In a small stage area, a red, smiling rectangle acted out a dance routine and I thought: “It’s a dojo!” It was like the rectangle was performing a kata. I asked the proprietor selling these dancing shapes if magnets were involved and he shook his head. It was magic! “Here, take my money,” I said, and £4 lighter of coin, I had my own Grandad’s Magic Puppet.
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I took delivery of my new belt in the Monday evening training session and since then I’ve had to pinch myself a few times… Wow, I’m a green belt!
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And so to the next kata. I love katas! I also liked the fact that I was given the chance to run through heian yondan before anyone else in this one-on-one session. By the end of the hour, I was able to run through yondan extremely rustily on my own. There’s lots of practice to do with this – but I was elated by the time the session was over.
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I carefully studied my World-Famous Sandan Bunkai Chart and worked through my kumite moves checklist that had pretty much became a firm fixture in my head. Even so, I felt ridiculously uneasy as I walked to Green Lanes… Green Belt Lanes!
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By the morning my finger was a Porkinson banger with a tight wedding ring splitting the swelling in two. For the first time in almost a year of karate I felt strangely vulnerable – to injury and pain. As for combat, I need to develop an alternative strategy. My attack-dog routine has presented me with precisely two injured hands in a month.
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When I was home from the dojo and had poured a glass of red, I drew the curtains in the conservatory where I write my blog but the material was trapped in the door. I opened the door and looked down to what I thought was a dollop of fox muck on the step; foxes are very creative defecators. But it was a frog. Perhaps it’s karate’s friendly frog, here to heal my ailments, fix my injuries and re-focus my mind.
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Realising that I needed to fully nail my blocks and counters for jodan (face), chudan (chest) and various kicks after looking like Mr Confused in the dojo last week, I created a definitive checklist on a clipboard. Reading typed-up instructions on A4 paper and revising them like I’m cramming for an exam is the only way that info has any chance of soaking into my middle-age brain.
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It’d be nice to start the blog this week with no mention of ailment or injury. So let’s get it out of the way quickly, shall we? My bruised right hand and painful fingers appear to be tendon tears, as diagnosed by the expert at the local surgery’s chemist. Voltarol pain-relief cream is being rubbed on twice a day.
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It was on the Piccadilly Line to the karate competition where the nerves descended. By the time I’d reached Hounslow West I’d worked out that I was going to give the crowd something worth watching: I was going in hard, like an apprentice dervish, from the first second. To entertain!
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One of the problems of karate training in the evening is that when I’m back home, I can’t settle or switch off. I eat my tea, have a glass of red or three, make some karate notes in my big writing pad and then shuffle off to bed – whereupon I get all Maxi Jazz: insomnia please release me and let me dream; I can’t get no sleep.
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