgotten how good it feels to go through a kata, to get it right, or nearly so.
Two and a half hours a week isn't hardcore by anyone's standards, I suppose, but if I'm climbing two to three times a week (two hours a session), running two to three times a week - and the physio recommended I take up swimming once a week in addition, to help keep my shoulder muscles limber - and weight training (two tricep exercises only) twice a week, on days I'm not climbing...
...Or at any rate, this is the plan, for college. Because I need to do something to justify my existence when I'm not in the library, and ain't no way nohow I can find a job with my patchy CV in this economy.
But I was talking about karate. Shotokan karate, with its wonderful slightly impractical long stances and kihon whose emphasis is primarily on power rather than finesse.
Strength isn't the same thing as power, and it was karate that taught me that. Strength helps. But power rests in the correct application of strength and technique and leverage, and you're always learning better technique. Moving closer to the unattainable perfect.
The sensei's a battered old fella in his sixties, former bouncer, still sometime plumber, with his third dan only a few years old still. He took up martial arts in his late thirties. He's not flashy, or particularly impressive, or even very flexible. The classes are usually full of kids - I'm generally the eldest person there, apart from him - and we tend to skimp on dojo etiquette.
But damn the man knows his kata. His kihon might not be as thorough as I've seen in the handful of classes I've been to at the college club, but his kata - and the standard of kata he demands from his students - makes theirs look slack by comparison.
It'll be a while before I'm back up to standard. Once I'm there, well, black belt isn't so far off.
I have a secret plan, you see. The plan is to upskill (corporatespeak is occasionally useful) myself to the point where I'm at least marginally qualified as a junior instructor in such things as karate, diving, and hopefully, eventually, climbing and a couple of other outdoorsy type things. (This requires money. Anyone want to employ me? I do good work cheap. :P ) So that should I flunk out of an academic career, I might have something non-officey to fall back on.
If I can manage to hang on to some college grant money and/or get a job this summer, I'm aiming for upskilling the diving. It's cheap in Lanzarote. Well, only half as expensive as here. Which means that relatively speaking, it's cheap, right?
Two and a half hours a week isn't hardcore by anyone's standards, I suppose, but if I'm climbing two to three times a week (two hours a session), running two to three times a week - and the physio recommended I take up swimming once a week in addition, to help keep my shoulder muscles limber - and weight training (two tricep exercises only) twice a week, on days I'm not climbing...
...Or at any rate, this is the plan, for college. Because I need to do something to justify my existence when I'm not in the library, and ain't no way nohow I can find a job with my patchy CV in this economy.
But I was talking about karate. Shotokan karate, with its wonderful slightly impractical long stances and kihon whose emphasis is primarily on power rather than finesse.
Strength isn't the same thing as power, and it was karate that taught me that. Strength helps. But power rests in the correct application of strength and technique and leverage, and you're always learning better technique. Moving closer to the unattainable perfect.
The sensei's a battered old fella in his sixties, former bouncer, still sometime plumber, with his third dan only a few years old still. He took up martial arts in his late thirties. He's not flashy, or particularly impressive, or even very flexible. The classes are usually full of kids - I'm generally the eldest person there, apart from him - and we tend to skimp on dojo etiquette.
But damn the man knows his kata. His kihon might not be as thorough as I've seen in the handful of classes I've been to at the college club, but his kata - and the standard of kata he demands from his students - makes theirs look slack by comparison.
It'll be a while before I'm back up to standard. Once I'm there, well, black belt isn't so far off.
I have a secret plan, you see. The plan is to upskill (corporatespeak is occasionally useful) myself to the point where I'm at least marginally qualified as a junior instructor in such things as karate, diving, and hopefully, eventually, climbing and a couple of other outdoorsy type things. (This requires money. Anyone want to employ me? I do good work cheap. :P ) So that should I flunk out of an academic career, I might have something non-officey to fall back on.
If I can manage to hang on to some college grant money and/or get a job this summer, I'm aiming for upskilling the diving. It's cheap in Lanzarote. Well, only half as expensive as here. Which means that relatively speaking, it's cheap, right?