How rediscovering Karate restored balance back into my life.
Life is all about balance. Over the past four or five years, I’ve been busy with a young family, moving home, changing jobs. The Blogging Musician seemed to be an ideal way to relax, switch off. As part of that, I discovered a love for writing, I published a book : Goa: A Lesson In life and I finally released a music album This Is Who I Am.
But something was still missing. I was overcome with problems. Stressed, restless.
At the beginning of the year, totally out of the blue, our old band Cosmic Space Pirates reformed. Maybe this was the answer? (The little things I miss about being in a band) I revisited a much-loved world of guitar shops, practising, band banter and building towards our first gig. But it didn’t fill the empty hole.
I looked to my family and our home, all I could ever wish for. A perfect, beautiful, caring wife and three kids, identical twin girls and a growing boy, healthy, joyous. So why the negativity? what was the problem?
Maybe it was our surroundings, our cramped 2-bedroom flat and 5-seat car. We moved to a bigger place with a garden, in a nicer area, and got a 7-seat MPV. Now we had space, but space wasn’t the problem either.
Love, music, a creative outlet and stability. Many people would be happy with that, but I still felt out-of-balance somehow, sick in some way. Maybe I was just unfit, so I started to cycle to work and ran some evenings.
3-stone lighter, and for a time I felt better, but something still gnawed away at me. I was easily flustered, anxious about silly things. All my energy was being spent on worry, on bills, and day-to-day problems. I was forgetting the good things.
Yesterday, I was out in town with my son Luke, and out of chance, we passed a couple of old friends in a cafe. Harry and Brian. We sat down and then everything began to make sense…
Sensei Brian and Harry are members of the North East Marine Shotokan Karate Club at the North Shields YMCA, with around 70 years of experience between them. My teachers, heroes, and guests of honour at our wedding. During my 14 years at the club, we’d seen its founder, Jim Johnson, sadly pass away leaving behind a formidable legacy. To strive for perfection, to better yourself every day, to be humble, to learn and improve, and to make the most out of your life. I carried his coffin along with the other members in front of a massive turn out paying their final respects to the great man.
As my sensei, Jim was the one who handed me my black-belt, but I also have the honour of being one of the last shodans (black-belts) he ever trained, in the last classes he ever took. It’s the single biggest achievement in my life. His picture has pride of place in our new home. Most of all though, he was a father figure and a friend.
Sensei Brian, Jim’s protegé, has since carried on the tradition of Jim’s legacy, a herculean task only he could ever be capable of. It’s with great regret I’ve so far not been able to dedicate myself to the club the way I used to.
As they regaled their tales of a recent training trip to India, it dawned on me, this was the answer to all my problems once again. Another member, Joe, often said. “Karate makes your life easier”. When he first said it I didn’t really know what he meant, but now I know.
Karate makes your big problems seem smaller and your small problems disappear, in that you worry about them less because you have less time for them. Getting good at karate is a huge physical and mental challenge. There’s no hiding place, no shortcuts, it’s you against you, with no excuses and no-one else to blame. The more you put in, the more you get out. Cycling and running were easy, they didn’t represent a challenge, there was nothing to learn, so it became shallow experience.
When I was a brown-belt training up to shodan, I had nothing, no money, a hovel of a flat, and no-one my life I cared about, but I didn’t have a single problem that bothered me, I felt I could take on the world with one hand tied behind my back. All because I was fully immersed in Karate. When I had nothing, karate was there for me.
So I decided there and then. Even if I couldn’t make every class (the weekend classes clashed with my new responsibilities) I’d start my daily training regime again. And that night that’s just what I did.
The following day, instead of mulling over it, a just got my bike out of the shed and cycled to work again, the first time since moving. When I got into work, I suppose I did feel more relaxed and ready for it.
Sometimes you have to look back into your past for the answers, I’d neglected something good, something I loved, friends that helped me out when I had no-one else, teachers I learned from and looked up to, brothers I’d trained with, in the shared spirit of progress and knowledge, pushing yourself to be the best you could be.
I owe them, I’ve always owed them, and that’s what’s been the nagging problem all along. Training, even if it’s just going to be mostly away from the club (for now), is my payment to them. I need it in my life, whatever happens.
Karate is something you can never perfect, but it’s the effort that counts. Karateka (a karate practitioner) come from all sorts of backgrounds, some more naturally gifted than others, but none of that matters, we’re judged on effort alone without discrimination and we’re all on the same path, to improve our character. Karate is a great leveller, and I’d fallen short, neglecting the training, forgetting the kata (a form of training), and regressing in body, mind and spirit.
I’ve found the answer and I just got my mojo back.
Let’s get started!
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