Nostalgia for Katas

        

        Since the 80º weather has dropped into the 50s, I’m back at my parents' house this weekend to get my fall and winter clothing. While I’m here I’m catching up on what’s been going on in my siblings’ and parents’ lives. My dad wants to get a crossbow and my mom has started trying to make homemade Starbuck’s Frappuccino’s. My oldest younger-sister is in another theater production, which has just started the really busy week before performances start, called tech week. My youngest younger-sister has restarted cello lessons. Finally my younger brother Joshua has started Karate.

            Before I move on, I want to address the typical conceptions of Karate that people have, which while they aren’t entirely wrong, still produce an inaccurate picture. It’s like using wearing glasses when you don’t need them, or not wearing them, when you do. You can still see, but it isn’t as clear as it should be.  With that in mind, I want to address some of the blurriness surrounding Karate. No, taking Karate doesn’t mean that you can break boards, or depending on the dojo that you will ever learn to break boards. No, there is more to Karate than sparring or Kumite and weapons. In fact, some dojos offer those classes on different nights so if you don’t attend those classes, and in some cases pay more, you will not learn those facets of Karate. What else is there? Katas. Katas are series of movements that you memorize. It’s like the music a musician learns. From the movements stem the self-defense. Some dojos teach them simultaneously, meaning that when you are introduced to the Kata, you also learn what each of the moves responds to, i.e. what attack you are deflecting. However, in my experience, the Kata is taught first, and then the application of it.

            Yes, I took Karate. Typically, because of the blurry view of Karate most people have, I don’t mention it. If I do, then most likely people will say, “Oh so you can break a board?!” “Beat me up!?” “Do a flip!”  It only gets worse, if I mention that I’m a black belt. After brief forays into gymnastics, swimming, and soccer, my mom said I had to pick a sport. For some reason, I said, “Karate or swimming.” Maybe it was because my cousins had been talking about the movie, I had not yet seen, Karate Kid and I thought it would make me cool in their eyes. But I am hesitant to say it was that reason, because I tend to think I made it up after the fact. For several weeks my mom looked for a Karate dojo, but she was unable to find any. So, it looked like I was going to back to the pool. However, when my dad and I went to get Subway for lunch on a really sunny Saturday, we discovered that next door in the strip mall was a new dojo. It had only opened a month or two ago, which is why my mom hadn’t heard of it. Still it was rather expensive, especially since my younger brother had just been born. So, it looked like swimming.

            But on my eighth birthday, I came to the last box. It was a thin rectangular box, a Bon-ton box, which meant clothes. Now clothes are great, but when I was eight clothes were boring, very very boring. When I opened the box, inside were a white belt, a white Gi, and a piece of paper. On it was a small blond-haired girl with her hair in pigtails. It read, “Happy 8^th Birthday Julia! You start Wednesday!” For the next five years, that picture hung on the side of my hutch in my room and I took Karate between two and three times a week. Now that my brother is taking Karate it makes me miss it. Being a very, very timid girl, I was terrified of Kumite and my parents couldn’t afford the weapons class. However, I loved the Katas.* Now, with my brother talking about down-blocks, I miss feeling the mats under my feet, and yelling out the Japanese numbers for each individual move. While I don’t currently have intentions of restarting Karate, it’s cool to see my younger brother learn the moves and become excited to learn the Katas, even though he calls them the wrong thing because he’s learning Shotokan and not Shorin Ryu. *rolls eyes**

*Here I forgot half of where I was going with this post. I had something else I wanted to say, besides that I missed Karate. But if I couldn’t remember. If I do, I will probably put it in another post in with that.

**I’m kidding I’m kidding.

Source: Image is mine