Decompressing

March 28, 2022

I passed my san dan test Saturday night. 

 

There is a ton to unpack and as usual when in feel mired in the 'muchness' of inner thoughts I get paralyzed. Start here, start now, I tell myself. 

 

I am sitting on the black futon in my writing room typing on this keyboard. My back leans against the black and white zebra striped cushion. I don’t remember the last time I did this. I feel in this moment like I have felt when I have returned home from a karate camp — where I lived in a dormitory with eight women sharing one rudimentary, never clean, bathroom — and taken my first hot shower in days, after which I sit on my couch with a satisfied grin and a glass of red wine. 

 

Over the last weeks I have felt so much envy when writer friends have talked about finishing a writing project, or just attempting to free write, or journaling, or joining a free class, or doing anything writerly including reading a craft book or reading fiction. I have considered skipping my bi-monthly zoom chats with them just because I felt ashamed to say that once again I had done no writing, and practically zero reading too. 

 

Since the invite to grade to san dan came a few weeks ago — all, absolutely all — my free time has gone into karate. At first it was studying for the theory test and training, and once the written was over just training and watching videos of katas done by senior Sensei’s to try to catch the rhythms and pauses, to understand the slow sequences and the explosions. I have felt saturated, inundated, exhausted, more exhausted. Anxious and unable to sleep which made me even more exhausted.

 

I learnt a lot about myself during this time. Once the invite came, I put up a sign saying, FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION, and got going. There were countless moments that I felt I would fail. Then I’d look at that sign and go on despite.

 

Then that incident that I wrote about in my last blog happened and I realized just how little I believed in myself at this time. It was a timely warning, to not let this happen before or during the test, but to remain keyed into success throughout and never give up till it was done. 

 

I wrote about my ups and down in my journal. The details of where I seemed to be improving and what still sucked. I accepted my slowness, and my lack of ‘natural’ karate ability. I wondered despite that why I had kept going when I my last Singy Sensei left the country. What crazy devil had made me believe then that I could teach a class? Why did I keep going after 2018 when I was told that I wasn’t ready to test for sandan. Why didn’t I give up then — not the learning, but at least the teaching? I was all self-doubt and nothing else then. I have pulled out and read my journals from that raw time. I need to dig for these answers. It will tell me even more about myself.

 

After the test, after the announcement that I had passed, my Virgoan perfectionist mind berated me. It began searching out all the mistakes I had made because I got nervous. Then later, while I was showering, something else kicked in and shoved those thoughts aside. I wasn’t going to let perfectionism spoil the feeling I was feeling. I had passed. I had achieved a goal which a part of me never thought I would achieve. 

 

I don’t feel different today. I mean I am happy, but I don’t feel suddenly like I know more or that I am a better karateka just because I got this grade. I think I had felt more chuffed after both my shodan and nidan tests. In some ways I know why, and I intend writing about that another day. Today I feel like I took a test and I passed, but I will only be better if I keep learning. I also am still too tired to really feel that below the surface bubbling euphoria. I need sleep. 

 

I do feel like that thick elastic band, that pulls me back into the stagnant circles of being that I felt stuck in internally, has loosened a little bit. I feel like one of the invisible heavy steel balls I carry around in pouches tied to my body has slipped off. My circle has widened, the movement feels more forward, and I feel a tad lighter. 

 

I am happiest though because this seems to have released my word block a little bit. Let’s see what happens next. I will watch the sun set this evening, but now I have a dental appointment, after which I  will reward myself with a visit to the library, and with a couple of new sakura ballsign id pens if i can find them in Tokyu Hands :)

Letting out air...

 March 16, 2022

 

It’s been a long silence. From the blog with also with myself, with my journal. I’ve jotted down some thoughts and feelings and drawn thumbnails of expression, but it’s been mostly a time of silence. A busy time. An unquiet time. An anxious time.

 

I’ve had one project after another that needed focus. A tunneled and absolute focus which dried my energy and robbed me of my ability to describe what I was going through. It felt horrible. I know myself through writing and I didn’t write. Those projects really needed focus. 

 

And that focus was so intense on one part of me that it disconnected me from others. I couldn't even claim March 10^th  as a work free day and listen to the election results and analysis. I began to feel that I had all these holes in me, the missing parts, that were making me less and less solid, and present. I didn’t know how to fill them. I told my artist friend this on our Wednesday morning call yesterday. A call which we had missed for three weeks as he too was into a focused project. I know myself also from chats with him and those too had been gone. 

 

I know a lot of people who can keep going, through tough times, even when they are unable to connect within. Some even say that it helps to stay in that zone, to disconnect all else and tunnel. I thought the same but project after project this year has required this and I couldn't do it anymore. Last night I stayed up and wrote in my journal. My heart was thudding after a near disaster with something I had wanted to do well in. I felt I had let myself down as I had let a series of stressors get to me and reached a point where an inner voice was saying, Forget this, just get it over with and get out. Nothing really works like you want it to these days anyway.

 

That is a belief system I have been stuck with after several years of projects and successes coming so close to completion and then falling away. But I didn’t know how deeply the belief had dug its talons into me.  It lurked beneath the surface ready to rear up and sabotage something vital at the appropriate moment. And I saw that even as I continued to put in my best efforts into things that mean a lot, the past disappointments have got me into a state where I give up just near the end. I let things slip away. The thing is that I don’t really believe in myself  right now. 

 

A lesson learnt of course. Even when impatient and stressed, when all I want to do is give up and just get it over with,  I need to stay alert and apply my full self. To believe in myself even through the string of failures. 

 

And there is a voice shouting, Universe! Enough with these lessons. I want a sense of forward movement again. Are you listening!

 

The drought of words continues but today I needed to open the unused tap and start letting out the air so the flow might restore — even as a part of myself is engaged in another 'tunnelled' project. This time I want to try to do it differently.