As I get older, I notice that everything moves faster.
Easter used to be a long-term, big deal. Buy the baskets, find the fake grass, color the eggs, hide the eggs, discover that the dog ate the eggs, and so on.
Easter now zips up and zips past like the wind.
Progress in karate class, however, is reassuringly slow. It move at the same pace it did when I was 18, when I was sure I was improving, and I was still awful.
Now I’m sure I’m improving, and I’m still mediocre. Which is, after all, a lot of progress!
So my plan is to keep grinding.
Right now the best part is that I’m becoming more and more mindless in my classes with Sensei Koyama.
I used to think about the exercises a lot. I wondered what aspect of karate ability this exercise was supposed to develop.
Now I’m becoming perfectly vacant. Stand on my head and juggle oranges with my feet, Sensei?
How many oranges?
It’s very relaxing being able to put my brain in neutral during class, and just do the exercise.
Going to karate class for me, on a very good day, is like hitting a reset button.
Otherwise, I’m always thinking about my cases, and how I can fix a client’s problem, and what a Judge is going to think about an issue.
But during class, all I think about is whether my supporting foot turns correctly during a side thrust kick. Or whether my body will remember the sequence in Jion Kata, or whether I’ll confuse it with a Heian Kata.
It’s a side effect of training, but a very valuable side effect for me. I haven’t checked my blood pressure lately, but my guess is that it’s gone down fifteen points since I started training.
