Mō Ichido

I really can’t believe my luck! I say this not as a superstitious person, but one who is profoundly grateful for my many undeserved blessings. I look back on my life sometimes and am amazed at how I have somehow managed, time and time again, to stumble into good situations. To use an Irish turn of phrase, I’m on the pig’s back.

I got the itch to return to karate when I introduced my son to the art and brought him to his first classes. Rummaging through my old books and gear brought back great memories. However (and call me proud if you like) I just did not fancy joining in with my boy’s classes. They were all little kids, the classes are fun and very kid-friendly. Throwing a middle-aged man into the mix, I felt, would cramp their style, and honestly just make me feel really uncomfortable. So I watched and tried to imagine a situation where I could possibly get back into training. There was no adult class, but maybe my son’s sensei offered private classes?

Cue dramatic life change! New job. New home. And where should I end up but living about 10 minutes away from one of the best and most highly-regarded sensei from my old organisation! I reach out and am invited to return to training. I am given a time and a location, I stuff my 20-year-old dogi into my bag and pray that my out-of-shape self doesn’t end up a sweaty heap on the floor at the end of the class.

This dojo is so close I actually ended up cycling there and when I arrive at the address… it’s the sensei’s house! The dojo is in the back yard. A private dojo. A very small group of students. All really good. Really good! And me.

I had been prepared to don the white belt again and start again from scratch (and in fact I still keep my white belt in my bag), but my new sensei wouldn’t have it. So I wore my old blue belt. And I was still the lowest rank in the class by far. By the end of the class I was soaked in sweat, sore in areas that hadn’t been sore in years, and smiling.

There’s a Facebook post on my sensei’s page, a group selfie taken after that first class back. Our little group, all smiles, including me at the back. The caption to that Facebook post says “Saturday morning advanced training 👊👊👊”. I had my suspicions, but reading that caption was the moment I realised that I had somehow managed to bumble my way into expert instruction, training with a highly skilled, highly technical group of karate-ka.

So this is where I train now. Sometimes I do feel like a toddler flailing around at the back, but I’ve committed and pushed myself hard in the classes and at home. (You can always tell where I’ve been training in the dojo by the drops of sweat on the floor. It’s winter now and I sometimes see the steam rising off my head.) Thanks to my sensei I have not just gotten back to where I was 20 years ago, I’ve passed the next grading. Last month I was awarded 4th kyu by Murakami Shihan (the Chief Instructor of my organisation).

Every class I am amazed at how I managed to end up training at my dojo! The instruction is top class and the classes are so small I get all the attention I need to push me on to the next level. For example, my most recent class was just my sensei, my senpai (a 3rd dan blackbelt), and me. I couldn’t have asked for a better re-introduction to karate!

One of the things that I’ve learned since coming back to karate is that I’m not as past-it as I thought I was. For years I had been plagued with aches and pains and just put it down to getting old and stiff. But training has been going surprisingly well! It’s hard, but not impossible, and I’m realising that so many of those aches and pains were from stress, and not just “getting old”. My hips are not as flexible as they once were, my balance needs work, but I end every class smiling, and thankfully still standing.