I don’t dwell on abilities I once had that I no longer have thanks to ALS. But there are certainly times I mourn the loss of things I was once able to do with ease that I’ve now lost. One of the things I miss most in the world is practicing Martial Arts.
I walked into my first dojo when I was 11 years old. Over the years, I’ve gone to a variety of schools and studied a number of different Martial Arts. I never really found the perfect place for me until three days after my 21st birthday when I walked into South Shore Academy of Martial Arts (SSMA). By this time, I had really become interested in the philosophy behind it all, but most of the instructors I’d had never really touched on that. Bob B. was the owner of SSMA. I talked with him for a few minutes before I sat to observe a class. He explained that he taught an eclectic mix of arts, but the main style was Uechi Ryu, an Okinawan karate. I’d never heard of it, but as I sat to watch the class I fell in love with the balance between the fluidity and the rigidity. It was a perfect mix of yin and yang. I signed up that day. For the next several years I was at the dojo six days a week. I rose quickly through the ranks and I started teaching kids classes. I loved everything about it. I loved being more confident in my ability to at least protect myself against an attack, but it was more than that. I loved being in the gi (karate uniform). I loved being in bare feet (I’d never wear shoes if I could get away with it). I loved controlling my breathing and my movements. I loved kata, which were so graceful and fluid, but perfectly functional. And I loved sparring. Bob was a hard ass. He never let me (or anyone else) get away with anything. He inspired a confidence in his students that defied explanation. If there was something we claimed we couldn’t do, he’d kick our ass until we did it 50 times in a row.
Eventually I had to stop training with Bob. A career opportunity arose that took me out of state and I was no longer able to continue training at the place and with the person that had changed my life forever. I will always be thankful for what I learned during my time with Bob.
My latest foray into the Arts came in April 2011, when my husband, my son, and I all joined American Cadre Karate. If you’re familiar with my old blog you know that I have a history of finding my way into or back to the Arts after particularly traumatic or otherwise life-changing events in my life. It’s like the universe is somehow handing me something to hold onto during tough times, and it has always, always managed to ground me in a way that nothing else can.
Finding American Cadre was no different. We started in April 2011, just four months after the death of my best friend, Paul. Paul’s death left me broken in ways I can’t even describe. It was a brokenness, a sadness, I internalized because I didn’t know what else to do with it. When I joined American Cadre, it gave me an outlet. Eventually, of course, I was able to take my sadness and grief and turn it into something positive and productive, but studying at Cadre filled a void for me that I desperately needed at the time. It got me out of the house and doing something physical, but it also filled an emotional void. It once again ignited a passion for the Arts in me that I had been missing since I’d last studied seriously nearly a decade earlier.
Through the years I’ve had some decent karate teachers, but I’ve only ever had two great ones: Bob B. at SSMA, and Shihan Scott F. at American Cadre. And by extension, the other Cadre owners and teachers I’ve had the privilege of working with–Shihans Dana, Reesie, and Kevin, and Sensei Marco–have also played a pivotal role in my life as a Martial Artist now. These men and women have all taught me by example what it is to live the Martial Way, and for that I am more grateful than words can convey. Shihan Scott had an uncanny ability to know exactly what kind of workout I needed, and he never failed to deliver. And like Bob B., he pushed me in a way that instilled a confidence that I not only needed, but one that I thrived on.
Over the years I studied at Cadre, I grew physically and emotionally, and I was blessed to take the journey with my husband and my son. The people at our dojo became our friends, and eventually an extension of our family.* And for me, the dojo itself became something of a safe haven. I had the keys to the dojo. That’s not a metaphor, like “I had the keys to the kingdom”; I actually had the keys to the building itself, so I could go work out whenever the spirit moved me. The dojo was a safe place for me to go if I needed to get out of my head. I’d blare the music and work the bags or do kata and just lose myself in it. As much as I loved my time in the dojo with my fellow Martial Artists, I also cherished those times when I could be alone in the dojo and just escape the outside world.
[*Ed. note: The guys in the picture at the top of this page are my karate family. We haven’t worked out together in some time, and in fact, two have moved out of state. I miss our time in the dojo together, but their friendship is a gift that never quits.]
[Post continues after the pics]
A brief (not so) non sequitur:
Friday night, hot and muggy in the dojo and there we were: just another workout, any typical sparring situation. We were all lined up according to belt order and the way it worked out, I had a little time to warm up. I could stretch and bounce around somewhat. I didn’t have too much trouble keeping clear of the lower belts’ feints and kicks. It felt good. There was a clean sort of breathlessness in enjoying the give and take of it, the searching, the easy routine of the blocking and the counter-attacks. I was pleasantly fatigued and confident by the time when, in the rotation, I found myself paired with Tony.
Tony had been my regular sparring partner for about 3 years. He and I worked well together and never cut one another slack. We had tested together and always challenged each other to bring our best to the table. It was never an easy workout with him, but it was always an honest one. I felt safe on the floor with him, confident that while we go full contact, he is skilled enough not to hurt me. He had that same confidence in me. A year after I started sparring with Tony, I had a sparring accident with my instructor that left me with a fracture over my left eye and a broken collar bone. It was a freak accident, and completely my fault for panicking in the middle of a routine move. If not for Tony, I may never have sparred again. I came back to class two weeks after it happened because I didn’t want to psyche myself out of something I loved so much, but I had a much harder time putting the sparring gloves back on. Tony’s patience helped me over that particular hurdle.
We squared off and bowed to each other, touching gloves to signal our readiness to begin. My being the lower rank dictates the roles we play. I’m supposed to lead the attack against the higher rank. So I moved in, back straight, reaching out with exploratory little feints, hoping to draw him out to exposing himself to a real attack. I guess we were both feeling good that day. We moved faster and faster together, our arms flashing and smacking agreeably into each other in the air, our legs pistoning out into kicks we guided away from ourselves, torquing our torsos deeply, looking for a way to slip inside each other’s guards.
It’s a hell of a lot of fun, you know. Despite this – and I don’t care who you are – if you go long enough it really does tear into your endurance. Your movements become more deliberate as your wind erodes, and you have to put everything into your decisions. It’s the envelope again, it’s raising your limbs when you really don’t think you can anymore. It’s finding a reason to go on.
I don’t remember how it happened, but we finally ended up in a situation where I’d just finished trying something, some combination or other, and I was looking at him to see what he would do. Tony came at me then, sliding in low and smooth and utterly fast, faster than I knew how to handle, too fast for me to do anything other than watch him come at me with that side kick of his that slips out to the side and hooks in at the last moment. It did its thing, unwinding like a crafty tight curve ball and I watched it disappear beneath my guard into my side and I just bent over involuntarily, folding up like a piece of heavy machinery done with its job. I stood outside of myself and observed my body falling, and there was nothing I could do about it. I simply watched as the wind left my lungs with a surprised Unnnngggghhh and felt the floor slam into my knees as I hit the ground.
I have to say, it was interesting. The pain didn’t seep in until just after. And it never went away. It was a sharp pain, complaining in my ribs when I breathed or tried to rise from a reclining position.
I’m telling this story because there are things that slip in and surprise you, and later, you think about whether you really should have been taken by surprise. And sometimes you can even watch these things as they happen. Is it useful to remember them? Is it useful to recall the failure and the loss? Is there any point in turning those memories over in your mind? Is there something useful in reliving how you’ve been hurt, even (or especially) those times you did it to yourself?
The easy answers are either “yes” or “no.” But if I refer back to my personal philosophy of thesis and antithesis yielding a more realistic synthesis, I can see that the answer lies somewhere in between. It depends.
I’ll try to pull this thing together with a timeline: The reason I’m telling this story the way I am is because I fell asleep this afternoon and woke up in that way one sometimes will – completely and totally disoriented in looking down to see you’re not where you thought you were. I’d dreamed I was dying and I couldn’t take a breath. I woke with a start and immediately started gasping for breath as the muscles in my throat began to seize. What the hell is happening, I thought.
Oh, I remember thinking when I finally came out of it.
That’s right.
I began to laugh, and I couldn’t stop laughing. God, I had almost, in that peaceful slumber just before reality set in again, I had almost forgotten. The laughter soon turned to heaving sobs.
The memory was sharp in my chest, rising, and when I thought about it there was no surprise in the thing at all.
So, there we are. Today I dreamed I was back in the dojo, performing kata, feeling strong and confident and healthy. It was a good dream.
Martial Arts has been a passion of mine for 35 years. It was during an early-morning workout that I first noticed the symptoms of what would later turn out to be ALS, a disease which has robbed me of my ability to practice the Arts that I love so much. While I dearly love watching my husband and son continue to train, I’m having a very difficult time dealing with my inability to join them. Sometimes my grief manifests as anger, other times as sorrow. That loss is hard for me to accept. I would love just one more day in the dojo.
On a happier note, here’s a drawing I did that reflects perfectly the cycle of feelings during a good workout. Enjoy.
Rise Against ALS! 