TigerJ13 – Days of Change

Owww or ouch are probably the best ways to describe last Saturday.  I tested for green sash, and to give away the ending of the story, I passed.  As the old joke goes, “what do you call a guy who finished last in medical school?”  The answer is, of course, “Doctor”.

Let’s start out with Thursday.  At my dojo, senior level tests are done in two parts.  The first is meditation.  For Green Sash, the meditation time is 1 hour.  It goes up by half hour increments after that.  You have to sit absolutely still for 1 hour.  It’s mostly done on the honor system, because what the heck, if you are going to lie about something, you would sure as heck argue a decision as well.  So I sat absolutely still except for breathing and swallowing for one hour.  On top of this already being hard, I had a cold as well.  I actually was going to write an entry about how I was ready last Monday.  I felt pretty good Monday morning, and even though I still had some memorization issues, I was pretty sure I would pass the test.  By Monday afternoon I felt like CRAP!  It’s just a cold, although now I think it’s moved into upper respiratory infection territory.  Anyway, try to sit absolutely still while your nose is running and you can’t get a decent breath.  I did it, although I didn’t go very deep into meditation.  I still have a long way to go on that front.

So, onto Saturday:  The test started at 2:00 PM and I left the dojo about 7:00 PM.  With about 20 minutes of talking with people after the test.  It started with our own combinations.  The combinations consisted of one block and four counters. This doesn’t sound so hard, but it is nerve racking.  During my second yellow, Sifu got on someone because they forgot their own combination.  You don’t want to do that.  So I was nervous, because I only came up with the combinations a couple weeks before and I did not practice them much.  I did pretty well though.

The next part was forms.  Funny story first though.  We got to get a drink of water after the combinations… I really needed it to blow my nose.  I was in the front row, mostly because when he told us to line up, everyone took a step backwards except for me.  It would have been funny in an Abbott and Costello movie.  So I was up front, coughing and my nose running.  Sifu says “you still sick?”  I say “Yes sir.”  He says, “Kenny and you switch positions”.  Everyone laughed and he did say no offense but he didn’t want to get sick.  I can appreciate that; I don’t want to be sick.

Ok, to be honest, I don’t remember much about form.  I did my best, but I was really split concentrating between breathing (which was hard) and keeping my balance (which is highly linked to how you breathe, I never realized that).  I generally practice forms at the gym in the morning with shoes on.  It’s a lot harder on tatami, especially when you can’t breathe properly.  Anyway, I think we did it about 10 times each way.  This means, first form, first form mirror image, second form, and second form mirror images, for a total of 40 forms.  This might seem like a lot, but the last test, we did 30 + times each way.  Of course, I only had first form then, but it was still 60+ forms.  Plus he had us go back and do form a few times so he could review some people’s stuff.  Needless to say, I’m glad he didn’t go back again.  I was dying by the end.  He called a 3 minute break for drink.  I went into the changing chamber and guzzled most of 1 liter of water/Gatorade.  I think this is when I uttered my now famous phrase “he didn’t look pleased.”  When I got back to sitting position, he called one of the guys testing with us out to his office.  I figured the guy wasn’t going to come back.  I also figured that Sifu might call another person or two in to chat, at least one of these people being me.  I can do form really well, but I don’t think I put my best foot forward. 

So one down, and he comes back and starts the next stage of the test; the guy in question sits off to the side and watches the rest of the test.  Chin nah (basically joint lock/manipulation).  I’ve practiced this a lot, but again I always blank on one of the techniques.  I got through it, I won’t say I did incredibly well, but I did better than Sifu expected.  He commented about 10 times about how well I was doing.  I still screwed up a couple of techniques that I really shouldn’t have screwed up.  Like I said, I did well enough to pass.

Next bag work.   After about 40 minutes of being thrown down by my partner, then standing up and performing technique, then getting thrown down again, I was glad to have a bag that didn’t hit back.  You cannot imagine how hard it is to stand up repeatedly when you are as exhausted as I was.  So, he said, “you are going to hit the bags with the techniques I call out as hard as you can.  Do not hold back, we won’t be doing many, as long as you hit hard.”  I hit hard.  I hit VERY hard.  We didn’t do many, and he only used one set of the bags the senior students brought out. So I assume that everyone hit VERY hard to avoid us doing more.  I assume it wasn’t because we sucked so bad that he didn’t want to see any more.  I should digress a little bit.  By this time, I was sucking wind.  I was so tired I could barely stand.  My cold combined with the utter physicality of the test made every breath a life or death situation.  You might think I’m exaggerating, but it didn’t feel that way.  Also, by this time, I was the only one testing.  During forms I was aware that there were people around me.  During Chin Nah I was aware that there was at least one person testing with me, because I was thrown into her and the back of my head hit her knee.  By the time we were hitting the bags, I didn’t have any clue who was next to me testing.

The next part was a modified side step drill which included “Throw’em out”.  Basically, our partners, the senior students, have mitts on, and they throw punches at you.  Sifu would call out a technique, and along with side stepping punches you were supposed to throw the technique when ever you had an opening.  After about 15 minutes of this, we went into throw’em out, where instead of calling out techniques, he just screams out “Throw ‘em out” and you have to use some technique to make them fall.  After a little while, he wanted us to mount them as well.  I was able to do this pretty well too, and Sifu even commented about how well I was doing.  Then my hip muscle decided to freeze up.  This spawned a front roll that unfortunately got noticed by Ms. Donahue.  So, of my test, the only thing anyone will ever remember is I did a front roll off a partner because I couldn’t figure out any other way off of him.

This was a challenging drill especially since it went on for about 40 minutes at high intensity.  I survived it.  That’s about all I can say.  The next part though, was the killer.  Sparring.  My biggest fear.  ARRRRRRGGGGGG

Like I said, I hit pretty hard, but I don’t hit very fast and I telegraph. This is not a good combination for sparring.  So 9 (yep, a record number of senior students volunteered for the blood letting) senior students lined up with full gear, including 20 oz gloves, head and mouth gear, shin guards and foot protection.  We had our full gear, except I lost my $50 mouth guard and had to use the one I got at the sporting goods counter.  The good one probably wouldn’t help that much, but I can’t breath at all through the darned thing.  I was the third person called.  When I got up there, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  I won’t bring up the details.  I got my butt kicked.  By everyone.  Including one girl.  I got knocked down some where between 2 and 7 times.  I remember clearly 2 falls, but I think there were more.  I remember not being able to hit Ms. Allison, because I just can’t hit girls.  I remember Jeremiah trying to hit me with a crescent kick, catching it on my shoulder and driving him into the ground.  I remember not knowing what to do then because I suck at grappling and not being able to breathe is a bad thing when you are on the ground with someone on you. 

So the last few people were up, Sifu says to me “LOOK AT ME.”  I do, although I thought I already was, but I was a little punch drunk at this time. “THE GOAL IS NOT TO SURVIVE.  IT IS TO HIT HIM.”  I nodded. “SAY IT”.  “The goal is to hit him.”  “DO YOU THINK I WANT YOU TO GET HIT?”  “uh… probably yes sir”.  Everyone laughed.  I was being serious.  Everything on the test stacks against you.  You are exhausted.  Your partner isn’t.  You have 9 partners lined up.  You the testie stand alone.  So, yes I think he wants us to get the snot kicked out of us; I think he wants us to know we can still stand up long after we thought we were broken.  Still, I guess it was a trick question because he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder and said that he didn’t.  Anyway, my last few partners punched me for a while.  For the last partner, I asked to blow my nose because by this time, I couldn’t breathe at all.  So I took out my mouth piece and Sifu grabbed it, then made a big fuss about how he had to go wash his hand and how he couldn’t believe that I handed it to him.  It wasn’t until later I realized he let me catch my breath while making the big deal.  So my last partner to spar was Dan.  Dan is one of the nicest people on the face of the planet, and he’s not very physically intimidating.  Still, he’s a lot better at sparring than me, and he’s faster.  I don’t remember much of the fight.  I do remember that the last blow was a spinning hammer fist that I don’t remember why I threw it.  I did realize it connected, but I couldn’t see much by that time.  Sifu called out to stop immediately.  At this point, it was mostly like trying to make sense out of the worst night of drinking you’ve ever had.  So, my last punch connected with Dan… unfortunately it connected right inside of his head gear.  I basically hit his nose.  Sifu called the fight.  It was over I got to sit down.  Joel stood up and gave me a hug saying that I did great.  I thought I did horrible, but I hit my partners.  I got up when I fell down.  And even did a couple of things that surprised me.

The only green sash test I saw, he had them go back and do form, so I was thinking, “God, please let it end.”  Well, either He intervened or Sifu was satisfied, so he told us to go get a drink, and our papers.  The paper topic was “What does being a senior student mean to me?” or in some cases “what is the role of a senior student?”  I guess it depends on when he talked to you.  I will post my paper on this as well.

The long and the short of it is, I survived the test.  I felt that I did pretty well, although I wish I had done better on the forms.  Over all, I am proud of my achievement.   Sifu said some very nice things to all of us before the presentation of the belts.  When he got to me, he referenced my paper a couple of times.  One thing that he referenced stood out.  He said: “You’re right.  You do blend in the back ground; you are pretty vanilla.  But you did well on this test.  Anyone can be a terrific athlete come in and perform some of the stuff that you did after a few years of training.  But as the ‘average Joe’ you came in and you did really well… and that is really something.”

Yep.  It really was something.

I am a fraud 

When I thought about how to respond to Sifu’s topic of “What does being a senior student mean to me”, I came up with what I assume to be the normal responses.  It means being an example, being responsible for my actions and how they influence others in the dojo. Possibly the most important thought that went through my head was “who am I supposed to be an example to”. 

I have attended a few yellow sash tests and a few second yellow sash tests.  I have heard probably 50 or so papers that have touched me deeply.  The practice, OUR practice, has affected people’s lives in significant and in some cases extraordinary ways.  A recent test talked about a person overcoming, or at least facing, panic attacks.  Another talked about dealing with addiction.  Almost all of them talk about a fundamental change in their lives. 

So if I need to be an example, shouldn’t I also be an example of all the good changes that people have made?  I’m not.  As I said, I’m a fraud.  I have not made great strides in my life and due to my practice, I’ve examined this quite a bit.  If you don’t mind, I’ll bring up some examples.

Physically, I wanted to lose a lot of weight before the test.  Actually, almost all of my life, I wanted to lose a lot of weight.  Struggling with weight isn’t just a “fashion statement”, it’s important due to other health issues, yet it’s something I have a hard time with.  Well, I started prepping for green sash last year about October, despite all this time, I’ve only lost 10 lbs of the 25+ that I wanted to lose.  Ok, 10 lbs isn’t bad, and obviously since I’m reading this, I must have survived the test, so I made some improvement, but I did not accomplish my goal.

Also to the physical aspect of things, I want to be able to be more powerful in class.  Increase my endurance so that I can practice longer.  My measurement for this is my in class performance.  This also has fallen short.  It seems that I’m even going backwards.  In the past few weeks, I’ve been attending beginner classes and intermediate classes so that I could increase my endurance.  The funny thing is, I notice I’m having trouble with the beginner classes.  By the end of the kihon section, I’m nearly broken.  I’m completely exhausted and making it through the intermediate class upright is virtually impossible.

How about with the ultimate goal of bringing practice into my day to day life?  I have a stressful job, like everyone else.  I work in automotive safety so I deal with lives. I’m also am a manager of people, so I deal with lives and attitudes.  I also have anger issues.  So as part of practice affecting my day to day life, I need to be a better partner.  So have I been?  Every day at least once, I lose my temper.  Only about half the days I catch myself before I raise my voice.  I don’t see this as being a good partner.  Of course, I guess I have improved some since only about a year ago, I think I enjoyed losing my temper.  And only in the last few months have I often controlled my temper when I knew something was going to be frustrating beforehand.  And to be fair, the past 5 months have been some of the craziest, busiest and stressful times I have ever experienced in my professional career. Still, my measuring stick is losing my temper and I still do that.

Bringing the practice into my family life is very important.  Having a toddler teaches you how precious each second is.  I have missed many of those seconds.  Not just because of other events, but even the time I was with him, sometimes I wouldn’t notice how precious he is.  A toddler is the most indestructible force on the face of the planet, but they are so temporary it’s easy to miss the look of joy on his face while at play, or the sadness when he’s sick.  In a few months, these cherished memories will be the thing that stands between me and the utter frustration of potty training.  Still I missed a lot of it.  Recently, I’ve been noticing how much I miss.  Recently, it’s been bothering me.

So, as practice often leads us to do, I have been examining myself closely and critically.  I am far from perfect.  Perfection is not a place, it’s a path.  I get frustrated looking closely at my goals and how far I am to achieving them.  Then, as I’m in the middle of framing this paper, Sifu has two talks, one at the end of a class, and one at meditation.  During both talks, he mentions the specific word “Fraud”.  I had to smile, I really doubt that Sifu can hack into my computer and steal the topic of my talk, so he must be hacking into my mind, which probably means a lot of people have the same issue.

In my mind, being a senior student is leading by example.  Every class and every moment of life, a senior student chooses his best option with the thought of how he is viewed by others.  I don’t mean this as “being afraid of what people might think”, but as “is this providing an example of how other’s should behave.”  Or at very least, don’t be a hypocrite.  I have jokingly told fellow students working with me “do as I say, not as I do” when I can’t follow my own advice in chin nah.  During class, you have a sash around your waist that tells people what your rank is; in life, it’s not so easy, but for some reason, people still know. 

So again, I look at all the people who have had amazing life changes due to practice.  How can I be an example for these people?  How can I lead through example?  I look at all my self -examination and find a common element.  I have been moving forward.  In most cases, it’s baby steps.  Like a baby just starting to find his feet under him, I’ve moved forward in small, timid and sometimes shaky steps.  My physical weight did not come down as fast as I would have liked, but if I appraise objectively, my body has changed for the better.  Perhaps, my fatigue in beginner class is because I have been trying harder to throw smoke as Sifu calls it.  Failing, but coming closer.  My anger issues at work, while still present have gotten better and have actually caused several people to comment that I’m more in control.  My family life isn’t perfect; I don’t share enough time with my son.  I do recognize the issue and have become mindful of its sources.  I’ve even been trying to observe him more and I have loved every second of it.

I am not a great example of the change this Dojo has made in people, but I’ve often said I’m a very average person.  Average Joe, get it?  A high school friend told me, I have a tendency to blend into my surroundings.  So I’m not going to be a shining example of “see what the dojo can do for you” with the asterisk that says “actual results vary.”  Maybe I can be an example for the ones that don’t see the amazing gains.  Maybe, I can be an example for the ones that made the great gains and are now stuck in the plateau.  Just make the little steps.

One final comment on being a senior student, it doesn’t happen by putting on a green sash.  I remember two of the worst classes I’ve ever had.  It was the first day I practiced after my yellow sash test and the first day I practiced after my second yellow sash test.  I expect to have a third worst day coming up soon.  You get through your test, and you expect to be better.  Unfortunately, that isn’t the way it works.  You get through your test, you put on a new sash, then you go into class and find out you are the same person who was wearing the old sash the week before.  For some reason, this disappoints you.  It sounds silly; we should know better.  I was surprised when it happened after my second yellow class, because I even recognized the issue.  If you ask me what being a senior student means to me, I’ll answer you with two words.  Little steps.  Just keep making little steps.

So, my son gets the stomach flu, and I get about 2 hours of sleep.  His saintly mother took care of him for the rest of the night, but bugger sleep after that.  I’m not just talking about cleaning throw-up (rapid reverse peristalsis to you) There’s something about the cry of an infant that cuts deep into your psyche.  So deep that it can deny you sleep for hours afterward.  I’ve talked with other people, and Steve and Mac can attest to this I’m sure.  It’s something primitive in our brain that reacts.

This is an interesting concept and it got me to thinking (God knows I couldn’t fall back to sleep).  No matter who you are, I think this is something deep that happens to anyone.  It’s a link between all of us.  I remember hearing about people in the middle east, being paid to be suicide bombers.  A.) How? B.) Why?  Well the how was answered that some psychotic (or at least sociopath, ask Robin which one), was paying the family of the man who blew himself up.  The why though is what interests me.  WHY!  Well, their living conditions or perceived value of life was so pitiful, that for the potential of raising that value for their family they took themselves out of the picture.

Not too long ago, a high school friend of mine committed suicide.  It angered me to a point that I still have a hard time talking about it.  Part of it was I had a crush on her back in high school.  Some of it though is how close at times I felt I was to doing something as stupid.  A lot of it seemed unfair to the people left behind.  A lot of it was because I sometimes think I should have told her I had a crush on her.  Like I said, I am still a little angry.  ‘nuf said.

I won’t try to read into a person whose belief structure is flexible enough to murder innocents.  To be fair, I try not to think about all the innocents that are killed in any battle even the “civil” ones.  I do know one thing though, and I know it for certain.  A cry of an infant cuts through all of the crap.  It wakes people up from a dead sleep.  My son made a cry that was straight panic and it did more than wake me up.  It shook me.  It put me on my feet in a dead run before I could consider which way to run.  Maybe I should market this to the Israelis.  Instead of putting up a barrier and guard against suicide bombers, try broadcasting the cry of a baby.  Maybe the Palestine’s should cycle a cry of a baby around the wall to protect against soldiers coming in and killing them. 

I know, everyone of you knows that a human can rationalize any action.  It’s what we’re great at.  “I can hit Dairy Queen because I’ve been so good.”  “I can hit my wife, because when I’m not drinking I treat her well.”  “IT’S FOR THE GREATER GOOD!”  It is probably just my opinion, but maybe we should try the cry of an infant… I really think it might get through to people’s rationalizations. 

Good night

Before we get into the meat of this post, I have an announcement.  I have been asked to test for green sash.  I’ve been talking about it for weeks, but I was asked last Thursday. Immediately after, I was joking with a guy about how little time I have to prepare.  Of course, I have been preparing. Still, we joked that I should take it as a compliment that Sifu has such confidence in me that he didn’t feel he needed to warn me earlier.  So, I have three weeks to get ready for the most challenging physical test of my life.  It’s a significant challenge to my mental discipline and will.  By the way, I would never say it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done; watching my wife in labor was the hardest experience I ever want to go through.  Helplessness sucks.

So, I’m Catholic.  I admit I’m not as good of a Catholic as I have been in my life.  I have recently skipped a Sunday or two.  I’ve made a few mistakes in my life, even recently.  I still consider myself Catholic.  Yet, I believe in magic.  I believe that the universe is complex.  I believe that the past decade or two of modern physics has yielded enough significantly mysterious results that it proves the universe to be more than simple mechanical design.  Thought and belief actually influence the fabric of reality.  That sounds to me like magic.

So I’m not out of my mind; at least, I’m not out of my mind because of that.  When my son was born, I bound him with word, thought and intention.  Now don’t go reporting me to child services, what I did was simple.  I wished him three things.  And I said it to him many times.  Wisdom.  Strength.  Compassion.  I believe, and this is where my pagan beliefs conflict with the church, that by wishing three things onto my son, I have altered his reality.

Let me give you the meat of my “spell”.  Each word plays off of each other; each ability is necessary for the whole.  Wisdom is the first ability.  Wisdom understands the root of knowledge, not just the formula.  Strength is the ability to act; to perform action to accomplish something.  What is wisdom, if you can’t act upon that wisdom?  Finally, I wished him compassion, because sometimes wisdom tells you what is best for the multitude, and you can act on it, but compassion allows you to think about how that affects the one.

So I cast a spell on my son.  If you want to get into it, there is significance to the number three, and to the joining of three into the whole, but it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is instead of hoping that my son has a good future, I have bound my hope into an intention to make his life good. Bound that intention into thought of how it could be made better.  Finally I said this thought out loud to him.

If this sounds silly, I ask you to think about your own children.  What have you wished for them?  What have you done to get that wish? Have you started a 529 plan?  Maybe you’ve scoped out colleges that have a good major?  What ever you do, I hope you have given him or her the intangibles as well as the tangibles.  Maybe Wisdom, Strength and Compassion, sounds a little too insubstantial, but I’m pretty certain that in the long run, it will matter as much as a good education.  I hope.