Dojo

I skinned my right knee pretty well three days ago. I haven't had a skinned knee since I was nine years old. It stings like hell when I pour hydrogen peroxide on it, and hurts again when anything brushes against it. I'm not putting a band-aid on today, thinking that if I let air get on it, that will help speed the healing.

My intercostal muscles also ache anytime I laugh or cough. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, but I suspect the repeated falls and the rolling around I was doing, both backwards from a standing position and forward, obliquely along my shoulder. I haven't rolled around on the ground since I was six. I have also had to acknowledge the tiny muscles along the sides of each toe, because these ache too from standing as high as I could on said toes while arched over deeply backwards.

On top of all this, the nail of my right great toe is almost split down the center. This happened during the backrolls. Someone standing near me at the time said they'd heard a crack! and thought it was my wrist. My wrist was just fine. I found out once I got home that the toenail suffered a structural failure. I had (had) done a nice at-home pedicure the week previous but, oh well.

These injuries were sustained during the martial arts training I began two weeks ago. Iaido on alternating Sunday mornings, Aikido on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Friday morning, and T'ai Chi on Wednesday evening before Aikido. I had considered learning a martial art for some time, but never felt strongly enough to make the commitment. I didn't know what styles I was interested in or how much time I could devote to practice. In a fashion typical of me, I finally decided to pull the trigger and start my new study by visiting an Iaido instructor recommended to me by a colleague and experienced martial artist. Several days later I also checked out another dojo offering different training, and since I liked all of the options so well, I decided not to decide by committing to the study of three different styles simultaneously.

When new skin grows to cover the wound on my knee, it should be just a little tougher and better prepared for the knee-walking exercises called shikko. Practice at falling properly and returning immediately to readiness will guard against injury; a lifelong utile skill. Previously under-used musculo-skeletal structures are stressed, strengthening in response. New neural pathways form as foreign terms and phrases are dis-assembled, analyzed, recalled and learned.

I'm clumsy and un-coordinated, especially compared to the more advanced students and the sensei, flowing gracefully from one position to the next in his pleated hakama. "Ai hamni," Sensei says. "Stand with your right foot forward. Your other right foot. Turn tenkan." He smiles and says, "Turn tenkan the other way." Somehow I make my partner into a living origami figure that crumples solicitously to the mat. During my turn as uke, the one who "receives" the technique being learned, I try to roll without square edges. Another woman approximately my age or older encourages me and tells me I'm good at rolling. My body isn't convinced but I thank her anyway. And sometimes when I'm executing technique on Sensei, he laughs as I pin him on the mat. I hope it's because he is experiencing joy at the eagerness of an attentive student.

I'm not even 6th kyu. I have no rank whatsoever. Everything I absorb, attempt, succeed or fail at improves my technique. From here I have nowhere to go but up, and it's a good feeling.