Getting Older

I know it's been a while, so here's a karate update for you. Monday night at Black Belt class, it was just me, Josh, and Mrs. Wagner. We spent a good deal of the night working on Urashi Bo. I love that kata. It is soooo cool. I've learned all the moves, I just need to polish and practice enough that I don't have to stop and think about what comes next.

After that, we worked on some self defense. Mrs. Wagner said that self defense is not part of their testing in the dojo she came up in. It is a big part of our testing, I responded. So she had asked about some self defense moves, and we did some drills and such for the rest of the class. In one exercise, we were punching sensei and I realized how much harder it seems for me to punch powerfully. Part of the reason is that I've been doing so much teaching here lately, what with the influx of new students we've gotten since moving into the new dojo, that I haven't had much time for working out myself. I also attribute it at least partially to aging. It seems like stuff is getting harder and harder since I turned 40. Three years ago, I was doing 50 push ups a day--25 in the morning, and 25 in the evening. Now I struggle to get through 5. I still try to get 20 done. I just have to do them in sets of 5. Ahhh, the joys of getting older.

Last night in the regular adult class, sensei announced that the next rank test will be October 23, and that if everyone in the class worked hard between now and then, they would all be ready to test. Sensei then took the 5 higher ranking students into the back room to work with them, while Mr. Tedder, Barrett, and I worked with the 8 white belts and one yellow belt on basics and seisan kata. After class, one of the white belts came up to me and asked if there was anything I noticed in his kata that he needed to work on. I said yes, and spent the next several minutes working with him. He was very nervous, and at one point I looked over and he was shaking like a leaf from head to toe. "Relax," I told him. "You're doing fine." Finally we were done, and I had a chance to go over Urashi with sensei. "I need to be working on that kata that's kicking my butt," I said at one point, "the one I need for my ni-dan." But Urashi is so much more fun!

In other dojo news, sensei got his papers Monday night from where he is being sued. The landlady of our previous dojo is suing sensei for breaking the lease. He believes she will win, but he is trying to limit how much she nails him for. After all, it's not like he had much of a choice. The state Department of Health was going to shut him down unless he installed another exit and bathroom. It would have cost her as much or more to remodel as she is losing in rent. If she didn't remodel, the health department would have made him shut down anyway, and she still would have been out a tenant. Still, I don't think she can get any damages awarded--just the last 5 months of rent due. Sensei says he has a couple of aces in the hole, but I don't know what they are.

Also, a few weeks ago, sensei was approached by a Tae Kwan Do black belt about leasing floor time from sensei to conduct his classes. Things were going OK with that until the guy stated that he wanted a room to be his office, and he wanted to hang his certificates on the wall with sensei's. Sensei said that if he wanted all that, he would have to ask him for more money. He didn't want to pay more, so that deal fell through. That is the short version of the story. If you'd heard the long version, you'd be better able to see that what the guy really wanted was to have co-owner privileges without co-owner responsibility. This guy is known for not being exactly above board in his business dealings, and sensei was concerned that he would eventually be shouldered out of his own dojo.

I've go more karate chat, but I've rambled on enough for one night. I'll leave you with one more factoid:


And it just keeps getting weirder and weirder:

Cody has now decreed that any time we enter or exit through the back door, we have to call a greeting to Jeff.

Heavy sigh...