Okay. I just had to share a snippit of conversation between Dynamo and I:

Me: They’re also offering a Kali workshop at the dojong on Aug 21st. Did you want to go? I’m going to get tickets tomorrow.

Dynamo: No thanks

Me: You get to hit people with sticks…

Dynamo: Hit people?

Dynamo: With sticks!

You gotta love a martial arts parent. How many other kids get to be encouraged to hit people with sticks by their parents?

Which is the day after I was supposed to audition for the school’s demo team. But the Masters were kind and let me audition last Saturday, given the circumstances. How did it go? Hard for me to say. I think I did okay, but I completely flubbed the last four or five moves of the improvised poomse he gave us to audition with. It was like a flashback to my old acting days–I felt like I was at a dance audition. We went through some basic kick combinations, with an emphasis on performing them, then he created a form on the spot and we had to learn it with only a couple of run-throughs. Real “follow the bouncing butt” stuff, as they call it in bellydance.

Speaking of, my bellydance classes have been out for the entire summer and I’m really feeling the lack of cross-training. I’ve definitely got to get more disciplined and go through some of it on my own. I’ve lost some flexibility and my core muscles are definitely suffering. I just find it really hard to get motivated when I don’t have a class I’m supposed to show up at.

On the house front, we’ve finally settled on the color and painted one wall, then laid some of the flooring in front of it. I’m really loving the way it’s coming together. I’ll take a picture and post it next week or so when I get back to blogging.

The last belt test went well and I’ve received my red stripe (3rd gup). Dynamo’s planning testing for his next belt this month when he gets back.

He’s been in California with his dad’s parents for the last couple of weeks and his cat has been attempting to permanently attach himself to me so I don’t disappear, too. Momo’s our only cat right now and he’s Dynamo’s in the sense that he chose Dynamo as his special person. But I’m the food lady, so Dynamo being gone causes him to mope about the house, but me being gone is a genuine crisis (never mind that there’s always food available).

That’s the current news right now. More in a couple of weeks. I’ll try to get a picture of the wall to share.

This room is going to be Jay’s office. While I actually like the color itself, four wall of it in a room is much too much. The photo makes the room look a little brighter than it actually is. You can see we’ve torn up the carpet (it was the same dirty white as the downstairs), but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten upstairs, aside from some heavy-duty cleaning.

This will be my office when we’re all done. And it’s actually a little brighter than the photo makes it look. Originally, there was a decorative wall paper border covering the thin middle stripe. The wall paper was also pink, with 1960′s-style flowers. The whole thing was rather ghastly, but it has the biggest closet and the most natural light of all the bedrooms, except the master. And since I do a lot of art-type work in my office, I need as much natural light I can get, as well as space to store art and knitting supplies.

Finally, we come to what will be Dynamo’s bedroom. This is even darker than it looks in the photo.

Work’s progressing on it, but very slowly. We usually have only one-two days a week to work on it and a couple of weeks ago, Jay injured his hand. The doctor said it was a strain from overuse and to rest it. So our time-table for moving in has been pushed back. A lot. But that’s better than Jay really messing up his hand.

So we just keep plugging away. We’ve finally settled on colors for the downstairs and we’re hoping to be able to start painting soon. I’ll keep y’all posted as we actually get things done.

In a week I’m testing again for my next belt rank, which will put me at 3rd gup (blue belt with a red stripe). I find I’m testing much more frequently now than I was when I first started. I’m still making sure I actually feel ready to test before I do so, but I’m finding it takes less time for me to reach that point than it used to.

It’s only been two months since I achieved my blue belt and I honestly didn’t think I’d be ready again this soon. But there really wasn’t much that’s new to learn and the masters were telling me I was ready to test last month.

Now that I’m well past the half-way point to my black belt, I’m feeling a real drive to reach it as soon as I reasonably can. But I don’t want to do it at the expense of my skills. I don’t want to rush through it and not really learn the skill I need to for the  next rank.

It’s odd. I never used to feel this push for a black belt. When I first started studying martial arts, over 20 years ago, I honestly never thought much about my black belt. I mean, I always figured I’d eventually get it, but it wasn’t my primary motivation. Something’s changed and it’s done so very recently. And it’s not pressure from the school.

No, this pressure, this drive is coming from inside me. I guess it’s because a black belt is the “price of admission” to where I really want to take my art. Pretty much all of my peers on our school’s Leadership Team are black belts and I find myself yearning to train on their level. I can’t judge competitions or rank testings until I earn my black belt Also–and I think this is the really important reason–I can’t become a full instructor until I gain my black belt. And I’m discovering that I really love teaching. My friends and family tell me there’s brightness in my eyes since I started assisting with classes and I that I just generally seem happier.

When I first started training all those years ago, before a bad marriage and incapacitating illness, getting a black belt seemed like the end of my martial arts journey. This time, it feels more like the beginning of it. I’m finding myself wanting to rush through these preliminary color belts so I can begin my real training. It’s like I’m in preschool eagerly waiting until I can begin kindergarten and real school.

But then none of the other schools I’ve been at have so many classes and opportunities for people after they’ve achieved their black belts.

As a side note, I’ve been asked (though I’m not really sure that’s a strong enough word) to audition for the school’s demonstration team next month. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

Other Related Posts

• Do You Need a Black Belt?
• Belt Ranks: Markers of Recovery

Articles Zemanta thinks may be related

• Black Belt Superpowers (justathoughtmmra.blogspot.com)
• Martial Arts Belt Rankings; Are They Worth Anything Today? (myselfdefenseblog.com)
• Think About The Why (justathoughtmmra.blogspot.com)
• What’s in a Belt? (memoirsofagrasshopper.blogspot.com)
• Tuesday Tip: Preparing For Black Belt Testing (justathoughtmmra.blogspot.com)

• Choosing a Martial Arts School (No Nonsense Self-Defense)
• Choosing a Martial Arts School, pt. 1: Which Martial Art? (jameshom.com) — this is a particularly detailed article in four parts which covers choosing an art, finding schools that teach that art, visiting the schools, and starting training).
• For the Beginner: Some Advice on Choosing a Martial Arts School (FightingArts.com)
• Guide to Selecting a Martial Arts School (North Austin Tae Kwon Do)
• How to Choose a Karate School (Black Belt Mama)
• How to Choose the Right Martial Arts School (USAdojo.com)
• How to Evaluate a School (My Self-Defense Blog)
• Ten Things Not to Ask a Traditional Martial Arts Instructor (Just a Thought)

We’re currently in the middle of ripping out all of the carpet and priming the entire house for repainting. Luckily, most of the work that needs to be done is cosmetic and we saved enough on the purchase price of the house itself that we’ll be able to hire someone to install the bamboo floors we’ve picked out. But meanwhile, there’s a lot of “sweat equity” to be put into it.

I’ve got a few  “before” pictures — photos of the place before we began work. I’ll post some more when we’re finished.

First the livingroom:

The photo doesn’t really give you the full effect of this paint job. The livingroom was blue, the dining room a pale yellow and dark green and the entire front hall was painted the turquoise you see, though in real live it’s much more … um … “vibrant.” I’ll post a picture of it, if I get permission from Romilly of Stitching with a Shimmy, since she’s in it.

This is the stairs. You can see some of the turquoise hall on the left there:

That actually gives you a better idea of the shade of turquoise. What this picture doesn’t show is how completely filthy the whole place was. I don’t think the house’d ever been cleaned since it was made in 2003. The brown shade on the walls and carpet isn’t just a photo artifact.  The walls were caked with grime and the original carpet color was nearly white. It took Dynamo, myself, and a party of willing hands two days to clean everything. We had to wash every wall, faceplate, outlet cover, molding inch … everything in the house.

This is the master bedroom

I don’t yet have photos of the other three bedrooms. I’m going to take care of that tomorrow and I’ll post them. They’re as “colorful” as the downstairs. One’s Pepto-Bismol pink, other green, and the third a dark red, but a different shade from the dark red in this room.

We’ve completely ripped out the carpet and are planning to put down bamboo flooring throughout the entire house except the bathrooms, which we’re going to tile.

On a completely different subject, I received my blue belt last week. I actually had to blink back a couple of tears, since I now have officially caught up with myself. I’d achieved blue belt just before I quit TKD the first time. This puts me a little over halfway to my black belt. I’m not rushing through belts, though since I’m the “baby belt” of our school’s leadership team, I’ve got added incentive to reach it. It’s not unusually for leadership team classes to have me as the only non-black belt in the room.

More updates on the house as they come along .

Possibly the most famous Japanese fighting woman, Tomoe Gozen (toe.moe.e go.zen) has captured the imagination of the Japanese for several centuries. Her name is also starting to quite recognized in the US, largely thanks to a series of novels by Jessica Amanda Salmonson called the The Tomoe Gozen Saga.

Who was Tomoe Gozen?

There are a number of sites on the web that talk about Tomoe Gozen, most of which refer back to a single source dating from the 1300′s called The Tale of Heike. The part of the story concerning Tomoe Gozen describes a battle during the Genpei War (1180-1185). There is described as striking beautiful, with skills in kenjutsu, archery, and horsemanship to rival her beauty.

Almost nothing is known about Tomoe Gozen as an historical figure; at this point it’s safer to consider her a legendary figure. But like Mulan and Yim Wing Chun, legendary or not, she still provides fighting females as a role-model and a source of inspiration.

The Battle of Awazu

What we information we do have tells us basically nothing about Tomoe Gozen until the Genpei War. During that time Minamoto no Yoshinaka, Lady Tomoe‘s husband or master (depending on which version of the legend you read) captured Kyoto and decided to to win the leadership of the Minamoto clan. His cousin Minamoto no Yoritomo sent his own brothers, Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Minamoto no Noriyori to him. Yoshinaka fought Yoritomo’s forces at the Battle of Awazu. It was said that Lady Tomoe performed more valorous deeds than any of Yoshinake’s other warriors. Certainly he thought much of her skill, for legends tell us he sent her out as his first captain whenever battle loomed.

What  happened during the battle is far from certain. All the sources I found confirmed that during the battle of Awazu, Lady Tomoe took at least one head, that of the Minamoto warrior Onda no Hachiro Moroshige. Most accounts agree that Yoshinaka, knowing he had lost and that death was imminent, urged her to flee. Some accounts say did this just that, with the head she had taken in battle or with the head of Yoshinaka to keep it from falling into enemy hands.

Other accounts say that Lade Tomoe refused to go and died by the side of Yoshinaka or committed suicide. Still others say she survived and became a nun. One other version claims she was captured by Wada Yoshimori and bore him a son, Asahina, who was to go on and become the strongest warrior of the Kamakura era.

Lady Tomoe’s Signifigance

The legend of Tomoe Gozen documents a rare but historical phenomenon–that of women warriors in the history of Japan. While most women did, indeed, follow the common view of Japanese femininity–as bound by social custom as the layers of kimono they wore–they were still expected to take up arms in defense of their home. And a rare few rode into battle themselves.

Lady Tomoe serves as a reminder that there have always been women who have pursued the martial arts, usually in spite of law, culture, and custom. The female warrior isn’t a new–she’s following the centuries-old path of both legendary and real women who followed their own hearts to take the right path for them. Can we expect less of ourselves and daughters in the modern world?

Note: The term gozen is actually an honorific, not a name. It translates literally to “perfect circle”, but is usually translated as “Lady”.

Sources

• 5 Legendary Warrior-Women of Asia
• Images of Samurai Women–The Most Famous Female Samuri: Tomoe Gozen
• Onna Musha Tomoe Gozen
• Tomoe Gozen–Absolute Astronomy.com
• Tomoe Gozen–Boards Group Forums
• Tomoe Gozen: Encyclopedia–AllExperts
• Tomoe Gozen–The Samurai Archives Citadel
• Tomoe Gozen–The Samurai Archives SamuraiWkiki
• Tomoe Gozen–Wikipedia
• Who is Tomoe Gozen?
• Women Warriors of Japan (part 1)

Other Posts in This Series

• Famous Fighting Females?
• Legendary Fighting Women: Mulan
• Legendary Fighting Women: Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun

(Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/ / CC BY 2.0)

MMA Workouts are not Just for Men

By Alexia Krause

Mixed martial arts appears to be a male dominated sport, yet the number of women who are becoming part of the MMA community is continually growing. There are many female MMA fighters (including Kaitlyn Young and Gina Carano), who follow the same rigorous regimens as their male counterparts. These inspiring ladies have broken open the doors to what used to be the “boy’s club” of MMA. They use the same techniques, MMA equipment, and exercises that most fighters would use. MMA training has the ability to help women stay fit while participating in a competitive and exhilarating sport.

A MMA workout may sound intimidating. However, with the right frame of mind, guys and girls alike can use it to their advantage. MMA workouts train the whole body as one unit, which is a great way to keep the body moving and in shape. A normal training session can include cardio sprints, jumping jacks, and accelerated core workouts. The training of a fighter is a daily endeavor and requires more dedication than a couple visits to the gym each week. Additionally, whether you are a beginner to regular exercise, or supplementing an existing, more advanced routine, these exercises certainly pack a noticeable punch.

On a more serious note, it’s a known fact that men are generally bigger than women by nature and therefore, women are prone to planned attacks from men because they can be considered an easier target. However, with the proper self-defense tactics, you can help even-out the fight. For this reason, a lot of women seek out self-defense classes. The added bonus of self-defense training is the exercise that the individual gets by taking part in the classes. Most people don’t consider the fact that self-defense training is a great way to exercise while increasing your resiliency at the same time. Additionally, MMA exercise routines often include simulated fight training to teach proper self-defense techniques that will be utilized during a match. Therefore, anyone looking for self-defense classes, or an intense exercise routine, or both, might want to check out MMA training. Keep in mind, there is no reason to be nervous about getting hurt because in order to actually train properly, exercises and simulated fights involve the use of MMA gear; like MMA gloves in order to avoid injury.

Articles Zemanta thinks may be related:

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The leadership team retreat was wonderful. I really got a chance to know more of my fellow White Tigers, which I enjoyed very much (It’s nice now to have names to put to the faces I see in the courtyard between classes). Master Rondy, the school’s owner, paid for all of us to attend the Spring Shakori Hills Music Festival this year. In addition to the wonderful music, they offered movement classes free to all attendees. We got to take and teach some really great classes, including self-defense, t’ai chi, capoeira, qi gong, yoga…. All in all, a really great time that made me not want to come home. If anyone’s interested, you can see the photos on Facebook. I’m the only one not wearing a black belt .

February came and went while this blog was on hiatus, but it marked the first year anniversary of On My Own Two Feet. Hopefully, this was the first of many more years to come.

Below is a countdown of the ten most popular posts on this site. Thanks everyone for making this a great first year!

10.  Weight, Body Image and the Martial Arts
9. An A-to-Z List of Martial Arts Styles: Part 2
8. Female Judo Champion Finally Receives Gold
7. About Martial Artess
6. 15 Must-Read Martial Arts Blogs
5. Legendary Fighting Women: Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun
4. Do You Need a Black Belt?
3. Fight Like a Grrl: 8 Sites for Female Martial Artists
2. Famous Fighting Females?

And the most popular post in OMOTF’s history so far:

1. Legendary Fighting Women: Mulan

Even though I haven’t been writing about martial arts, I’ve still be doing it. Since November, I’ve earned two belt promotions: green belt and blue stripe (6th and 5th gup, respectively). I also joined White Tiger’s Leadership Team, practically as soon as I became eligible at green belt. That means I’m assisting with one white belt class a week, learning how to teach, a big step towards my eventual goal of teaching martial arts. I’m enjoying it immensely and feel almost as proud as a parent when one of my students does really well.

Jay’s own martial arts is coming along as well. He’s managed to reach yellow belt, despite the universe interfering with his belt tests. It took three times before he actually could test, none of them his fault. The first time he pulled a leg muscle the night before the test; the second time a freak snow storm hit the Raleigh area and we couldn’t make it out of his condo’s parking lot, much less get to the dojang. But four months later, he finally got to test and successfully passed.

Dynamo’s story is quite different, though. TKD seems to have lost its appeal for him; personally, I think it’s because he’s reached green belt. The shiny newness has worn off and it’s now gotten hard. He can’t just cruise through classes and belt tests the way he used to and the instructors have stopped giving him unmitigated praise and have started correcting him more. I’m hoping he’ll pull through it.

I know this is the point where it becomes work and that black belt still seems so far away. We have one more year on our current contract and I told him he has to finish that out. I’m hoping by then he’ll be staring the black belt in the face and will chose to continue. But it’ll be his choice at that point. I did tell him that he was going to do something martial arts related–he desperately needs the structure and discipline. If anyone has any ideas on how to keep kids motivated through these middle ranks, please let me know. I’ve run out.

I’ve got all kinds of plans for this blog in 2010. I’ve been storing up post ideas and can’t wait to share them with you.