It was... hmm. I enjoyed Saturday. I enjoyed certain aspects of Sunday but blood sugar dropped out from under me and I got irritable and depressed even while I was getting physically worn out. When I snapped at sensei I knew I'd lost it. I held it together for another 45 minutes or so after that just through the power of embarrassment. :P I left unhappy and was still unhappy for a few hours afterwards. And yet, I was tempted even then to pick up my bokken and go through the kata just for fun.

I'm in kind of a quandary. I've learned a few things from these classes, and enjoyed about 2/3 of them. The others I've come away feeling inadequate and frustrated and ashamed... exactly like a 5th grader who can't do chinups in P.E. I managed to break a toe and tear a shoulder in the space of five weeks -- thankfully both of them my own. I can't do ki breathing. I can't do forward rolls on my left side. After the warmup exercises I am winded and ready to stop. Many times I lose half of whatever new thing the sensei is saying because I'm too "busy" recovering from whatever we just did on the mat.

I understand that some of this is normal for a beginner, and despite the whining above I've been trying to keep a positive attitude about it, thinking that I can work through it eventually. But a normal beginner is in decent physical shape and I'm not. I worry on the one hand that it's too physical, that I'm only going to keep hurting myself, will always be below average and probably never satisfied with my own progress -- and on the other hand that this is the only kind of exercise I can make myself do on a regular basis and to quit is to throw that away.

Meanwhile, music doesn't ever hurt me. (Except last Simucon when I drummed until it hurt more to stop drumming, so I didn't stop... but that was a good hurt. Or at least a drunk hurt, heh.) It doesn't ever make me feel awkward and stupid and inadequate. When it frustrates me I can come back to it the next day with a fresh perspective and try something unexpected, usually with better results than I could have hoped. I've loved music since before I was old enough to stick an 8-track tape in the stereo. I won a songwriting competition in 2nd grade (no, I am not sharing that goofy song, heh). In high school, maybe even middle school, I daydreamed about releasing an album and would try to think of clever titles and cover art... and now I'm doing it.

Hmmm. Well, my Ki Society membership is paid through August. I think I'm just going to take things one day at a time. But even if I never go to another class, I've learned some things from it, and I don't regret trying it.


Posted 06:42 AM CST [Link] [Archives] [Index]

Take a Clue from the Drumming :)

Thinking back on when i forst started with Ken-Jutsu I almost gave up except my sensei refused to allow me i had quight a fewe extremly piinfull embaresments and quight a fewe stiches nato the first 20 times invaves sliping the sword threw youre flesh into the soya Heh
My advice stick with it it will get beeter as you go along