Cats, Anxiety, and Writing Practice

 April 8, 2022

I am still feeling the void, the post-partum blues, I felt after the test. At first it felt ok to be in this state. My Wednesday chat friend felt exhausted and ‘brainless’ weeks after he submitted his thesis. But as time, as in days, went on and I still couldn’t write, read, or do anything remotely creative I felt anxious and restless. The uneasiness grew within my chest like a bubbling pot that was always on the point of boiling but never did. 

 

Our family cats came to live with us on the 29^th of March. They come here when their human parents travel so haven’t been here for a long, long while. They took ages to settle. Neither ate in the first 24 hours. The black one slept and slept all day, she cuddled on my feet at night, but ran away from me in the day — like she used to when we first rescued her off the streets — but 48 hours later she had managed to find stability. Now during the day, she eats, she sleeps, she wakes and demands pets, then plays by herself and goes back to her window seat spot to sleep. And she only comes to wake me at 7 am. On the first night, the white one woke me up at 2 am. He sat on my stomach, purring loudly, and kept coming back every half hour or so. He settled a bit a few days later, then unsettled himself in some way again. All day his slightly open eyes watch where I go. He sleeps lightly and meows and wanders in the day, and at night he jumps on my stomach between 5:30 and 6:00 am. He has this personality where he sometimes makes himself miserable and then stews in it. No amount of comforting soothes him during these times.

 

Today, or perhaps the last three days or even the entire week, I am feeling a bit like that. I can’t seem to relax and even thinking about doing something to relax, like going to the library café and journaling, tumbles me into a deeper state of anxiety. 

 

The cats will be with us till Sunday when their human dad returns. I will help him get them and their stuff back to their home and then rush back here to pack and leave for Bombay. I haven’t been back in over two years and two months. I haven’t been anywhere and forgotten how to pack and travel. Anxious! 

 

But my current internal suffering comes from being in a complete creative void. No writing, no reading,  no drawing even. I don’t know what it is — the combination end of the test exhaustion and sleep deprivation once the cats got here, or something deeper? My mind tends to pick up the white cat’s anxiety and then we make each other more anxious. I feel sad, ashamed even, that like him I haven’t handled my disturbance at all well this time. I have been grumpy and tense.

 

It's a time when I am trying to establish a proper writing practice. I don’t think I’ve ever really had one. Despite having a serious passion for writing, it feels on and off — dependent on inspiration, task (as in deadline of some sort, that includes feedback to another writer), and time (as in when I have time constrains the first thing that gets dropped is writing). Perhaps a part of me likes this non-structuredness, and not very committed way to doing things. 

 

But every so often I seem to have the need to have a proper practice. I read how ‘real’ writers have routines and how they go ‘into the cave and sharpen their pencils’ even when not writing. I’ve tried several times to start one but never chased it seriously. Perhaps I need to process these two parts together, allow them to dialogue, but right now I just want to start one. 

 

Several writer friends, and I mean serious and published ones, have suggested that I link writing practice to my karate practice, or at least take tips from that to develop this. The two feel very far apart though I know they are not. It wasn’t always so but now it is simple to keep the karate practice. There is a simplicity in the elements involved — basics, kata, hojo-undo, gym, group practice, and teaching. A certain number of hours every week which could be a combination of those elements in any way that feels right. I never get karate ‘block’ and nor do I faff on the day and time I am supposed to practice. 

 

It wasn’t always so and perhaps reflecting on the process of how I got serious in karate might provide me more insight than looking outside to other writer’s practices. But it is fun to hear about those.  

 

It’s been a disruptive time and the next weeks in Bombay will be more so, especially since we haven’t been there in so long, but I am going to keep a bit of my mind on getting the shape and elements of a practice going. I am making a list of things that could go into a practice and I am going to keep my notebook with me and make notes whenever and wherever. 

 

Natalie Goldberg says, “One of the main aims in a writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and non-aggressive.” I think that learning to trust the body and mind was the exact process by which I came to a karate practice. May I succeed in this too despite the time of constant change.

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.

 

Sanchin, and Gin and Tonics

 February 13, 2022

I want to write about today. But it feels like ‘so much’ in just one day that I don’t know if I can. 

 

This afternoon I sat and watched myself, watch four of my students – can I call them that – do dan gradings with Sensei Mistry online. 

 

I don’t know where to begin to express the myriad emotions I have been through in the day. 

 

It began on the first Sunday of 2022. No, it began in 2003. Or perhaps in 2014?

 

Phew! Deep breath. Let’s just start with sanchin, and gin and tonics…

 

It began this week. It all started to feel unreal and scary then. Sensei Mistry sent me the theory paper for the four who had been training with him on Sundays in January. I told him I was as nervous as them. An online dan grading—a first for our dojo.  And then there was this thing — that I didn’t quite identify as a teacher who could mentor her students towards dan gradings. I didn’t say that to him, but perhaps I didn’t have to. I had been his student, still was, and he knew me well, like i know my students perhaps. He said, Radhika relax, do sanchin and have a gin and tonic on me. 

 

But I am an imposter. Still swimming in this space of go-ju karate, struggling to find my identity and I mean not as a teacher but just a karateka. A person who Sensei Mistry had, rightly, not graded to her first stripe till she had been training for eight months — when most got it in three. 

 

Back to that time when Sensei Pete left Singapore. Back to trying to keep the dojo going when the other black belt quit training. Back to the year on Fort Canning Hill training with just two others, brown belts at that time. 2014 that was. 

 

Fast forward to today. I wanted to train too. I said I’d keep my camera off. But Sensei Mistry reminded me that I was their Sensei, and I should sit this one out. I should also get a grading sheet and make notes. Which I did. But like I said I was watching myself, watching the grading. 

 

And watch them I did from the edge of my seat. 

 

This week has been rich with memory. Of my first years in karate with Sensei Mistry. Of my first years in teaching these four. Particularly two who entered our dojo as white belts. I remembered the first contact, the first email, the first phone call, the first months with them. 

 

And the months of Sunday practice with them last year. Their efforts to grasp something intangible that the imperfect, inadequate me was trying to convey. I still can’t believe they trusted me — that I could lead them on this journey. 

 

But I think they got it. At least the first steps. They found their way for sure. And yes, they all passed and the Singy IOGKF dojo has three new shodans and one new nidan. I couldn’t be prouder. I broke into tears after Sensei announced the results.

 

A day of rest and reflection for me — with a vodka neat (as I had run out of gin). Perhaps a bit longer for them. But next weekend we will be back in the dojo trying to dig deeper —  into skill, technique, into form, and essence, of this amazing path. Where I am, maybe we all are, discovering more than just karate. Where we find ourselves in vivid, clear moments that may again be lost.

Am I too foolish to write about self-doubt? 

Black Lines in Thumbnails of Colour

February 8, 2022

 

Last week I felt light, like a falling snowflake, a spinning dancer. Last week I felt I’d walked a few steps forwards. I even tackled four of the six tasks on my financial stuff to-do list. It felt like a moment of victory—of being ‘productive’, efficient, useful—of conquering sloth, and fear. I don’t know how one gets from there to here in one swift slide.

 

Today I am, once again, acutely aware of the mountain of things under the concrete I walk on. The uncertainties, the things beyond my control—those things that I have understood are unresolvable, unpredictable in the current situation. I need visits to India to clear them. I choose to not give them mental space, so they creep under the ground I walk on making each step wobbly. They grow, stay stagnant, and grow more—never diminishing in size by even a cubic millimeter. I fall on them all lumpy and tired. I turn and turn like a dog trying to find a comfortable position. I feel like the princess, lying on a pea covered by a dozen mattresses. I finally doze. I dream of running away from assassins and all the undone things, the long list of them, begin falling on me like a rain of stones. I am sandwiched. Tired I give up. 

 

I read five books in January and barely ten pages in February. The inconsistency chomps at me. After every five or six days of good work, I drop into a ‘void’ day where nothing works, nothing feels right, nothing moves—or it does but in weighty backward way. I lie in bed at night glad that the day is over and worry, but what if tomorrow is the same. I’ve begun to cope by drawing these disturbances with a black fine liner in thumbnails of solid colour. It's soothing to pick a colour and block out a square in my journal. Expressing the disturbance within the box, frees me a bit from its grasp.  Yesterday I drew nine boxes—lime green, pale yellow, sky blue, leaf green, bright orange, eggplant purple, rose pink, sea blue, soft lilac. 

 

I crawled out of that yesterday into today and found that I began ticking my to-do list again. Relief. 

 

The inconsistency bothers me. It leaves gaps in what I can expect of myself. It obscures the full picture and that makes me nervous. It’s hard to keep doing when I don’t know where everything fits. 

 

But there is not much to do about it, I realize. Fighting it makes it worse. Planning a faffing day never works. The only thing that seems to work is to allow everything to collapse on such a day and trust that it will be one or two, not many. 

 

This is life right now. It’s not been this way before the dreaded C-thing happened. Again, I blame it. Will I ever stop? Will it ever stop? Will I ever adapt to this unnatural normal? 

 

It’s the same lesson as last week in a different form. The slow crawl, with moments of joyous leaping and others of content catnapping. Today I will also add Sanchin and gin and tonics to my coping strategies. Advise from one of my Sensei’s. This story I will tell another time.

 

People all over the world are doing kata and push-up challenges this month. Time to throw myself into that energy.