Karate Kid

I took my first karate class today! It was the result of my friends pressuring me, but it turned out to be really cool. I'd wanted to take kendo (swordfighting) and had recently been browsing taiko (drumming) groups and classes, but karate is cheap for UCI students, and not as much of a time committment as kendo or taiko. Another reason I went was because I need to exercise on a regular basis. Running on my own was great but inconsistent. Reflecting upon my history, I realized that I was an athlete in high school, and I did pretty well academically. In college I didn't play sports, and I didn't do so well. In paramedic school I went running every night at 11pm to work off my stress, and I did really well. When I went back to school for my post-bacc stuff, I went running a lot then too, and... I did really well. The last two quarters of med school I've been just trying to not fail. More study doesn't equal better grades for me, it just equals more boredom and frustration. And yet I still purposely don't take up any activities so that I can keep my schedule clear in case I DO get magically motivated to study all day. I do this all the time, but it ain't working. So maybe getting beaten up a couple times a week will make me pay attention to my bodily parts and that will translate into correct anatomy answers. It's promising, so far. My friends and I all spontaneously and simultaneously thought about the safety of our ACLs and tibial collateral ligaments as we were kicking each other in the legs today, because we just learned about them and how they can get blown out, often in football, by a swift medial kick to the knee.

So, we learned some basic moves (but we did not learn how to put wax on, wax off). We kicked and punched each other in the torso and back a little bit, but since we don't have any fine control over our lower extremities yet, my friend and I nearly got each other in the face and genitals several times by accident. Yikes! I think I should partner with a more experienced partner next time. They shout out the commands in Japanese, but what's ironic is that the instructors aren't Japanese and I can't always understand what they're saying! It could be that I'm not understanding because they are unfamiliar words, but the off pronunciation really doesn't help at all. I'll have to look online to find the proper words so I can see what they are really trying to say. Otherwise I keep wanting to laugh while we are supposed to be solemnly learning how to kill people with our bare hands, because I keep thinking, "Don't touch my moustache" (say that really fast and slur a little, and it sounds just like "you're welcome" in Japanese).

Other than that, karate is kind of what I expected, but not entirely. It's fierce and all that, but it's also kind of like learning the choreography to a dance. We have to do all these movements together in a sychronized fashion - we move about the room and have to turn in certain ways and all that - and it really reminded me of why I didn't last long in ballet as a kid. I got smacked with the ruler a lot for not being able to do the splits, but the kicker was that I could not for the life of me figure out where the heck in the room I was supposed to be flitting off to next. Karate was the last thing I imagined I'd ever compare to ballet, but there you go. We don't flit (we stomp, very undelicately) but I still ended up getting beaten up and confused at the end of the class.

Well, here's to the hopeful return of the successful Student Athlete. We'll see if I keep going all quarter. HAI!!