The ‘Why’ of the Karate Stories

September 1, 2023

 

I sit at this desk, a low Muji dining table, facing the window overlooking Dunman School dorms. I have been writing on it since my daughter got married and I converted her room into my writing room. Outside the day is sunny with a slight haze in the air. These are my last four months (or less) of sitting here. I don't know how I will recreate this 'womb' I've created.

 

Today I have been reflecting on why I want to write these stories in the first place. 

 

This year it is twenty years in karate for me — a short time compared to many who are on this path. What started as a ‘dabbling’ hobby took up more and more of my time and life. When I pause to look back, I feel surprised to see where I have got to within it. I don’t know why but it has become a sort of primary identity that so many — close friends, work colleagues, volunteer buddies — identity me with. I don’t refute this but inside me it doesn’t feel right. 

 

I have been feeling I am more than just this, and simultaneously seeing that I have lost parts of my identity to karate. Maybe not lost because one can’t lose what one is – so lost touch with is more accurate. To the me that was twenty years ago, karate was a side path which I never expected to become a ‘main-road’ of my life journey. But as life changed, I adapted and here I am today.

 

When one loses touch with a part of the self, it is hard to get back to it. And it is also possible that that part has shriveled and died, or changed in an unrecognizable way. To put it more honestly, I have felt increasingly scared that I don’t know how to recover those parts and will die never knowing myself fully.

 

So, writing the karate pieces and submitting them to my critique group was an attempt to find through the writing something more of who I am. Surely, in this journey and the way I have been through it — the way I dealt with challenges and obstacles, the way I celebrated success, or healed, and the friends I made, the teachers I loved — might help me know myself better. I’m hoping this micro journey is a microcosm of me and not just a diversion that took me over. 

 

Who knows where it will lead.

 

Though I began seeking a theme since August 14, I haven’t come close to finding one yet – just the words, purpose and identity stand out, along with self-doubt/self-worth. I will be sharing this process of gathering these stories from my memory and writing them down. I am not really thinking of publishing them though I sent them to my critique group where I got comments on craft and what people found fascinating.  I feel a strong need to find the narrative, the story, of this huge part of my recent life, and know myself a little bit better. 

 

I really appreciate those who read my rambling enquiries and please do share your thoughts if you see a pattern, a connectivity, in the things I share. Much obliged.