I Dabble in Karate

“Forty jumping jacks, here we go!”

“ONE, MA’AM”

“TWO, MA’AM”

“THREE, MA’AM”

Uh oh. I think I’ve pissed myself…No, I’m sure I’ve pissed myself. It’s just a little drop, but if I don’t get to the bathroom now, we’re going to have a real problem. Thankfully, I’m in the back row, so I can sneak off to the facilities as discreetly as possible.

That was just the warm up. When I return, someone with a black belt comes around to inform me that I must request permission to return to the mat, lest I catch a flying elbow in the eye or something. That’s a fine rule, a practical rule with which I wholeheartedly agree. The part that irks me is how they decided to make an example of me, putting my weak kegels in the spotlight!

To be fair, I am here with my daughter, the one whom I birthed with my own vagina, weakening those kegels to the point of jumping jack incontinence. This is a family Karate academy. The kids take up the first few rows and the parents are in the back. We are all learning the same skills. It’s a great workout.

Once upon a time in my twenties I was fit. In fact, I tried boxing (the regular kind without kicks). I wrote about it here.

Now that I’m over forty and have for the last several years led a mainly sedentary lifestyle, post workout soreness is especially punishing. The focus of the first week was on legs and afterwards I had difficulty lowering myself onto the toilet. The second week was about arms and now I have trouble holding my arms up long enough to shampoo my hair.

I have only been doing this for two weeks, that’s four half hour classes, but I already paid the six-month tuition, so we will get those green belts or die trying. The black belt program is an additional fee because of course it is.

We learned about this place from a neighborhood friend, a student at the school, who hosted her birthday party there. It’s the perfect marketing tool. Party guests learn a few punches, they get to punch some breakaway boards, and the birthday girl cuts her cake with a katana! My daughter was laughing and smiling, kicking, and punching her little heart out. It was like, where do I sign? Mother-daughter karate classes, what could be a better bonding experience?

Mentioning that you are in a karate class to anyone (especially men) is a dangerous proposition. People who have taken Karate love to question the legitimacy of the Karate classes you are taking. It’s a slight variation on mansplaining. Karatesplaining. Two weeks into the program I barely have a vocabulary to speak coherently about it, but to these guys whatever I am doing must be wrong. It occurred to me that a little research was an order since I did precisely zero research in choosing a dojo.

Turns out the type of Karate taught by our instructors is called 'American Freestyle Karate.' Less Miyagi and more Cobra Kai. They’re not evil or anything, but I think some cultural elements have been lost in translation. They even have different names for everything, dumbing it down for they laymen. It’s a little disconcerting. Dare I call it appropriation?

• dojo = gym / academy
• sensei = instructor (addressed as Sir or Ma’am)
• gi = uniform

My husband keeps joking that on the last day of class we’ll fight our own children a la Kramer in this episode of Seinfeld. I’ll admit, it’s tempting sometimes.

Another reason my husband has been teasing me is that guns are listed among the skills you learn as a black belt at this school. He says they could teach that in the beginning, and you wouldn’t have to learn all the other stuff.

As I write this, I just realized that the ‘gun training’ is probably about disarming someone with a gun using karate, not shooting a gun. Even that seems like a bad idea. If your opponent has a gun, you’d be better off running or hiding. This is not a movie and no matter how much I train I will never be bulletproof. I have a no guns policy, just like Batman, but that is probably where our similarities end.

With my credit card already on file at the place, I am going to give it a chance, earn my green belt in 'American Freestyle Karate,' then I’ll see how we feel. Worst case scenario: we fall in love with Karate, seek out a legit dojo with a Mr. Miyagi type, and our skills don’t transfer. Then it’s ‘wax on, wax off’ all over again.