i’m beginning to have hope that i didn’t actually break three toes on my right foot. a few days have passed; a lot of swelling has had  chance to recede. my foot is still swollen, bruised deeply, and not very mobile…but i can move enough now that i’m feeling positive that the worst of it may just be severe soft tissue trauma. which is very good news. because if i broke toes, that means i’ll be out of any real tkd activity for a long while.

but yeah, as you know (tho i didn’t go into details), in my fall, i stepped into the air (which is more fun to see on bugs bunny cartoons than it is to do in real life), bounced off the metal work of the chair back, and then crashed to the ground on my right foot. oof. yeah, it was actually just about as sudden and traumatic as it sounds! ridiculous as i am, i was wincing, moaning, and frantically trying to wipe up all the spilled paint only moments after i landed. before i even knew what i had done to my body; before lying down on the floor of the living room with an ice pack clenched gratefully between my legs because, well, that’s how i landed on the chair. i’d post a picture [OF MY TOES], but feet are bad enough to begin with, right? we all like our own, but we don’t want to spend too much time looking at strangers’ feet. and then when you add in swelling and dark bruising, the whole thing gets to be a bit more of an imposition than i feel comfortable making in my readers’ lives. but if you snapped a toe in half without breaking the skin, and dark violet fluid seeped out into the toe proper and discolored it accordingly…that’s pretty much what i’d venture to say i have THREE of on my right foot. and don’t bother thanking me for taking all that time describing something to you you very possibly may not have ever wanted to have in your mind…i sat through an arnold schwarzenegger movie about cloning today that unsettled my soul and i doubt very much you feel any urge to fight for justice in that instance, do you? right. so let’s just keep moving.

had a little party to celebrate making black belt, and to celebrate some friends making black belt. D and K and M, for a few. people i’ve sweated alongside for years, now. i was feeling the urge to get back in the dojang and ramp back up lately. been taking it easy since testing for black. but the toe thing has taken me out for a little bit. so i’ll be doing more coaching on the demo team than performing. and when i’m in class, i’ll probably be at about 30% power on most things. at least anything that requires weight or pivot on my right foot. don’t hold me to percentages. i’m a martial artist, jim. not a statistician.

on that  note, i haven’t really written about my neck condition lately! and i should. because the condition is better than its ever been. and far better than i had thought i could expect only a few months ago. the chiropractor–dr. shirk here in eugene, oregon–did an amazing job with the traumatized and frozen condition of my neck vertebrae. it took a month or two (more?, not sure) to work our way back to mobility, but he gave me back a lot of motion in my neck, and removed a lot of pain from my life and i can’t tell you what a big deal that is. that’s also part of the reason i look forward to working out a little bit in taekwondo again…my neck is almost back to full capacity. that is a big deal when it comes to the spinning kicks and motions we do. and hard to believe, after the year of pain or so. it’s actually only been a little while (2 months-ish) since it was still bugging me a lot. so that’s a big change, too. and a weight off. i’ll have to leave it there, because while that change deserves pages, i would just be saying the same thing over and over again. which is to express my happiness, gratitude, and relief at being able to treat the condition after over a year of pain, numbness, bad sleep, cramping muscles, unmoving neck parts, and only sleeping on one side of my body. that was probably the biggest physical injury/disability type issue i’ve had to deal with in my life. not that it’s totally over. there is still a tiny bit of inflammation/numbness that can flare up in my neck and hand in certain positions. but the extent of the pain and the range of motion looks nothing like it did a few months ago. i’m still awed.

i suppose for the sake of keeping this record, i ought to write a little bit simply on my feelings and reality now that i’ve reached the rank of First Dan/Don (Jogyonim [Instructor]/1st Degree Black Belt). it’s not often in life–and when it occurs it is always a big deal in any area–where you set a goal years in the future and work hard at it, relentlessly and with passion and through pain, over the course of those years. and if you’ve been reading me over the years, then you have an inkling of what the process has been like for me. it’s required endurance, and courage, and a lot of energy. it has forced me to reach deep into myself for natural elements that were not yet mined, or if they were, were not at all cleaned, shaped, nor polished, yet. it has brought me injury, and pain of varying degrees. and  yet, i have never let those pains or injuries take me out of the game, or used them as an excuse to abandon my path. training to black belt has taught me about ego, and courage, and how they are two very different things. the work has helped me teach myself how to sharpen my focus to a high degree, and has demonstrated for me the power of practice and repetition. it has helped me learn how to fine tune my will and spiritual essence with the blunt mechanics of my physical self and bring them into alignment and shared motion and purpose. the journey has made me stronger, faster, quicker to react physically when required to do so, and deepened my powers of strength, balancing, and targeting. taekwondo has given me gifts that nothing else in my life has done. it has done all this and more. and very importantly, too, training with weapons and self defense and physical combat alongside the philosophies of self-control, wed through discipline with peacefulness and positivity has calmed my furious energies a bit; has stilled the raging chaos that flickered and surged throughout my being, previously. i am no angel, nor perfect, and still sometimes too quick to jump, but i am yet on this path and will continue to grow. overall, i am a far more measured, calm, and confident person in my life today due to my conditioning and conscious choices through martial arts.

i think i will always be a martial artist. i can’t see just “not doing martial arts” in some way, shape, or form. it’s not like smoking cigarettes, or following a sports team…something you can just stop doing and forget about…to just live life and not do once it has come into your heart and changed you (regret the passive tone of this because without your dedication and work, nothing in you will “be changed,” that’s for sure.) i’m sure you can take martial arts into regions and into levels where it looks like walking, or just sitting and watching and breathing, so i don’t mean i’ll always be honing my Tornado Round Kick. there’s a continuum. but to me, martial arts is just a way to approach life, to see life, to respond, to engage. and once you’ve felt the beauty and power in that way…once you have used that path to reach new places in yourself and in life…you’re always going to be there, and need to be there on some level. that’s who you are, now.

in the immediate future, i’ll continue to train in taekwondo. i’ve put a lot of time and work and sweat and money and other forms of energy into the school and the community and the martial art, and now that i’m on a new level, i want to feel it out and enjoy its bounty, as well as to benefit from meeting new challenges on this level. i want to learn keumgang, and begin attending the black belt-only classes where great grandmaster lee takes it up a notch, and to continue to refine all the technique i now have. i want to continue teaching and passing on what i know so as to keep it all very fresh for me. i want to know what it’s like to run demo team and classes more and more. simply put: i want to continue to grow in this art.

i will also begin training in hapkido (another korean art, this one purely martial art and not sport; self defense, and not sport). but not right away. i had planned to right away after receiving my black belt in TKD, but i want to use this time to do a sustained push on my art for DS and welcome a more relaxed pace in other areas for now. once i get through the bulk of current art needs for our first game, i will begin training in hapkido. it won’t be too long.

as fewer and fewer new/big/dramatic things happen in taekwondo for the time being (the learning/changing arc at this point is less steep than while on the color belt climb), there may not be a lot to write about on it, but that’s fine. i haven’t been writing too much lately, again, because of that arc’s pitch shifting. it happens over time. your improvements and challenges build on prior work you’ve done, so the steps get less drastic in their distance from one another. as you get comfortable with the foundational elements, your refinements get smaller, tho still very important. but the love is still the same: unflagging and unchecked and abundant.

international night has come and gone, and the demo team pulled off the event with plenty of flair. the crowd was very amped up and gave back lots of energy, to such an intense degree that a few people were rattled by the intensity of it and missed a step here or there. tests your focus a bit when the crowd is so ready to laugh, or cheer, and to do it all with much volume. they were applauding just our march out and right face and bow. but it was a good spot on the bill, going out second, after a drum performance. that was who we followed last korea night, too. it’s perfect. drums are rousing and exciting for everyone. the players, the audience, us coming in after. the entire building is humming when the drums are done. plus we go out second, so nobody is tired or sleepy yet. everyone has eaten, and is settled and ready to enjoy the show.

it was a bit awkward having a full dress rehearsal five or six hours before our slot. it left a big hole in the schedule on a brilliant, warm, sunday. and it was hard to fill that time with anything because of the anticipation. a few of us chilled together after rehearsal and before the demo; took a ride out on one of the local mountains, back road, parked, sat on a bench looking over pastures and sheep and drank a beer. then we went back to someone’s house and had a couple tequila shots. that seemed to ease the tension and get us laughing and ready. it’s a big energetic deal, this spending weeks prepping for a 15 minute slot of high torque performance in front of thousands. we were loose enough when we began, which is good.

i pulled off the combo break i’d been practicing for about 6 months: (left leg) crescent kick into (right leg) jumping reverse turning kick. woo! first time i wanted to do it, i was denied because my technique wasn’t up to par. it takes a lot to do a combo like this…you put so much energy and focus into the one kick, just to pull it off with power and speed and some degree of finesse–but it’s a whole new ballgame to do two in a row. you have to maintain the balance and power throughout the transition. not just have it in place for the first kick, but ready to go after you’ve broken that first board. for a while, just launching the left leg crescent kick to head level with enough power to do a speed break (board only secured on one side) took so much power from me that i was not able to be in a proper stance with power left over to do a jumping reverse turning kick. not without settling and setting up for a second–which master lee doesn’t want in these types of combos. he wants one to flow right into the other. the real life practical application of this combo break is a slapping kick (inside crescent kick) to the face, and then a thrusting kick (jumping reverse turning kick) to the ribcage/solar plexus. one, two, just like that.*

it wasn’t a perfect grade–i was about 2 inches lower on my jump than i wanted to be–but i broke both boards (the first into three pieces), and i landed in fighting/sparring stance facing the direction i started in, without pausing between kicks. it was good enough for me to feel happy with it.

notice the high tuck on the second kick. that’s an evolution in this kick for me. my jumping reverse turning kick has become less of a corkscrewing from the ground up (the first time i filmed this on video i’d say, now, that it was a hop reverse turning kick more than a true jumping reverse turning kick), and more of a jump and and then BAM, legs pop out in opposite directions, aiding and being a part of the turning around motion. but that takes time. and i’ve been working hard on that kick since testing for chodanbo. so it’s gradually been changing, as kicks do when practiced. i’ve gone from throwing my arms out to counterbalance my spin, to using it effectively in sparring, to adding it to effective combo breaks (above) with better tuck and extension, and the next improvement will be to do all that but while keeping my hands up. it’s better to have them just at your sides loosely (above) than flung out as a counter balance, but ideal technique would require they be in fists in front of you. so there’s still room for growth, as is always the case in these things. and i’ve come a whole long way from these days!!

*of course, we are told to stick with low kicks for real life situations. the crescent kick is especially risky, due to so much force being sent to a place high above your center of gravity while on only one leg. a little gravel or misstep and you are on your ass, or winded on your back. though, make no mistake: it can be a very effective kick, as it’s hard to see coming when done right. i’ve seen yellow belts knock each other out with this kick. (lack of control as a lower belt; we’re not supposed to be hitting each other in the face with these in the dojang!)

that’s what always strikes me when i watch martial arts and these highly trained masters like jackie chan and jet li, and even lesser fighters. audiences get so used to seeing people pull off multiple kicks in a fight and i wonder if they have any idea how many years of training and sweat and pain go into just the ability to do two or three advanced kicks in a row–with good power, speed, and balance. i wonder if they know how much power and focused will it takes to perform them, even after all that training. i guess by now i have an inkling, and so my appreciation truly deepens when i see those who have trained so much show their skills (with the full understanding of how kicks and action is dramatized and played up in the hands of the cinematographer and editor.)

anyway, i’m rambling a bit now.

HEAL THE DEAL

there was no break after international night, and we’ve moved directly into “Go” mode for korea night. these are two of the three biggest shows we do all year, almost back to back. i hurt my knee a little on international night, during my action scene with K. i get my ass kicked in this action (an action i designed), and that’s proper, because the scene involves me attacking a woman carrying a purse. so K knocks me down various times, tiger mouth strike to the throat, knife self defense #4, and so on. on one of my falls to the ground, i banged the corner of my knee. such a tender little spot there. this has hobbled me a bit in the interim. we have someone else warming up on deck with a combo kick in case my knee is still wobbly on korea night. in practices meanwhile, i’ve been not doing any kicks that rely on the sturdiness of that knee too much. which means gesturing (with kihap) in warmup where i would normally be kicking. it happens. martial artists are used to injury. you just hope it happens superficially, and not in a way that requires surgery or months of down time.

A NEW PLACE TO SWEAT

so in the house, now, we have a garage space. this has been designated as mostly dojang space. there is a washer/dryer area and bikes will be stored in the garage as well, but most of it will be dojang area. i’ll get mats/tiles for the floor, hang up the flags, my certificates, hang my medals, put up a shelf for pads, and bring in a B.O.B. dummy and a kids sized kicking bag. i might even take advantage of the beams and hang a heavy bag from the ceiling. it’s a big enough space to work the long staff, and do poomsae, though on some forms you may have to compensate, not sure, haven’t tested them all out in there yet.

either way, it’s pretty exciting, and another indication of how much this new joint allows us to spread out, breathe, and have room to take care of ourselves and our spirits.

EBB AND FLOW

i’ve definitely pulled back on the intensity of training since taking my black belt test. it feels natural. you put out such an intense will and effort for so long, and you don’t lag too much on your training in that time. granted, i took a 12 year break between the first two years and the second two! but in those periods, it was go go go. spring, summer, winter, and fall. pushing through pain. ignoring your own inner voices bemoaning the effort. riding a bike in december rain to the dojang. letting nothing stop you. reshaping the way your mind thinks and your body works.

i think back to when i began training. first day without cigarettes. i was 26, i think. it was SO demanding and so exhausting. just lunged into it. new lifestyle. i would come to work after training and in the first week of white belt days i was so wiped out from the sudden demands that i remember climbing back into the office after asking to workers to cover for me, and passed out under the desk, out of sight on the carpet. that’s how much energy i was putting out in this new discipline. and the slog. the long, long slog in those periods. just keeping on showing up. even when bored. even when sore. even when tired. even on weekends, even on friday nights. getting out on that mat, and into that ring, even when anxious, scared, unsure, untested. facing fear after fear after fear. meeting challenge after challenge after challenge, until you are reborn. reforged into something new. culminating in a super high energy, super high emotion, super life-force-demanding hours-long test to show the dojang how all that training manifests within you, demonstrated with all the focus and intensity you can manage.

the concrete break is the exclamation point and conclusion to the test. after that is a cool down period where master lee speaks directly to all of you as you stand at ease and then everyone hugs, cheers, laughs, cries, and so on.

and then, after that, i just needed a breather. truth is, i would’ve liked to take a few weeks off. just completely. but being involved with the demo team has kept me there at the very least 2 – 4 times a week. but that’s okay. even so, i’ve put on a few pounds. which is cool. a rhythm to these things.

i think once things settle in the house (finish painting, moving, get in a new routine) i’ll get back to a few good cardio workouts a week, as was the case for so long. but no rush. cool down when its time, pick up intensity when its time.

right now the house and my artwork are front and center, and that’s cool. also, i’ve been picking up the guitar every day for at least a few minutes. i want to coax back my finger calluses so i can jam on the guitar without having my hand hurt like a newbie. it will only take a week or so to do that. i can feel them beginning already.

it’s exciting, knowing that master lee is in korea right now, picking up my black belt (along with the belts of others). he’s a little bit of a big deal in the upper/inner circles of korean taekwondo…which was only really clear after traveling with him in korea. i think he’s also the official taekwondo liaison to the US for Kukkiwon (world TKD HQ). i didn’t know until last week or so that upon the completion of black belt tests twice a year, he travels to korea to personally have the belts made, and then brings them back to the USA. pretty wild!

may 5 is when belts and ranks will be awarded.

now, time to paint.

i read back over zap, crackle, kapow and get that sense of displacement again. it happens when life throws its neck sideways and whips you onto an entire different level; another outcropping of red rock, your new small cluster of moss. you have to crane your head to catch a glimpse of where you were just standing. dr. seuss terrain. sky trees balancing on igneous rock spires.

that post reads like a mouse running around in a box. of course it’s not always like that, even there. toward the end, i felt beautifully distant from all of it, as sometimes happens. watching players from cupid’s lofty gun turret.

laura, or maybe her name was sandra, or louise or something–she moved in upstairs in the old apartment complex, and of course plays her music nice n loud. i had a hard time feeling mean about it, though. which was odd for a minute. but she has, you know, a shelf outside on the balcony. and plants. and a beaded or lace type curtain hanging over her door. the wind blows it around, lazily, as if to casually declare the warm months officially arrived, go screw if you mind, flick of cigarette.

lara (hazel, maybe), leaves her door open and her somewhat uncool music selection is the soundtrack for the entire parking lot. i’m not even resentful that she has usurped me in this way. her balcony above me is starred and plumed and knotted with decorations, plants, macrame and who knows what else. she has cast a net and erected a shelf and set down plants and the whole thing has an authentic bohemian vibe to it. authentic in the sense of way too fuckin’ old to be a hipster, and not self conscious at all, just possessed of nutty-jelly taste and unconcerned with the repercussions.

in a week flat, she (mitzi? glenda?) knows everyone in the building, and walks around the entire complex. she floats from one corner of the balcony to another apartment, to another door, like some kind of bee, bobbing over soda-stained flowers on the fringes of an abandoned lot. watching her quickly connect with others, and feel out the space, and make herself available…i felt happy. she seemed to glide right down into a niche the place didn’t even know it had.

after five years at the Fellini Motel, and after watching numerous neighbors move in and after watching the situation devolve into conflict (and even police) over noise (and power) far too many times—for once—it went a whole different way. when (of course) she began playing her music loudly after moving in, instead of my thinking what is wrong with you for not first feeling out your environment and adapting to it!!! (as i usually do in these situations), i had the unexpected thought she belongs here. 

they all do. wanda the bohemian ex-vegas dancer;  the schizophrenic cat in the basement apartment who fumes and postulates all night; the california surferish casual dude upstairs who tried to bond with me, albeit unsuccessfully; M., the man-child groundskeeper; the wired-way-too-tight, bald-headed hairdresser fellow who decorates the bushes every christmas; the always-in-shorts, overweight, diabetic, chain-smoking, raincoat flasher guy next-door to my apartment–the entire motley cast at 2525 Portmanteau Street—they all seemed indigenous to the entire apartment complex. as if time had caught up with itself and they were there, as always, slumped in the dawn chair.

i thought i’m the one who doesn’t fit in here. and not in any classist sense or even in a self-pitying way. it was a good thought. it was just time to leave the theater quietly, and let the show go on without me.

there is always a certain amount of drama happening, or about to happen, in low-income apartment housing. maybe there is in all dwellings. maybe these are the sort so close together that you simply hear more of the drama. (for some reason i’m flashing on the hobbled together stacked shanties where all the irish lived upon arriving in new york city’s five points. at least, according to martin scorcese in gangs of new york.) everyone sharing walls with everyone around you. being privy to multiple peoples’ coughs, burps, shouts, fights, fuck sessions, paranoid episodes, chair lifts, picture hanging frenzies. all of that is now gone. all the hectic shadows on my big bay window; neighbors and their guests rubbernecking to peer past my black muslin curtains. noises at night, shouts in multiple kitchens. dump trucks in the alley at 7 am, domestic quarreling to the right, frantic monologues from the mentally ill seeping through the floor all night, yolanda upstairs blasting Kool and the Gang’s Celebration, turning the entire apartment building into a giant fucking bar mitzvah party at will.

it might work on you differently at times. sometimes it all blends into a comforting buzz of background sound. and then sometimes, the accumulation of disorganized and intrusive energy sets you on edge and you are besieged by a chaos that you would swat at with razor-cut barbecue tongs, but it won’t narrow its attack enough for you to target the offender. it’s just all around you, giving you no respite and no room. it’s your life. it’s where you lay your head at night. it’s where you wake up. you find yourself pounding on doors. opening yours to police. launching spittle that accidentally lands on your neighbors head (don’t you??). you bide your time.

the move is not yet finished. but i’m still unwinding. i’m still sighing, and settling, and stretching out and walking softly through the house, socks on. the carpet is new, or clean, or light colored for once (and not that shade of Mottled Vomit that the landowners put in apartments with high turnover rate; a pattern aimed at college kids who repeatedly spill beer and stomp mud on the carpet). the place is tucked away in a magical grove of trees on a hill on the border of the town proper. i look over houses on a hill, and up into pines a mile high. i have escaped the burning shanty town on the plains. even the night’s restless hands can’t find me, once the sun sets. not cloaked in all of this green.

Time will pass, and Paloma will be who she is, every step of the way. Let me note here a few things about her, to look back upon later, perhaps.

Lil P. Lucha turned 3 in December of 2011. She has been a white belt in Taekwondo since then. It is now almost May 2012. She will test May 5 for her Yellow Belt. She loves Taekwondo with a passion you often won’t see in kids until they are at least 8 years old. She is complimented often on her intensity in Taekwondo, and her sincere effort to make a good stance or punch and kick hard and high. She is a very sweet little person. She is very intense.

Her will is strong. She wants to be told nothing, by anyone. She does not like being corrected. She will raise her voice and drown you out if you try to lecture her, reprimand her, correct her, offer compromise to her demand, or speak against her will in any way. She is hardy. When you hold her, she feels strong, she feels thick and heavy. She feels thick and soft and you want to hug and cuddle her hard because of it. Unlike Luna, you don’t worry you’ll hurt her if you do so.

Paloma loves the new house. She often makes it clear. “Papi, I love our new house,” she says. She runs around singing. She is sure the intro song to Star Trek: The Next Generation sounds like the Superman soundtrack and when Star Trek is starting, she will sing along. “Superman, Superman, Superman, Superman, Superman, Supermaaaaan,” she’ll sing. She holds on tight when she rides the bus, leaning forward, her tiny and strong hands gripping the bar in front of her seat, her feet far from the ground. Her favorite cartoon show is My Big, Big, Friend. She alters her voice very slightly to mimic the different characters who sing the intro song.

She is aggressive, for the most part. Sometimes P. Lucha can be a bit of a bully. She grabs from her sister, she controls games, she commands as if she is the oldest. She will interrupt me when I try to talk to her sometimes. “PAPI, I’M TALKING TO LUNA RIGHT NOW,” she’ll say, disdainfully, as if I am in ingrate. She used to listen so well…and then one day in her third year, she realized she didn’t have to. But I’m glad she feels safe in being so defiant. I am glad she feels safe. But it gets challenging. You’ll tell her what to do and she’ll smirk, and dance and ignore you. She is a joker; I mean it’s part of her role. She’s a Trickster. It’s very hard to keep a straight face when she mocks me. That’s the worst part. That’s the part she won’t know for many years. She’ll defy me, throw a wrench in my plan and schedule, get me quite angry, and smile as she challenges me. And almost always, I end up cracking up. Even when I really, really, really don’t want to.

I have to add, after the talk about her being pushy with Luna (she is): Paloma is devoted to Luna. You cannot give Paloma a treat without Paloma making sure she has one to bring back to Luna. Luna will never think this way. But the first words on Paloma’s lips after getting an orange, apple, candy, or any other sweet thing is “One for Luna!” And she won’t leave until she can leave with two. And if I get too intense with Luna, reprimanding her for something or other, Paloma will speak up for her. “She didn’t mean it, Papi!” she’ll say, passionately.

I’m happy for her. She’s strong, and fierce, and she’ll meet this brutal world with a grin. She’s also very sensitive in all of that, in her own way, and so I know she’ll be a complex, deep-feeling, ass-kicking woman one day. She’s well on her way.

i begin to wonder, too, if stress aggravates it. i think it does. i need to open up some more time or something. i need to relax a little more. i’m always driving hard. taekwondo, children, or artwork. you’d think working at home would be much much more chill. it is in a handful of ways. i’m not sure why it hasn’t been lately. i need to get my oregon driver’s license already. the bus situation gets stressful at times. and down the road, when DS begins to accrue capital through revenue, i’ll no doubt have a little more money so i can afford more childcare, which will open up more space. it gets stressful to be working, be taking care of children, and also to be busing them around town for tkd and such. lately i feel out of breath, with the tri-weekly chiropractor visits added on top of it all.

t tried to take a few days and just totally chill recently. snow days knocked out the schedule for a couple days. everything closed here. foot of snow or so! and i pulled back on tkd, too, and basically just cleared the schedule. it was nice. but it was not enough. i think that’s because i’ve had this cold that keeps relapsing because i won’t rest enough. but i had to muscle through the instructor seminars. there was no way around it.

i took 4 advil and it seems that helps the nerve. gracias a los santos. it doesn’t go away all the way, and the hand still gets a bit numb if i move certain ways. but it gives some distance so that every moment i’m not rubbing my back, arm, wincing, or trying to massage or stretch away the pain. it’s a glorious respite. advil is going to be my good friend for a few days.

the chiropractor’s away for spring break so there’ll be no more progress for now. i have a lot more mobility in my neck. it’s amazing. but i wonder if all the mobility is making the nerve hurt worse before it gets better. i think so. in part, the immobility was keeping me from aggravating the nerve as much by denying me certain motion. so until we work our way all the way to where the original injury affected me, this might be the new normal.

as much as surgery terrifies me and i am dead set against it in all cases unless absolutely necessary, i can tell this pain is the kind of thing that would wear me down eventually. if nothing else fixes it, it would eventually drive me mad. i would either be hopped up on muscle relaxants and advil all the time, or i’d need to find a way out of it. so. who knows. but i sure hope the chiropractor can get to it in time, can fix it. because the idea of “rerouting” a nerve via surgery–and one that is in my neck–does NOT appeal to me.

okay. i’m sorry for all the complaining. this definitely has been my post for venting. taking a few pounds of my back and just kvetching. i can’t do it out loud and too much of my days lately are me putting on a good face in public and pretending i’m not experiencing periods or bursts of agonizing pain in my arm and neck. i pull it off okay, more or less, but it’s not how i’m really feeling. and hiding how you are really feeling is stressful, too. but the truth is, the pain (even when progress is not being made) cycles and will fade a little (and the advil has taken the edge off); i will get my license before too long; and space and time will ease up, and i bet very soon. at least a little. after all, i’m done with the long ramp up to black belt, and i’m done with the instructor training course. so given all these things, i know the situation will get better. and lest i forget, things have been much worse, and not too long ago! so even in these trying moments, there is gratitude….

well, i’ve been up since 3:30 or so (am), and i’ve already spent a full workday of hours doing artwork by now, so i think i’m gonna treat myself to some TV while the girls nap. the demo team is now in Go mode, which means a few weeks until our next demo (International Night), which means we meet three days a week until then (instead of 2). attendance is non negotiable for the time being, and especially for me, as i am assistant team captain.

anyway, the good news is that i am making progress on my neck and on this nerve pain. it’s odd how i now feel impatient to be cured, and not so long ago i was doing my best to accept that this was the new normal. i guess you get one little glimpse of light and you get hungry for more. before you were happy with the hallucinations that bloomed when you peered into the night, and now you are ready to break down the cracked wall. jeez, i’m so dramatic. that was kinda unnecessary. but i am a bit impatient for the pain to be gone, now that i feel there is hope. i shouldn’t get ahead of myself. i don’t really know for sure what’s possible yet. but I’m staying positive.

bouncing back slowly. i got sick right before my black belt test and then, boom, a huge surge of energy output, and energy requirement to heal, artwork binges and energy needed for children, and for the work being done on my spine–which sometimes hurts cuz we’re breaking up adhesion on the bones–and i was feeling so low energy lately. i’ve been trying to keep up, eating fruits and broccoli when i can and taking my supplements and not staying up too late, but it’s only very recently that i’ve been feeling perhaps a leveling off. which, in relation to where i’ve been at, feels like an energetic upsurge of some sort.

now i’m just healing up from yesterday’s 8-hour instructor training seminar at the dojang which involved nunchuks, staff, and sword drills; gun and knife self defense, and military hand to hand combat. it was nice to have already learned the basic staff drills at summer weapons camp, cuz this time i looked like i knew what i was doing! well, half of the class did with the staff, and the other half was new to it, basically. i know how awkward it feels when you’re in a group like this and you are one of the ones not getting it yet. so i had to let a couple friends know what was up. that some of us were only doing better “off the bat” because we had already done the first time, have been practicing since then, and that it grows on you. i probably didn’t need to say that, but i’m such a damn softy sometimes. i’m practicing cracking skulls and i’m caring about ya feelings.

the nunchuk drills feel awkward now, like the staff used to. for sure. but i’m going to keep at them. i want to be very good with them. that is a goal. i will get these drills down like the business. these are such simple and lethal weapons. i love ‘em. the wood is hard!! and boy do they move. master lee demonstrated on a piece of paper and it tore thru it, cut it in half.  i’ve got a few bruises and knots of course. but that’s par for the course. a friend–and one close to master lee–asked if he should get the foam padded ones, and was humorously talked to like a child in response. (my friend went for the wood ones, after all.) but master lee is old school korean martial arts. we are clearly plugged into the olympic style and WTF rules and affiliations, and he very much takes into consideration people’s limits, age, and other individual factors, but in the end, always retains his fundamental mentality of what it means to be a martial artist, and a higher belt. (he doesn’t even stress the “black belt” thing all the time, but sometimes just talks about “higher belts.” because he doesn’t want the mind to get fixed on being finished.)

anyway, it was a lot of reinforcing and refreshing techniques and weapons drills and poomsae i already know, but enjoy doing again. and it was a lot of new stuff. there are a couple key moves i want to keep in my regular practice. mostly hapkido stuff.

it’s really neat how much you can get out of advanced stuff once you’ve already laid down a foundation. and once again, you hear the master’s voice in your ear, talking about building that basic foundation. why that’s so important. why, over and over and over again, you practice in stance; practice arrimakki, yupmakki, ahnmakki, aohgeulmakki. keumgang ahpchirigi. these motions get imprinted into your muscle memory. and then you learn a move that reacts to attack with an outside knife hand block in conjunction with an eye-stab, but in terms of body and arms, it’s close to the motion that 1 steps #2 uses, and that you’ve been drilling on since a white belt. and it’s really the very same motion as keumgang ahpchirigi, which you’ve been drilling on since a green belt. so this new technique–which only changes the hands–feels totally natural for the body to make. and after practicing the knife-hand strikes and down blocks in Poomsae Koryo for a year you pick up the sword and realize you were also practicing, with those arm motions, very particular sword slashing motions. you feel pleasantly tricked, as if mister miyagi taught you blocks and strikes by having you wash his car.

the nerve issue added some challenge to the full day of intense drilling. i hope i didn’t lose any progress on the neck work. but i feel okay, so i’m not too worried.

i’m in kind of a pleasant inter-space, after having tested and yet not yet having belt or rank awarded. i feel confident in passing…i wouldn’t have been invited if i weren’t capable, and i wouldn’t have accepted to test if i didn’t feel able. i gave it everything i got. it’s easy to get impatient for the belt and rank…i thought i’d be more impatient. but i actually am enjoying this period to some degree. it’s a good time for pondering. for soaking it all in. quietly. without ceremony. it’s a good time for being reflective. let one get used to the idea, and over the initial surge of talkiness and enthusiasm, so when you get it, you feel more calm and centered. i think it makes the transition easier, or more measured in a way. not all martial artists are going to have the same reactions, so i can’t speak for anyone else. but for me, it’s a sort of sunny period. and there’s a general elation in the dojang and in the demo team because a number of us have traveled through our ritual initiation of first dan. (there truly is a real need for rituals and rites of passage in life and society. and you know that need especially when you’ve had one; what it does for you.) there’s a great sense of relief and happiness, and an added feeling of bonding amongst the core dojang community. those who have been there, know. the rest look forward to where they can go, if they keep on. on what is possible.

at this point, looking around at some changes in the dojang, it’s with a bit of wistfulness that i think of J, who injured himself on his 2nd dan test and has since been out of the loop. soon going on seven months, and he’s okay. putting energy into other areas of his life. but change always has that potential, for a few moments of recognizing; commemorating, saying goodbye to what was. change is a house breaker, and it’s a positive force, too. much of how much of which may lie in how we channel, accept, resist, or otherwise use that energy.

L also injured herself this last test. she was going for …3rd dan? same thing. came down on her leg wrong after a jumping kick. i hope she’s okay.

time to go do something else for a while!

test day…is behind me.

my main feelings at this point are elation…exhaustion…relief. i’m not at a place where i can (or really want to) talk much about the test, itself. or on the whole happening. i’m quietly exulting in the fact that i can finally let go of some forward exertion and effort and for now be…. buoyed up by afterglow.

when you nurture a dream with energy and action long enough, there’s gonna be  point–finally–where you realize that dream. and in that space, there is good opportunity to reflect, restore, rest, recuperate, reorient.

results, rank, and belt announced and awarded on  april 28. i think it makes sense tho, to let go of that wait, too. as much as possible! anyway, before then, there’ll be another demo to perform.

there’s rarely time to drift, when you’re driving for the heart of the sun

it’s one more of those things that’s more clearly seen in retrospect…and admittedly, easier (or just possible) to speak about when you see an end in sight. but i hadn’t realized how much freedom to move had been disappearing from my neck, from my life, until i began seeing the chiropractor. and today i realized how much this had affected even the way i move, stand, and in all ways physically express myself. dance. reach for a lightbulb. i had become used to living without being able to turn my head and look in the backseat as a passenger. it made it very hard to deal properly with my daughters when they were in the backseat. or crane over and kiss them goodnight. if i tried to drink a glass of water so that i tilt the glass all the way up, i couldn’t do it. not unless i held the glass in my left arm. because my arm has to move along with the tilt of my neck in certain ways or else the neck bones would have had to be mobile—in ways they normally are, but ways mine were not. so if i had to look up at the ceiling from a standing position, i’d raise up my arm as i did it. like i was holding an invisible glass to nobody’s mouth. sometimes the limitations were more easily obscured. like if you had to turn your head to the left to see something; you simply turned your body, too.

but i never thought of it as being immobile. i just thought of it as…unable to move in certain ways without feeling excruciating, knee-folding levels of pain. so i avoided those directions of movement and positions. that’s different! it was a very intelligent choice! not immobility!

today when i told the chiropractor that, he laughed with me, just a little. you’d lost about 50 – 60% of your range of motion, he said, speaking of my neck. and as we slowly break up the scar tissue on these joints and do a few other things chiropractice/rehabilitative, i’m slowly getting some movement back and as i navigate this progress a little bit every day, it is evident that it wasn’t just pain, it was straight up immobility.

a week ago, (and for a while) i couldn’t tilt my head to the left. not more than a degree or two. i couldn’t turn it to my left but a little. i couldn’t tilt my chin up at the sky. (still can’t do that one yet.) hell, i couldn’t do a lot of things. but i had gotten used to this. well, you know. as much as you get used to such a thing. amazing what we can work around. amazing what we can adapt to, the doctor said.

the ice pack is to keep the inflammation down on days he is breaking up this fibrous tissue, and i am doing my physical therapy type exercises and everything is being newly disturbed out of its frozen state.

i’m trying to be careful not to push it at this point, the movement–because even just today, i (we, to be honest) suddenly have broken through a bunch of stasis in the (compressed) upper few vertebrae and suddenly i can feel the confines of this condition slipping a bit away as i shrug my head free, though still with sprinkles of sharp shards if i move too fast. my neck does little pops as i move my spine in ways it has not moved in a long time. some of the muscles feel so weak, and strange to control. i still don’t have full motion, but it’s only now that i realize how much of my motion had been scripted by this condition. and it cycled. so i thought for a while i could just ignore it.

all the while, the successive passes through the flare-ups drew deeper down. they got worse. i felt like i was in an ever-encroaching cage of pain, and now feel, suddenly, standing and inhaling fully and slowly–carefully–and tilting my head more than 45° to the left (whoa), that i may just be escaping it.

this is the weird part that started to make me feel faint earlier as i thought about it too much while doing my physical therapy type exercises: it’s actually a scary feeling, this “new” movement. isn’t that odd? the constraints fall away and it’s terrifying to have so much freedom. i’d become so used to not moving my neck in certain ways that now those ways, once “normal,” feel ungainly now; scary in all the open space that suddenly is available. for over a year, i’ve simply become used to this. now i feel like i’m carefully guiding a ship past razor-sharp, craggy, islands. these wobbly, foal legs are dangerous. and long.

i wrote earlier online that i’ve never felt better about paying doctor fees than now. this is real, tangible, dramatic change in the quality of my life. already. it’s been blowing my mind. truly. more than once today i’ve moved my head or neck in certain ways and in suddenly realizing how much more movement i had back, or perhaps in realizing how much i had lost, before…well, i guess it was more that i was realizing that i might actually soon be free of this condition that i’d been thinking of as a life-long thing, and tears filled my eyes.

another thought that hit me was how on earth have i been doing all these spinning, turning, jumping kicks like this?? that’s impressive. very unreasonable!

amazing what we can adapt to.