There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief

[j4]

Karate lesson yesterday nearly turned into a philosophy lesson; I'm feeling increasingly detached from everything I do, and finding it hard to stay motivated, and I wanted to talk to sensei about this in the context of the karate. Unfortunately this got into a general discussion of how to maintain motivation in life, and I just wasn't in a fit state to deal with that. However the impending existential crisis was neatly averted by doing some work on the yellow belt geri wasa, and starting to learn the green belt one. I love the way the philosophy interacts with the physical; though I think on this occasion the physical work did me more good than the discussion would have done. Sensei commented at the end, though, that it's the same lesson whether we get there by talking or by kicking, punching, etc.; I'm starting to see what he means.

Slightly mopey evening in the pub afterwards; everybody seemed to be either too tired for much conversation (though I did have a nice chat with ewx) or too busy elsewhere to talk to me. Or perhaps it was just that, as usual, I was being loud, predictable, unfunny, and generally not somebody that anybody would want to talk to, despite what they may claim when they're trying to make me feel better.

Finding it hard to feel happy even though some good stuff is happening -- namely friends who were falling out horribly seem to have sorted out their differences and got their lives back in sync. I honestly am glad for them, it's just hard to change how I feel within myself.

Party alert:
Despite all this, sion_a and I seem to have agreed to host an Emergency Lack of Party Party tomorrow. You know the drill: our place, party o'clock.

Comments

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

I got asked to demonstrate mawashi geri on Monday - the first time I've done that kick in a long while (The instructor was making a point about how styles do things differently, but the movements are fundamentally similar). Wonder if I can still do yoko geri keage. Which one are you learning?

Might not make the party - If the work schedule for tomorrow holds true, I won't finish until 9pm.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Which one are you learning?

Which kick, which kata/wasa, or what? (Confused.)

The yellow belt geri wasa contains yoko geri, kin geri and ashiro geri. The green belt one has yoko geri, mae geri, mawashi geri, and one that I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, but it's basically a rising kick (intended to come up under the chin) with the heel. Nasty. :) I'll show you if you make it to the party... I'm not very good at any of it but you should be able to get an idea of what I'm talking about anyway.

BTW don't worry about turning up late to the party, there'll probably still be a party going on unless you're working ridiculously late -- but if you want my mobile so you can ring and check before turning up, email me and ask.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

I'd assumed it was a new kick; I should have realised it was a combination. It has been a while :)

Hopefully I won't be working too late - there are voices of dissent in the office today at being ordered to come in for a 13 hour day, so I suspect there'll be a small revolt. Bwahahaha.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

What the heck is a geri wasa?

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

It's where you take laxatives to the point where you can no longer ingest food, and then still fail to have a Number 1 single. HTH.

[j4.livejournal.com]

It's a sequence of kicks (geri == kick, and it's pronounced with a hard 'g' so daneel_olivaw's joke doesn't really work...). I think "wasa" means something like "technique", but I could be wrong. I never learnt that much Japanese. But it would fit: basically the sequence is just a demonstration of different techniques, in this case kicks.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

wasa/waza does mean technique, you're right. Japanese doesn't have a concept of plurals, so it also means 'techniques'. Pennu desu, for instance, means 'is a pen', 'are pens', 'my pens', 'your pen', and so forth, depending on the context.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

Japanese doesn't have a concept of plurals
... as a grammatical construct.

Proof reading, it's great.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Ahhh - it was the wasa that confused me. I have a sensei who regularly refers to e.g. 'the washing-machine block' (mawashi uchi, possible?) so I don't know as much terminology as I should.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry, didn't mean to sound patronising -- I wasn't sure how much you wanted explaining!

Not sure what "the washing-machine block" is -- morote uke? ... What does it look like?

(Despite being American, this glossary (http://www.usmaf.org/resources/japan.htm) is actually quite useful.)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Eeh, hard to describe...you rotate your arms in front of you, open handed, which looks kind of like a washing-machine spinning...maybe. Then rotate them back and push outwards. I think it's a brown belt move and the idea is to snap someone's neck; I've never actually done it right so I can't describe it all that well. In fact I'm getting confused just thinking about it.

Good link! Hmm, I want to learn the Naked Strangle.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, if it's a brown belt move I'm unlikely to know it, I'm only a lowly yellow belt... didn't realise you were that lethal!!

(I'm supposed to be double-grading -- orange belt and green belt -- in June, though; I've faffed for so long since doing yellow belt, could have probably done orange ages ago.)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a terrifying prospect. I should be doing orange belt at the end of April and I'm dreading that. Not that I don't think I can do the moves, I just don't think I have the stamina; when we bowed at the end of yellow belt grading I nearly didn't get up again.

(We get to try the occasional brown belt thing when we've been exceptionally good. Or is it when we've been exceptionally bad?)

[j4.livejournal.com]

I should be doing orange belt at the end of April and I'm dreading that. Not that I don't think I can do the moves, I just don't think I have the stamina; when we bowed at the end of yellow belt grading I nearly didn't get up again.

Well, if I wasn't doing two gradings, I'd be doing one grading and then a couple of hours of the ongoing training session for the people who aren't actually grading at that moment. In a way I'd rather just be doing lots of grading, because the training sessions are a bit faffy, with people wandering in and out all the time from/to gradings.

The thing I really hated about the yellow belt grading (and am dreading about the next one) is the fact that I can't hear the instructions they're giving me. We do the gradings (and seminars, where I have the same problem) in a great big gym-type-room, with the training session going on in a separate bit of the same room, and it's really echoey, and there are loads of people grading at once, and it's just impossible to hear anything clearly, so I end up feeling stupid because I do the wrong things at the wrong times, and it's not that I can't do them, it's that I can't hear them. And the Way of the Warrior doesn't seem to include things like saying "Pardon?" or "Could you repeat that?". Sigh.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

If you get to see the person doing the grading beforehand, it should be ok to ask them to speak up. The Way of the Warrior is about being polite and adapting, after all...

If it's an outside person doing the grading, mention it to your instructor, see what they say. People do generally want their students to pass gradings (as long as it's for the right reasons).

When is this grading?

[j4.livejournal.com]

The grading is early in June some time. Can't remember the date.

The people doing the grading[1] are all from the school, and I did mention it to my instructor, and he sympathises but he says it's just something you get used to. Maybe he's right. Ho hum.

[1] If it was just one person doing it, it'd be fine; but it's basically lots of the scary black belts wandering around and assessing all the people who are grading at that time. Which means it's not a scary "stand up in front of these millionth-dan black belts and feel all their eyes on you", but it also means it's a bit chaotic, and everybody gets out of sync, and ... argh.