Hell Yeah

3/12/13

This week seemed to have a theme, sort of.  A lot of times when I train I feel like I am running out of time.  Maybe it’s that nasty cramming habit I picked up in college.  But, there’s this sense of urgency that I’ve often experienced.  I think, “OK, this week I have to train every day and I have to train hard every single one of those days.”

The reality is that I don’t do well that way.  The body is not limitless.  It needs rest and good food, vitamins, etc.  The mind is connected, too.  It needs to feel right.  It needs to be clear.  I have to feed it good things, too.

I have this tournament coming up this Sunday, March 17^th, in just a few more days.  It is my first full-contact tournament.  Wow, crazy stuff.  Never in a million years did I think I would ever be doing something like this.  I spent a lot of time back in Texas fantasizing about it, but I never thought anything like this would actually happen, or that I would actually allay my fears enough to follow through.  But, yeah.  It’s happening.

Training for this tournament has brought some things to light.  I have learned that consistency over the long term is a very valuable thing.  I cannot expect to become a champion overnight, or even in the 8 months that I have been here. It takes time.  There is so much to learn, so much to practice.  It’s best to take each technique in at an appropriate pace.  I have learned that I am not 19 anymore, but I am not yet 70.  There are actually some perks to being in a matured body.  I’ve been driving this vehicle for some years now. 

“We will pursue the true meaning of the martial way so that in time our senses may be alert.”  (#2 of the Kyokushin Dojo Kun)

This week I noticed the words, “in time.”  Yes, all in good time.  So, I have to pay attention now.  What does my body say?  Some days it says that it needs sleep, so that’s what I do for it.  Some days it wants to train hard, and so we go.  But, we are reaching a better agreement every day, my body and I.  If I give it what it needs, it breaks down limitations when I beg it to keep going after it says, “I can’t.”  We’re seeing eye to eye a little more each day. 

I don’t really think about this tournament as the end of anything or even as any kind of finished product.  It is, to me, another process within a much larger process.  This sense of continuity is new to me.  Back in the U.S. I felt like a lot of these Americanized karate styles only focused on winning plastic trophies.  But there is so much more to karate than winning.  There’s being brave enough to find that limitation within, accepting it, and then making it disappear.

Yours,
Kalia