Today was karate day and that means I feel obligated to do a sports related post. Unfortunately, all I have to talk about is pain.
The dojo we practice in has a sprung wood floor that is used and over used by dozens of different martial arts groups. Not every one sweeps the floor the way they were supposed to and, for some reason, today my feet felt as if I was trying to do karate in bowling shoes on an oiled surface. I nearly did impressive splits and pull a hamstring during a kata when my left foot slipped. I then managed to stumble and bumble my way through the rest of the routine with my sensei constantly encouraging me with 1) “You suck” and 2) “No, really, you suck.” After I finished he saw me limping and stretching and asked if I was okay. I said I was and he said I needed to work more on my stance and my balance.
Later, we did sword defense techniques that start with the the opponent pressing the tip of the sword against your throat. You put your palms against the blade and do a little ninja twist move that pushes the blade aside allowing you inside. It looks really cool and you feel really confident doing it, but it assumes that the person pressing the sword against your throat is a talking killer monologuing on and on about what he’s going to do with your bloody remains after he kills you rather than just taking advantage of the fact he’s got a sword pressed against your throat and telling you the same thing as you’re bleeding out.
The real pain, though, happened after that. We did a sword move that starts from seiza. Seiza, which means “Proper Sitting” is form of torture where you kneel and sit on your heels. It looks a lot like the position people get in to start a Muslim prayer. Japanese have been doing this since before they could walk and most of them can do it their entire lives–although even they have trouble standing if they do it for too long. It is the basic greeting for all martial arts and even people who do shogi (Japanese chess) sit seiza when they play matches. Before my skiing injury I could do seiza for several minutes–eventually your legs go numb and you don’t feel any pain anymore. Then I couldn’t do it at all and had to settle for just kneeling. Now, I’m finally able to get back into the basic position for a few minutes before my knees start screaming “Have you lost your f@#king mind?”
This sword technique added another twist. We started in seiza with the sword on the floor in front of us. We picked up the sword and went to a kiza (one knee up) and then stood up and slashed. Well, that was the plan. I managed to stand up but, quite frankly, at that point in a real fight my only hope would be that my opponents were laughing so hard at what they’d just witnessed I’d get a chance to hack them to bits.
My sensei told me to start in kiza, which helped a bit, but my opponents would still be laughing. Especially tomorrow as I limp around school trying to teach.