(no subject)

[j4]

Yesterday's martial arts seminar wasn't quite what I expected, but bits of it were still good. However I now ache from head to foot as a result of spending four hours carrying a heavy sword, and spending at least one of those hours running around with the sword.

All joints now fairly comprehensively knackered with various degrees of not-bending and swelling. Which made cycling into work something of a challenge (but still better than walking, which was the other option). And I couldn't find the Ibuprofen gel this morning, which enabled me to make the timely discovery that my arms react badly to Deep Heat. *itch*

Despite all this, today I have managed to:

- Get up in time to sort out parcels to post & make lunch
- Get into work in time to make coffee before 9am meeting
- Post item to one of my eBay buyers
- Post something else I promised to send
- Actually do some bloody work for a change :)

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

*nods*

If I'd had to swear anything like that on joining, I wouldn't have joined. I don't want to "live up to" things like that, I'm not convinced that it's living "up" IYSWIM. (That is, "failing" to meet standards which you don't believe are high/good standards in the first place is not failing, IMHO.)

Fortunately, usually the martial arts stuff is more about achieving the highest levels of personal skill that you can achieve, pushing yourself to do things you didn't think you could do, etc. Which is a Good Thing in my worldview, though it's not a worldview I'd want to force on anybody else.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I didn't do martial arts for long - my oboe teacher told me I needed exercise to get the diaphragm, and karate was the most welcoming non-team sport around. But (this was, after all, at an all-male boarding school) it felt a lot like ritualised bullying (there was one brown-belt with an amazing animus against me); and when you're practising kata lined up in rows, and confuse left and right, you get all the letting-the-side-down vibes as well as the fist to the nose.

I learned that doing the block for punches to the head when the punch is aimed at the stomach diverts the punch up to your jaw. This lesson hasn't faded, even after I gave up (moments before Terry threw me out) after chickening out from three consecutive grading possibilities.

[j4.livejournal.com]

That sounds horrible. And completely against all the things that our school teaches. Admittedly we mostly have one-on-one lessons, so a lot of the potential for that sort of thing is avoided; but still, there are seminars/workshops/etc. with lots of people of all grades, and the higher grades know that they have higher standards to meet -- not just of skill and endurance but of adherence to the rules of respect and discipline and so on. And I'm fairly confident that if anybody was guilty of bullying, a) it would be noticed quickly, and b) they would get thrown out in short order.

You always know that you're not expected to be as good as the higher grades, and to a first approximation there are always people who are higher grades than you. You're only expected to be as good as you can be at that stage in your development. (Which sometimes turns out to be better than you think you can be.)

And I've never been punched accidentally, and that's not because I'm particularly good at blocking or evading; it's because the teaching situations are as 'safe' as they can be while still actually learning to do the moves. 'Safe' is perhaps the wrong word -- controlled, maybe. You certainly shouldn't be in a situation where getting a move wrong while practising that move in isolation (rather than practising attack-and-defence) gets you punched!

Sunday's seminar was a roomful of people with live blades and they had to revise their plans for the seminar because more people turned up than expected -- it wouldn't have been safe to do the things they'd planned. The sword may look more dangerous but a punch can be just as lethal a weapon; I've been at seminars with 300+ people all standing in line and punching and they still take the time to make sure everybody has space to manoeuvre. Yes, you still have a responsibility to look out for yourself and others, but how can you learn to be in control of physical situations (which is what a lot of it's about) if your instructors can't begin to control the situation you're learning in?

(All IME, IMHO, etc. of course -- I now fully expect the more experienced martial artists to tell me I'm talking bollocks.)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I find the coordination pretty hard (usually sorting out left and right rather than height though). I've not encountered any objectionable adults at all through karate so far (the juniors' main bug is lack of attention span though for all I know there could be the occasional private score being settled too).