A Dose of Karate Medicine

I went to karate class this morning. Actually, I needed to go to karate class this morning. I may have mentioned before that I am involved with two dojos. My husband opened a school in 1995 with permission from his instructor and that is the dojo where I teach. My husband and I are both students of the Federation Honbu. When I first started taking karate my husband was a brown belt. He was in the advanced classes while I was taking the beginner classes. When he became a black belt, he started teaching classes. He made sure that he was never the instructor in the classes that I was taking because he wanted my training to be my own. I am grateful to him for that.

I packed up my karate weapons and headed to the Honbu. The workout was two and a half hours long. We ran through most of the weapon and open hand katas. We worked on defense against a bo ... very cool. Usually when we practice, we pair bo against another weapon. Today we practiced bo against an open hand opponent. Going to the dojo has always been an oasis for me. As I step through the dojo door all the concerns of the outside world are left behind and the only thing I need to focus on is karate. I feel great. The workout was a little more than my knee was used to but I did fine.

The best part of the workout happened about half way through. My instructor stopped and walked over to me and pointed at my knee. It was as if he suddenly remembered my ACL surgery and my injured knee. I told him I changed ACL braces and still could not jump too well. Then he said "I did not notice". Let me just say that it made my day, perhaps the whole week. I struggle, analyze and work at my movement during kata and I think it is finally paying off.

Today's class was excellent and just what I needed!