karate Archives - Page 7 of 8

Tuesday April 28th, 2020

We will have karate tonight over Zoom, and I did get in a run on the treadmill yesterday.

I meditated for ten minutes in front of the sow thistle and mallow, hoping to see finches. Instead, a yellow and black striped hornet and a large black bee, and several sweat bees wove in and out of my weedy yard forest. I must have watched for several minutes before noticing the white spiderweb, hidden death, stretched out in nearly the center of that tiny paradise.

Today I brought out a translation of the Qur’an and, like a Torah, it reads from right to left. I only got through part of the translator’s introduction before it eas time to write in this journal. I still have a schedule, even during meditation week.

A. Yuesuf ‘Ali, the translator, spoke of what led him to translate his holy book into English. He’d experienced a personal tragedy that he did not divulge, and devoted himself to the work. The idea was one that had been with him for years, and he’d collected materials and notes over forty years. After journeying to Lahore, he shared his ideas with some young friends. His project excited them. They encouraged him to write, found a publisher, a calligrapher for the Arabic text, and a printer. (Note: his name has a “u” with an umlaut that I’m writing here as ue. Not sure how to find special characters yet.)

He wrote his preface in 1934, so between the two world wars, after India’s Declaration of Independence was passed there but before Pakistan’s own Lahore Resolution.

1934 was about three years before my father was born, but my dear aunt, who helped raise me, would have been three years old.

The birds are still singing. Behind me, a squirrel scolded some creature, possibly that cat from yesterday for another squirrel.

Jessica texted: her employer furloughed her from her job this week. I will call her today.

Sunday April 26th, 2020

I’m writing very late. Today is almost over. I was so busy: cleaning, five loads of laundry, and cooking. One load is still in the dryer. I cooked a week’s worth of oatmeal and fruit compote for the kids’ breakfast and made two large veggie and cheese omelettes for dinner. Everyone, except for D, had the omelettes.

Our neighbor Jessica came to retrieve her gardening supplies, so I took that as an opportunity to pick fresh loquats for her and also gave her a container of prepared ones. She texted me when she came, and retrieved the fruit from where I left it in the driveway.

I also tidied up the front lawn: trimmed the grass and weeds with the weed eater, cut suckers from the rose bush, swept the sidewalk, chained two hoses together in the front yard to connect to the soaker hose across the median and used them to water the camphor tree. The long hose I normally keep in the front had burst the last time I used it.

Shannon called, but her phone cut out periodically. We decided to talk later.

Richard’s cousin, a doctor, called to talk about Karen. She was upset to hear Karen was diagnosed with COV-19. Karen’s diagnosis, however, was based on observation of symptoms, rather than a test for the presence of the virus. Richard’s cousin is very worried about Aunt Karen, even though we currently believe she has a mild case. Karen’s age, mid-eighties, puts her at a higher risk for complications.

Tonight I will skip the web entries. Perhaps tomorrow, when I am back on my schedule, I’ll catch up. Meditation week is always more difficult to keep on a schedule, though I plan to keep running on the treadmill.

My weight came back up a little: 109 pounds, so I need to pay more attention to what I eat. Maybe I need to add even more cardio to my schedule.

I forgot to mention we had a meeting with Sensei on Saturday morning: the Ichi Kyus, our Nidan, two Shodans, other high ranking students and Sensei. We talked about how to proceed with our black belt tests, given Kumite and Sanchin may not be options during the pandemic. Many cool ideas surfaced: a strenuous run up a mountain trail, or kata on the beach, while ocean waves roll in to add resistance, or Sanchin as Mas Oyama reputedly did it, while balancing jars of clay. I love the idea of doing a test in nature. Granted, most of us associate the ten man fight with the black belt. Could we, instead, battle ten elements of nature?

Friday April 24th, 2020

push-ups: 1:09 minutes, 30/tricep on the floor and 30/chest on a yoga matte
squats: 1:49 minutes, 70 squats, alternating with punches every other set
sit-ups: 2:12 minutes, 70 sit-ups, more upper abs in the morning

These are my times. Next week is my “meditation” week, though I will continue to run on the treadmill. The following week will be 80 sit-ups and squats, then I should move to 40/20 for floor and matte push-ups.

I emailed Sensei yesterday about this site. I hope he likes it, and is able to see it!

Oh, I reached Shannon on the phone last night. She’s fine! Such a relief! D suggested calling her at night, so I did. They don’t have kids, and, as D suspected, they were still up at 10pm. They were not upset that I called so late.

She was sick for several days last week with a fever, and received the COVID-19 test. Her results came yesterday: negative.

Shannon tried to check out this website but could not get it to load. It loaded as a broken domain. I may have left the site in a bad state one day last weekend. I should check it under a different user, just in case that makes a difference.

Miriam suggested taking loquats to Mikage and Jerry, two good friends of ours who recently moved back to Los Angeles, after living in Vancouver for several years. K loves loquats. She is originally from Japan, and told me once that loquats never stay in the grocery stores long there. They have a short season and sell out quickly. My tree is full of fruit. This will be my weekend: loquats. Picking, delivering, cleaning, preparing and and eating loquats.

I looked up the “shelter in place” order for LA County. Culver City, where Mikage and Jerry live, is fourteen miles away. Delivering food, however, is certainly allowed. Is there someone I can call? “Hello city official, I’d like to drop loquats off with a friend. Is that okay?” I may also simply ask Mikage if she is comfortable with me dropping off fruit, and make sure she wants them. I could also freeze a batch for her, and give her those when we’re allowed to see one another.

Granted, the idea of driving to another area is attractive: seeing different scenery, and just feeling how large the world is. I want to respect the order, however. I’ll ask D for his opinion.

Delivering home-grown fruit may be a grey area. Funny–if she paid for them, it would count as “essential” business since it involves food. I will just ask her. I can leave the loquats at her door step, then wave at her from the car or from the street, just like the delivery folks. She loves loquats.

I love my loquat tree, and love giving away its fruit. I like eating them, too, with lemon juice and honey, or simply as they are. They are a bit of work to prepare.

Well, that’s my timer. Time to pick!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

I’m a little bit discombobulated because kids woke my husband and me up at 6:30am. They asked what to do about the neighbors’ broken sprinkler jetting water into the sky. F said it was like a fountain, shooting up and into the street.

There was an earthquake last night, too, a small one: 3.7 in Englewood.

My children and I set up the computer on the back patio; we participated in karate class outdoors via Zoom. That was cool: our yard is still wild, even with the bit of laundry hanging about in an attempt at domestication. We practiced karate with trees as our backdrop and the night insects as our audience. Senpai Peter led most of Kihon and did a good job. Sensei offered corrections on the direction of yoko keage: Janice’s was too straight to the side and mine was too much at an angle.

S and I kept F in the center again. Though we were tired after class, we were not overheated, as we had been while doing Kihon in the upstairs bedroom. During class last night, we also did kiaias as quiet, more gutteral “shi-ahs” so we would not disturb the neighbors. Sensei taught the class this new kiai style, saying it was a kiai for advanced karateka: practitioners who know how to avoid conflict with neighbors and family during a pandemic!

It was great to see so many kids and adults on-line, taking part in the class.

Afterwards, I did my exercises on the patio: chest push-ups on the concrete and tricep push-ups in the overgrown clover. During squats, I punched at a tall dandelion; it was practically at my chest. I used the plant for targeting. My goal was to deliver punches fast enough and close enough to move it with air, but not actually hit it. Move it I did! I rushed through sit-ups and yes, did fetch a yoga matte for those.

Six minutes left before I need to login to work!

Tuesday April 21st, 2020

I write this diary in pen in a notebook in the morning and type it it into this site at night.

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats, with ten push-ups on my knees as extras, so sixty on my toes and ten on my knees, and seventy for squats and push-ups.

Aunt Karen’s son brought her home from the emergency room, but she went to her apartment and not back to the nursing home. We were glad to hear it, but still worried about her. One of her sons will look in on her.

Even though she still needs care, going back to the nursing home was not an option. Her doctors have not yet confirmed COVID-19, but it’s still a possibility, so for her sake and for the other nursing home patients, she can’t return. Wow–what a conundrum.

Karen told Richard she’d gotten to know a woman down the hall recently. Suddenly that woman was gone. Karen’s son told Richard that both rooms on either side of hers Karen’s were empty and the nursing staff would not say what happened to Karen’s former neighbors. Hopefully they are also alive and in their own homes with family, like Karen.

Goals today: it’s Tuesday, so we have Kihon as soon as work is done. I plan to change into my gi during lunch. Our class start time has moved thirty minutes up to 7pm. This makes sense for the kids in attendance, including mine.

I still need to email Sensei about this site and join his Facebook group. Ah Facebook.

Every morning, I wipe down the counters, table and other frequently used surfaces, including light switches, door knobs, fan controllers, etc., with a super-diluted bleach solution, then leave these surfaces to air dry.

In the kitchen, I pick one area to clean thoroughly. This morning, I tackled the expresso machine area and, because I wanted coffee, was rather impatient for it to dry. I grabbed a magazine fanned it.

Suddenly I remembered fanning aloe on the bright red skin of a sunburnt child after a trip to the beach. F always loved the ocean and a few times we stayed too long. That first time I brought her home after staying out too long, she was so red. I felt such guilt. Will she end up with skin cancer at my age? It has afflicted more than one person in my family.

My son is more fair, and has gotten sunburned a time or two, but with the second child, you figure out better methods. I bought him rash guards and slathered him opaque with sunscreen. F doesn’t like rash guards or sunscreen but will “humor” me, at least until she thinks I’m not paying attention. Then she pulls off the rash guard and runs back into the ocean, thinking I won’t notice. Sometimes I pretend not to. We miss the sand and surf.

Monday April 20th, 2020

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats this morning. After 60 push-ups, I huffed and puffed, but pushed myself to do ten more on my knees. Seventy squats often tire me out as well. During squats, I alternate sets with punches with regular sets. Ab exercises do not make me quite as tired, but they are starting to.

My father-in-law’s sister Karen is staying in a nursing home in New Jersey after she fell and broke her knee-cap. Recently, she’s had a fever of 100 and some shortness of breath. Karen’s son called last night to say they were taking her to the emergency room. They worry she has COVID-19. She is older than Richard, my father-in-law, and he’s 81. We hope she will be okay.

That reminds me to call Shannon tonight and see how she’s doing. Shannon is my age and in good health. Her husband is sharp, so if he is not sick, he’ll take her to a hospital if she takes a turn for the worse. Calling or texting to check in with her will put my mind more at ease.

Today I plan to run on the treadmill for twenty minutes and do my second set of exercises. Those are my goals, besides working and updating this website with this entry, and one further back in time. Sometime this week, I want to figure out how to get the posts to show up in the order I want them–by the date in the title and not the timestamp in which they get entered as posts.

How much of this journal will actually be interesting to people?

While writing outside, I hear birds, an occasional wind chime and the trash truck: picking up cans, brightening the lives of many a toddler. I remember taking first Rebecca then Joey out to watch the trash truck. I remember running down the sidewalk with both kids so they could watch it pick up one more can.

In ten minutes, I will clock into work on-line, but first I want to get dressed.

Introduction: ichi kyu to shodan

Masutatsu Ōyama opened his dojo in 1953 in Tokyo, and established his own style, Kyokushin, which spread through both Japan and the world.

What’s an ichi kyu? In American Kyokushin karate, students of karate track their progress by wearing colored belts. These colored belts are called the “kyu” ranks; the ichi kyu is designated by a brown stripe, and it’s one rank below black belt. That sounds pretty fancy! In our style, reaching ichi kyu level can take anywhere from four to seven years, depending on how fit and flexible you are when you start, but also how much free time you have for practice and class attendance!

What’s a shodan? A recipient of a shodan, or black belt , is considered “competent” in karate.

Reaching competency

Passing from an ichi kyu to shodan is basically graduating to a level in which you are considered competent in our style. For us, this means you can teach kyu ranks.

Currently, both my teenaged children and I have received our shodans and have helped, in various capacities, to keep our small but mighty karate organization running, through and after the pandemic. We recently applied status as a 501c(7), so we are official!

The older blog entries record my journey from ichi kyu rank, through my shodan test and into my first year as a teacher.

I’m hoping to slowly change over the format of this blog to be more useful to our small karate group.

Friday April 17th, 2020

Daily Log: the back log

I’m writing outside. It’s cool and cloudy. It had been sunny and beautiful for the past several days, while I’d been working. After a very Biblical-feeling seven year drought in Southern California, cloudy days are beautiful days, too. Water falling from the sky is miraculous, cloud-cover and water will heal the scorched earth–it’s good on a free Friday. And will inspire me to get to work on my website.

So exercises: I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats last night and this morning. Did better with Japanese counting during the squats but botched it during sit-ups. I was trying to do a variety of ab exercises since I had seventy to get through and it is at the end of the week. To work my arms better, I am still throwing in ten extra push-ups on my knees.

My goal for push-ups for the black belt test is sixty solid knuckle push-ups on the ground, if need be. Well, dirt would be softer, at least in my back yard, than the Pergo floor. Pergo is this smooth, fake wood stuff. It’s pretty and easy to clean, but less easy on the knuckles than a yoga matte. Sensei wants me to challenge myself. It’s challenging.

I will soon be through Cixin Liu’s short story collection and will then hopefully get back to working on my own book. Ending and shaping the second one in the series and getting it out there would be great. Pick a meaningful, big event in the story and call that the end: that’s what I can do. I’m just not sure exactly where; I had ideas and now I’m doubting them.

I also asked F to to read the earlier draft of my first book, which is only four chapters where the current draft actually ends, and see if she likes the faster-paced original better. One of my DWA friends, CM, liked the original better than the current draft. I am just thinking through what to do with the current draft.

And my timer went off. (Every day, I time these writings. I usually stick to ten minutes.

Thursday, April 16th, 2020

Daily Log: the back log

This morning and yesterday evening I did my sets of push-ups, sit-ups and squats. During lunch yesterday, I ran on the treadmill for twenty minutes, with ten minutes walking. That last set of exercises yesterday evening was tough to get through.

My body must be starting to adjust to the extra exercise. Also, we had a good kihon the night before. Hopefully it will not take too long to get back into shape.

I did not realize that my activity had taken such a nosedive until I got on the scale and saw the evidence last week. If I can keep up the lunchtime cardio, once things go back to normal, that will help towards the black belt test.

Sensei has setup a Facebook page for black belts and brown-stripes. I do not want to join Facebook. Setting up a junk account and joining with that is perhaps the way to go. If D, my husband, could allow me to use his dormant account, but he didn’t like the idea.

Sabrina, a friend from work in her early twenties, told me she gets around security issues by creating a couple “fake” selves who live in different places and have different jobs, but are similar to her “real” self, in order to spoof anyone with nefarious intent. I don’t know if I want to go to that much trouble.

Given all the drama I’ve heard from friends and relatives over Facebook, I’m glad not to be a part of it. Maybe I’ll join with a fake identity, but let Sensei know who I am.

But it’s “virtual” Friday, because I have tomorrow off work. So I should do my best and worry about these issues at another time. I need to make a healthy breakfast and get in one more day. Today, I should walk during lunch and call someone fun, like Eliza. I dreamed about Shannon. I should check up on her.

Wednesday April 15th, 2020

The Back Log

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats last night and this morning. We also had a Kihon class via Zoom with Sensei yesterday evening. That was nice. So 15 of my push-ups, sit-ups and squats for the evening happened during class, then I did 45 afterwards (that’s 30 on the floor plus 15 on the thick exercise matte.)

Sensei had us do Kihon exercises in sets of 3 moves with a more quiet “shi-shi-shi” as our kiai. Those were challenging. Daughter F, my son B and I were pooped when Kihon was done. We kept F in the middle because she has such perfect form, or at least beautiful form. I may not be the judge of perfect, but I definitely know beautiful.

Sensei ended the class with a couple simple Tai Chi exercises. He practices these in the morning to center himself. I like the symbolism: pulling down energy from the sky, stars and universe, then lifting up good energy from the Earth to your heart, so you will be grounded. Finally, bringing that Earth-heart energy to your own Chi, where you combine it with that sky energy you previously brought into your Chi. Through you, by way of your heart, Earth and sky mix.

He had us feel the heat between our hands, which is particularly strong after exercising. Sensei demonstrated stretching that heat–our Chis–first left and right, on the diagonals, up and down, expanding oneself. He also instructed us to reach behind to gather up all our intentions and things things left undone, and bring those forward to combine with our Chis. “Resolve that what needs to be done will be done,” he said.

That’s my timer. Richard, my father-in-law, came down and we had a nice talk about radio waves.

I skipped my usual leg stretch on the bookcase. What’s one stretch?