Tag: Queen of the Night

Coronavirus, Stress, Mortality and Karate

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!

This IFK group in Israel is awesome. Fun to watch!

Mortality, Nature and Karate

Queen of the Night opening Wednesday night

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.

Queen of the Night, no flash, both blooms

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?

Thursday July 23rd, 2020

I meditated for ten minutes, under the loquat tree, focusing on a corner with lilies just starting to open, with a sprig of bougainvillea curling around them. The succulents recently planted nearby are doing well. Though I could hear the buzz of a weed-eater off in the distance and the whoosh of cars, the hooting mourning dove sounded closer, and stronger.

We had a visitor: a white and yellow cat, collared with a bell that gave no sound, wandered around from the side of the house. It walked right up to our sliding glass door, and stopped. It looked in at our cat, Bistro, who looked out. I took a picture. Lady Bug, his sister, was there, too, though she is not visible in the photo. The cat then saw me, and spent a good few seconds observing me. Suddenly it turned and scampered back the way it had come. Afterwards, the other cats, indoors, jumped to the windows above the sink, anxious to follow it. I don’t know why it ran away. Perhaps the sent of the other cats, wafting from the open windows, changed its mind?

Moments later, my son came outside. “Mom, Bistro is really scared of something. His tail is all puffed out!”

“We just had a visitor,” I said. I told him about the other cat and showed him the picture.

“That cat looks like a bigger version of Marvin,” he said. Marvin was another visitor we’d had years ago, when S was quite young, like Marvin, whose big ears made him look more like a kitten. S was still in elementary school when Marvin came calling.

To follow up on the opening of the Queen of the Night from yesterday’s entry: we checked on it several times: 9pm, 10pm, midnight, even 4am, and it didn’t open. After I texted Jessica in the morning, she responded with her thoughts: given how it was already drooping a bit, most likely it already opened Tuesday night, so we missed it. So better luck next time! However, I did find come cool time-lapse posts that others have made of this remarkable plant. Here’s a video credited to Brett Flippen as producer:

After a day or two, I should probably move this footnote to yesterday’s entry.

Wednesday July 22nd, 2020

This morning, instead of exercises, I meditated for ten minutes. I sat outside under the loquat tree and tried to focus on natural sounds outdoors. Despite the leaf blower running, I could hear birds and the neighbor’s fountain. However, my mind went everywhere: more changes and cuts at work; concern over this blog since our little martial arts club is unaffiliated, and, though I’m pretty sure I did join the IFK, I only have my daughter’s membership card; fears that the Shodan test will be less meaningful without kumite and in this potentially shortened form; fears that, if I find employment in another industry, the adjustment will be more difficult than expected. When I realize my mind has wondered, I try to find a bird sound or the water, and listen again.

Funny, when I glance over the list of worries above, actually contracting COVID-19 myself, or having a member of my family contract it, doesn’t rate. Why is that? Despite the fact that a good friend and a couple cousins have gotten it, and recovered, the actual threat of the disease feels unreal. My husband keeps a little cheat sheet of the rising national count on a daily basis, which I see, but do not pay much attention to.

Despite the fact that it feels unreal, I act on what I know. In the morning, I still spray down the kitchen counters and frequently touched surfaces, like light switches and refrigerator handle, with a diluted bleach solution. A note taped to the door reminds me and others in my household to wear a mask before answering the door, both to protect us and whoever is dropping off a delivery and ringing the bell. The doorbell, outside and inside door knobs and even the mail box are surfaces I spray with the diluted bleach solution. I take these actions every day. I know that, despite our best efforts, one of us could still contract the disease. Despite this knowledge, I don’t worry about it. I just do what needs to be done.

Other areas of my life could benefit from that treatment: regarding work, I should do my best to look around, and do my best on the job I have, while I have it. It’s not always easy and I don’t always succeed, but that is a good goal. Regarding karate, the same: do what Sensei requires and trust his judgement. He will grant the next rank, or not, depending on how each of us performs during our test. He has given us the requirements and will administer the test. Also, we’ve chosen to continue our karate practice at home, to the best of our abilities, under these circumstances. Our only other option was to stop karate; that option precludes not only a black belt test but also any progress in karate.

My friend Jessica, my “dirt sister,” came over today. Her Queen of the Night started blooming. It only fully blooms at night. We are to check it roughly once an hour tonight to see, and hopefully record its progress. Above, take at peek at where it was at around 5:30pm this evening.