A Surprising Transformation
If you had told me a year ago
that I would be doing sports and enjoying it …
that I would find my best friends in people a decade or two younger than me …
that I would be passionate about strenuous exercise …
that I would begin to rediscover my self-confidence …
that I would find profound stress release in indulging in very unladylike behaviour …
I would have told you that you were crazy as a bessie-bug. And yet, you would have been one hundred percent correct.
Eleven months ago, I started taking karate classes at Robert Blackstone’s Karate Institute. I really never intended to do so, but God likes to do this kind of thing to me. Here’s how it happened.
My younger son, after watching the Spiderman movies, began randomly doing martial arts type stuff all the time. We’d be in the store and he’d try to spin-kick something. Or he’d be playing with kids at the playground and would jump off the platform and land in what I called “the Spiderman squat.” I couldn’t get him to stop. So I finally decided that if he was that crazy about it, maybe he should take some lessons. Knowing nothing about martial arts except that it can have a lot of Eastern / Oriental spirituality in it, I asked my friends on The Crossings website for pointers on choosing a dojo and sensei. One of those friends recommended RBKI as a Christian-focused martial arts system, saying that she knew the sensei personally and knew that I would be comfortable with him instructing my sons.
So I checked out his website and then e-mailed him. He was very positive and encouraging, but he did ask me to at least try one class with the kids, because he wanted the parents to know what their kids were doing, and he strongly encouraged families to participate together. I’m somewhat of a “go-alonger,” so I dutifully showed up that first night in my sweatpants and T-shirt, ready to be completely embarrassed and utterly bored. I just knew that this was going to be totally lame and not for me, and that this would be my only class. HA!
I fell in love with it in the first ten minutes, and now NOTHING interferes with my Tuesday and Thursday training — and if I can squeeze in a day or two at a sister school, I do.
The interesting thing about all this is that it’s not just physical benefits I’m gaining. I mean, yes, I’ve lost 75 pounds, increased my flexibility and stamina, and maybe even gained a bit of coordination. I’m learning a lot about self-defense, which has to be a good thing. And with this particular system, I’m gaining a lot of spiritual insight.
But the most surprising transformation that has occurred as a result of my karate training is more mental. When I first started taking classes, I was struggling with a number of mental blocks. First, thanks to my years in a cult and an abusive marriage, I was terrified of making a mistake and had no self-confidence at all. I was also terribly self-conscious. And thanks to a car accident, I struggle with learning and remembering, I stutter and my mind goes blank when I am “on the spot,” and I panic when I am in large groups.
I am stunned by the things that karate has revealed to me about myself, and by the mental growth I’ve experienced.
For example, I’m actually regaining self-confidence. I’m not what I used to be by any means, but I’m not quite so afraid of screwing up now, and being put on the spot doesn’t reduce me to tears. Thanks to the mental disability, I may still freeze or stutter, but the fear is diminishing. Large groups still give me fits, but that seems to be getting better, too.
And since I am not so lacking in confidence, I find that I am not so self-conscious as I was. I’m still nervous about being watched, but it’s getting better. And that, in turn, means that the mental freeze and stutter are improving.
Karate has brought me face-to-face with some of my greatest fears … and I realized in class tonight that those fears aren’t quite so scary anymore. That’s a valuable benefit, and one that I am profoundly grateful for. Somehow, God has used these karate classes to help me shed a lot of fear and pain that I used to labour under. Somehow, He knew just the sensei I needed, and just the friends I needed, and He put me in the way of meeting them.
When I signed my kids up for karate, I never expected how profoundly God would use it to benefit my life. But I am so glad that He did.