The Tournament

 

 

     “The Tournament”

 

“Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it, because action has magic, grace and power in it.”

Goethe

 

 

 

A few years ago Dermot asked us if he could join karate.  His buddy was taking it and he really wanted to try.  Now Dermot has always been a joiner.  Frank has a garage and basement full of discarded sports equipment to prove his enthusiasm for different things.  He gets excited about everything he lays his eyes on and REALLY wants to get involved.  Some of them stick, but not all (not most if we are honest).  We were hesitant until he created a PowerPoint presentation with said buddy and persuaded us he was serious - at least in the moment.  Karate stuck.  Boy did it stick.  Fast forward a few years and he has earned his junior black belt, is going on to work toward his first level senior black belt, has a job working at the studio instructing and just got offered another job at a new studio opening up to work as the director of admissions.  We could not be more proud of him and what karate has provided him in terms of self-confidence, discipline and structure.

During one of the promotional months, parents could train for free and Dermot really wanted Frank and I to take advantage of that so we did.  Frank trains for half-marathons and gets his exercise else-where and it wasn’t really a fit for him so he didn’t keep going but I have.  I should say I did it for a while and dropped off while my life was in the upheaval of relapse but now I am back.  There is something about karate that speaks to me.  The camaraderie, the poetry of the motion of the katas, the confidence I gain from knowing the self-defense moves and the fact that I get to beat the shit out of wave masters when I have things to work through and get really sweaty makes all the difference in my life.  Me and exercise have never been friends but for some reason this works for me.  I wouldn’t say I am the most graceful, but I am determined and I am loud. 

Recently I entered my first tournament.  I never imagined that at the age of 49 I would be working toward getting a black belt and I would be sign myself up to compete in such a fashion.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was going into it.  I’d seen Dermot do it before, but competing myself was a whole different ball game.  I had to perform a kata for one category and in another I had to demonstrate two different self-defenses.  I froze on my first self-defense and nailed the second.  I earned a third place medal for the kata.      

Me being me, I immediately started listening to that evil little voice in my head that tells me I could have done better and that I should have practiced harder and that third is not as good as first.  I have abhorrent negative self-talk.  I managed to listen to the others around me and take in the congratulations and quiet the voice that always tells me that I am not good enough.  But that has taken me years of practice.  I will tell you that I could have practiced harder but now that I know what to expect I will and I will shoot for first place not so much to compete against others, but to aim for my own personal best.  When I started this process I could barely do a sit up, but now I can keep up with the class on those and I can plank for a full minute, though I feel like throwing up afterwards!

The thing with negative self-talk is that it is an ingrained voice.  It’s learned from old, but that also means that it can be unlearned.  I can laugh now at how insistent it is and how ridiculous it sounds.  I was talking to one of the groups I lead at work about this same topic the other day and we decided we would try to name our negative self-talk voices.  I decided to name mine “Moriarty” after Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis.  I can do battle against Moriarty when he rears his ugly head and that makes it somehow easier.

When self-doubt arises and makes me want to quit before I start I try to remember how far I have come in life.  I have to tell it that I can do a spinning side kick now and that makes me an official bad ass really.  When Moriarty starts to drone on I just have to remember who the fuck I am.