Self-Defense

There's a small scar on the 3rd knuckle of my right hand. It's a little burn scar, left over from the Halloween cooking adventure. It's minor, barely hurt, and will probably heal soon with no lasting marks. 

It reminds me of how much I miss training.

Karate made me feel strong. I was powerful -- an actual force. It was something I could do to get out of my head for a while, an hour a week when I lived only in my body. Sensei counted, I reacted. Punch, kick, block, repeat. Plus, it was a hell of a good workout. 

I quit long before I realized I was actually injured. Too much drama happening in the dojo, that I somehow found myself in the middle of. When the school formally disbanded, I went to train with my senpai for a while, and it was great. Mostly because I'd stopped looking at him with schoolgirl adoration.

Random side note: when Wikipediing the correct spelling of Senpai, I read that romantic attachments between Senpai (the mentor or "senior student" in our martial arts context) and the "trainees" are common themes in manga and anime.T This is a great relief to me, to learn that our weird relationship was totally normal (although I'd challenge anyone to NOT crush on a hot Puerto Rican guy with a killer body).  So if my second novel doesn't work out, I'm going to totally work the manga angle.

And then I left the city, and that was that.

In Chicago, I belonged to a wonderful gym, and went to their Cardio Kickboxing class religiously twice a week. The instructor was this really great, enthusiastic guy: a middle school English teacher who loved movies and pop music and reality TV. Gay, of course, because my gym was in Boystown. But he instructed us in punching and kicking in a moderately accurate way. That is, his side kicks didn't look like he was in a chorus line. It was a fun class, until I stopped being able to do a jumping jack because of the pain.

My physical therapist thought I was insane. "You're here, in physical therapy, for a degenerative disc disorder, and you're going to kickboxing?" But I liked it! It was fun. But it hurt, so I stopped. And then I left Chicago, and that was that.

My current gym offers a similar class. I have never been. I stick with the water aerobics and the yoga: nothing that involves bouncing. But I want so badly to go, just to see. I keep thinking I'll try it once, and make sure I'm well-armed with Aleve and ice packs for after.

There's actually a real dojo down here, run by the people who trained my sensei. But I know there's no way they'll let me just show up and train the way I want to train (no sparring, no jumping, no high impact). Serious martial artists don't really work that way.