YDKF Episode 188: Karate

[m00npie]

Title: YDKF Episode 188: Karate
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:12:02 +0000
Link: http://podcast.robohara.com/ydkf-episode-188-karate/

Description: In this long, rambling episode of You Don’t Know Flack, I talk about my journey with karate — from starting as a young white belt […]

[AArdvark]

There was a guy at work who was a brown belt, and pretty humble about it. I went with him to his dojo one time to see what it was all about. Pretty intense, definitely not my cup of tea. I did help out by holding a hand pad at shoulder height so he could do the multiple-moving-target kick thing.
A month later he was at a co-workers house and the co-worker's brother got half drunk and belligerent and started trying to fight him, something I suspect happens a lot when people say they are karate students. It ended up where the co-worker's brother wouldn't stop trying to punch him. He kept telling the co-worker to call off his brother but it got pretty serious and the guy broke the brother's jaw with some kind of move. There was an ambulance and police and everything, The guy was really sorry about the whole thing, but that instinct just takes over. The brother had to have his mouth wired shut for a couple months and the brown belt left the shop a little while after that. I don't know what became of him. but I sure wouldn't want anyone to mess with him.

[Flack]

Looking back, I think any sort of martial arts training takes away your ability (in a "real world" situation) to play lightly. I guess it's kind of like training military soldiers to shoot at people's torsos and heads, and then asking them why they didn't shoot somebody in the kneecap instead. Perhaps I did not even realize it at the time, but we were being trained through repetition to block an incoming attack and retaliate with enough force to stop another attack -- specially with those one-step activities that were literally training you to block, counter, and take down an opponent. I always thought the idea of people claiming they had to register their hands as lethal weapons was a little silly, but that time I spun around and punched my best friend in the chest made me realize just how reflexive some of those defenses had become.

Thank you for listening to this episode. It has generated very little feedback so far and I was afraid it wasn't everybody's cup of tea.

[AArdvark]

That was one of the best ones ever!

[Flack]

This is the video I got the audio from for the end of the podcast. This is the state fair demo I referenced during the podcast.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWPeZjnokLE[/media]

[k8track]

I finally got around to listening to this one this morning, and it's one of the most interesting and absorbing episodes yet. You really brought karate to life for me and made it interesting and compelling.

I never enrolled in any sports or physical activities in high school; I'd played basketball in 5th, 6th, and 8th grades (in 7th grade I was the manager and that SUCKED), and I really enjoyed the practices, but I was like a 3rd stringer (maybe even 4th or 5th tier) player, and never ever played in any real games, except once in blue moon I'd be put in for the very last minute of a game in which we were either very very ahead or very very behind. In high school, there were literally two sports from which to choose: basketball and football. Taking any kind of contact sport or doing any kind of hurtful physical activity was out of the question. I focused on piano lessons, and I was really passionate about that. What does that have to do with karate? Muscle memory. To this day, I still remember (I can't forget) the finger patterns of my favorite songs.

As far as sports go, around 11th grade I started playing tennis with my friends and discovered that THAT was the sport for me, and I played (strictly for fun with friends) for many years afterward. I sure wish my high school had offered tennis because I would have joined. For a while I felt I was quite proficient. The last time I played was once in the summer of 2018. I desperately want to play again but it's partially because there's no one around anymore with whom to play, but mostly because of all my stomach surgeries, and I am afraid to swing a racket anymore or do anything that requires torso twisting (which sadly also includes my very favorite activity, disc golf). My last (and by "last" I do hope that means "final" rather than merely "most recent") surgery was May 2019 and I've worked hard to lose weight (mostly through changes in eating habits) and I'm down to 140 lbs. So hopefully that will help me to keep healing better and eventually let me ease back into playing tennis and disc golf.

Oh man, when you mentioned getting punched in the stomach, it made MY stomach wince with sympathetic pain. I still watch even how I stretch and still try not to lift over 20 lbs and still wear my abdominal binder to this day. So something like karate would be out of the question. But I sure enjoyed listening to your engaging stories and living vicariously through them.

[Flack]

My high school offered a cornucopia of sports. We had football. We had basketball. We had wrestling. We had tennis. We had volleyball. We had track and field. I didn't do any of those things.

I hate that you have to live in fear of re-opening your hernia, but after the multiple surgeries you have endured, I do not blame you one bit for being cautious. It is really a shame that it prevents you from playing disc golf. Maybe someday you will feel healed up enough to work up to some smaller courses.

The only other things I can relate to muscle memory are typing and guitar. We got our TRS-80 Model III computer when I was six, and over the years I taught myself how to type. I don't really have my hands in the proper position (I just looked down; my left hand kind of hovers over CAPS LOCK-A-S-D while my right hand falls on "K-L-;-'". I used to be able to type 100+ WPM (I've slowed down a bit in my old age) but I figured out a long time ago that my hands had just memorized word patterns. If I take a typing test with words I'm familiar with, I can do great; if it contains made up words, my speed will drop in half. I tried in high school to learn the proper way to type, but you know... old dogs and all that.

Guitar is the same way. I haven't played guitar in several years, but I am constantly playing "steering wheel" guitar by making chords and playing riffs while listening to the radio as I drive. The funny thing is, if I hit a wrong fret or note on the steering wheel, it bothers me because I can "feel" it. Hard to explain.