A ‘Theme’ in my Karate Stories?

August 31, 2023

 

One of my ‘loose’ goals this month was to do more writing. It has been pathetically sparse for ten months or so. Exhaustion due to poor health, and an expansion of external commitments, led to me de-prioritizing my writing always. 

Writing is one of the things that grounds me so not putting it centre-stage felt a lot like self-sabotage, or some sort of dysfunctional behavior, possibly stemming from a fear. I needed to de-clutter and make time to even figure out the fear and I decided to ‘give notice’ and quit from one of my writing critique groups even though the group is the very thing that forces me to write whenever it is my time to submit. But I also spend an average of 4.5 hours per week working on feedback on other people’s writing. My ability to give useful feedback has improved (my co-writers said so) and certainly being forced to write 5000 words every four to six weeks was the pressure I needed to not completely lose touch with writing. But I wanted to go back and re-find an internal writing flow, something that was motivated from within. The writing I submitted also was haphazardly written whenever my name came up, and I wasn’t working on any project in a coherent manner. I submitted two short stories, revival of chapter one of my fantasy novel (the first thing I ever wrote), and six other pieces — all on karate, in the last ten months. I never made the effort to go back and revise any of the submissions after receiving feedback. I wanted to write differently, though I didn’t know what I even meant by that. Perhaps I wanted to allow my mind to roam empty spaces and let the unconscious speak in my words. I wanted to reach deeper and not do the ‘surface kind of writing’ I had been doing. 

 

It was only on August 14, when I finally found a whole writing day. Having written six pieces about karate over the last months, I thought I’d start making a collection of karate experiences and move them towards a memoir. But just like this blog post – a bit rambly, I found the stories didn’t have any identifiable theme. Each one was a distinct experience – strong, but unique from the others. Two were from my first months in karate, one was my shodan test gasshuku, the fourth my first year of teaching, another on attending a CI, and the last titled the 108 kata ritual, and what that meant to me. Hmm… yes, nothing cohesive. 

 

And all attempts on investigating a theme, a thread, any connective elements in my karate journey, fizzled out, deflated like a car tyre with a leaky valve.

 

I have a ton of questions – which is good. 

·      Why did I embrace something I sucked at with complete commitment? Why did I keep going when people made fun of me? When I failed tests? (Doing something you are terrible at does build character)

·      Why did I keep the dojo going when Sensei left Singapore and I didn’t know how to teach? How did I cope with imposter syndrome? What propelled me to not hand it over to somebody else when there were more black belts in Singapore?

·      What messes did I make? Why am I still here when my body says rest?

·      Has it taught me anything about myself? About life? Am I different because of it?

 

But is there a theme? A prerequisite for shaping a memoir. If there is I can't see it.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke did recommend loving the questions and being patient towards all that was unsolved in the heart. So, I am living the questions for now and maybe on some distant day, gradually, without noticing, I will live into the answer. The prerequisite for finding answers though is keeping an attention on the unresolvedness of things even when it all feels elusive, wispy, transient. Like that thing you see from the corner of your eye and it disappears when you turn your head to look. 

 

I guess I did write a bit more without external pressure this month!