Sunday October 4th, 2020
I spent perhaps far too much time reading the news yesterday and feeling stressed. So I felt this was perhaps a good topic to cover. Hoping others will find this helpful.
Coronavirus in the News
With so many of our elected leaders and their staff, acquaintances, friends and family afflicted with coronavirus, let us keep them in our thoughts and prayers. This disease, striking the powerful and the weak alike, reminds us of our own mortality.
The AIDS epidemic was the last time our nation faced anything similar to COVID-19 in recent memory. That disease, as frightening as it was, is not comparable. According to a CDC publication from November 1995, total deaths that year from AIDS had reached 311,381 persons nationally. The death rate for infected persons was a frightening 62%. Due to better education, activism and treatments that rate finally started to fall in 1996. Antiretroviral therapy in particular, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, was perhaps the key factor in that reduction.
This year, in the US, roughly 208,630 have died to date with this disease (KFF). The gross death rate is roughly 3 to 4%, so considerably lower than that of AIDS at its peak. However, unlike AIDS, it is highly contagious, and currently we have about 7.44 M people infected. So the likelihood that one might contract this disease is high. Also, similar to AIDS, a person can be a carrier for some unknown length of time and transmit the virus to multiple persons without being aware he or she is spreading the disease. Finally, unlike AIDS, we hope this first year will be the peak.
The rough, lower death rate for COVID-19 is misleading. This disease is opportunistic. It effects the more vulnerable. So the elderly, along with immunocompromised individuals, are more effected. Minority communities as well as those impoverished suffer from it disproportionately.
Stress and Karate
It is well known that a regular exercise practice, as well as mindfulness and mediation, can reduce stress. Karate, with its roots in Zen Buddhism, emphasizes breathing and meditation in addition to rigorous training.
Friday’s Class: Stances and Backwards Kata
Friday night’s class, led by my daughter F, was enough to move my mind from the week’s concerns. Rather than kihon, she had us hold stances for a minute and a half. I found this hilarious video of a karate father demonstrating how to get in a work-out doing this with small children:
Afterwards, she had us practice Pinan Sono Ichi backwards. Concentrating on this certainly focused my mind, at least for the duration of that exercise.
Saturday’s Class: Renraku
Yesterday morning, we met in a park in Burbank for a distance-respecting work-out. Sensei T led the class and called on me to teach kihon. I was a bit out of breath by the end of kihon, though we only did tens. Normally, for adult classes, we will do twenty of each exercise. Yesterday, we had a number of younger children in class. When this is the case, we do fewer exercises.
Senpai T covered the first three IFK basic Renraku exercises. Here’s another great video demonstrating some of the material we covered:
This gentleman demonstrates several more renraku. We covered the 9th and 8th. The 8th renraku is very similar to the 9th, but you lead with a kick, rather than a punch. The 7th focuses on blocks. By request from young Senpai TD, however, we jumped to the last renraku, which is all kicks! Then Senpai T called on us to do it on both sides. That was a challenge. I found a fun video that shows most of the renraku. Go to the end: that’s where you’ll see the kicking one!
Mortality, Nature and Karate
While karate certainly doesn’t dwell on our mortality, it does emphasize self-defense for the preservation of one’s life, as well as exercise for health.
Oyama also emphasized practicing karate and meditation in nature. Famously, he spent months honing his skills, alone, in the wilderness. The book I recently finished by him, “This is Karate,” is full of beautiful photos of karateka practicing on the beach, in the forest, in snow or before stunning landscapes. Hence, both our dojo, and now the club, tries to get out in nature to practice.
Queen of the Night
Wednesday night, the night of my son’s birthday, we had a rare opportunity to observe the opening of Jessica’s Queen of the Night plant. I had written about hoping to see this event back in July. We looked for it on the 22nd, and I described missing it on the 23rd.
This past Wednesday night, we watched its progress. By 7pm, Jessica came to watch its opening. She sat on a chair with the plant until the mosquitoes convinced to her leave. I offered to keep watch and send photos. By 10pm, the two blooms on the plant were completely open. They already had a smell then, but you needed to bend down to smell them. By midnight, they released the most amazing smell.
I took several photos of each bloom from various angles, with and without the flash. Our outdoor light gave the white blooms a pinkish tinge. Some of the photos came out looking quite abstract, particularly the close-up ones.
The grandparents, kids and D came out with me at various points to examine and smell the flowers. Richard noted that it was a full moon, and asked if these plants primarily bloom during full moons.
Each bloom begins in a teardrop shape and puffs out over one or two days. In the evening, it begins to open slowly, but by midnight, it is in its full glory.
Flowers, Pandemics and Brevity
Like the pandemic, the night flower is also a reminder of mortality, albeit a more glorious one. The bloom is spectacular in size and smell, once fully open, but the fact that it opens just once, and only at night, makes it unusual. So to see it, you must stay up late. It’s quick, too: in just two to three hours, it will open completely. By morning, it has returned to its teardrop, but droops down.
However long we as humans may live, even our lives, when long, pass quickly, when compared with stately, centuries old redwoods or the ancient stars above. All living things die. We are no different. We come into the world totally helpless, and if fortunate, learn to crawl, totter, walk, run, dance, perform karate, walk, perhaps the totter returns, then nothing. All human life is brief. What more impetus do we need to treat each other, and ourselves, with compassion?