I just wanted to tell you how much I have gotten from reading this blog in the past year! So much wisdom, insight and some damn fine poetic posts! You’ve inspired me to get [my child] and myself into martial arts! I’ve always been a great admirer of Martial Arts. I saw the Shaolin Monks perform in Vegas! I took a Capoeira workshop over 10 years ago, and then, before I became pregnant, I took Aikido for about a month only.

Anyway, it was always in the back of my head to find the martial art for me, and dive in, but it just never happened. When my son became the age to start classes, I was tearing my hair out because I couldn’t find anything close by, and I wanted him so badly to benefit from MA! Then, serendipitously, I discovered a dojang had opened [nearby]…and through one of those flash deal sites, I was able to get unlimited classes for a month for [a low price]! [My son] and I did this for the month of August and we are totally hooked! The teachers are amazing, and the dojang has such a friendly, helpful, positive energy.

I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration with all your stories of the struggles and rewards of MA! I love your writing! A

A: Thanks so much for writing in and telling me about your experience. This makes me feel great for you and your family. I know what you mean about energy and positivity. This kind of atmosphere is so good for our progress as humans, as well as fighters.

I’ve written a lot less lately on my training and experience, but between your mail and a couple other comments and emails I’ve received, I may pick it up a little bit. It’s great to know that what I do here goes beyond my own self gratification and note-taking.

Keep on, and I hope you let me know how things are going from time to time.

yeah, i guess i’m a little sad that someone like you who did her best to go to school like they said—to get ahead—instead, is hiding, decades later, from the loan sharks who swim the waters of opportunity. and me, too. both of us. we should have saved ourselves the trouble and skipped college, because what did it matter? you, with the big heart, the social worker who rescued me from the ash-caked winter highway in 2002, now working retail as you roll past 35…and i’m exhausted reeling left and right and clutching at whatever art jobs i can, and most days i can’t even afford a $3 day bus pass, let alone a bottle of the cheapest bourbon the store has.

between us we owe, what? 100,000 dollars for those fancy fucking degrees? maybe. something like that. might as well be a million. you play housekeeper to your family and still never buy yourself anything nice. i sell whatever i can, digging into my own closets every month like a sociopathic poacher of memories, an eBay pimp. the cop who accidentally blew his brains out two weeks later clued me into that auction site that helped me make rent last month, but then a five dollar charge for using the site bounced four times and the bank charged me over $100 for that, and now i won’t make rent this month because of those fees. life grinds you down like that. one bank shot fee at a time. shoves you three acres backward for every stagger step you make forward, and then sits you down and makes you watch scumbags on TV who own four houses and talk about how the rest of us need to learn sacrifice. shit! we know all we need to know about sacrifice. we know as much about sacrifice as a man in diapers knows about the smell of his own guts. what we need to learn is how to skin a talking head with a rejected credit card, and without leaving the living room.

some people life makes lords, and some, it makes prisoners. it doesn’t pay to take it personally. none of it is personal. greed has no soul, no memory, no face. blood commands gravity. ghouls on wall street rob billions, while you and i are hunted down for a five dollar bill. yeah, that makes me sad a little. for a second or two. and so does the fact that getting a tax return this year would bring you a whole lot of peace of mind, but you won’t get even that, because the IRS has already scooped it out of your check and handed it, winking, to the loan sharks instead; to the banks that already robbed us once. i know. i’ve already opened your mail. a few thousand dollars would change everything for you, but they don’t give a shit about that. even though such a small sum won’t even chip off  the interest that has built up while you’ve been out trying to make a living.

to make it all worse, other poor people defend the politicians who drove the getaway car for the vampire banksters, and now me and my poor friends are barking at each other like contestants in a washed up celebrity puppet show death match, all of us shouting through broken teeth and ready to kill, ready to kill. and the soft-palmed psychopaths who have razed our dreams to the ground are busy hissing at personal trainers, raping their maids, sunning on their yachts, and rewriting campaign finance laws.

but that’s the cruel world, and it hasn’t changed since i first met it. i hardly notice the corruption and agony anymore. it’s a background patina. i might not summer in the Hamptons, but i’m a homeowner here in Hell. and those ghosts don’t get under my skin any more than the hail does.

what makes me sad, in the end, is that you and i can’t huddle together when dusk falls, and as we doze off, curse the powers that be, breathing in each other’s hair. because that’s the only thing that makes it better, yanno? that’s it. nothing else works. we’ll never win, and we’ll never have justice. we’ll die poor, never having accepted the lie, our bile become acid; our righteous outrage become ulcers and tumors and brain decay, and then, like dust, we’ll return to the wind and the sky. and the world won’t miss us much.

all that you can do is find someone to ride with you and hold at night. you’ll never stem the tide of injustice, but you can howl together. leaning over the abyss. spitting out stars, even as the horizon burns. and you won’t care that the gates are falling because tall gates were never what you needed. a hand to hold was what you needed. another voice next to you as it all goes up in flames. a nameless friend who found their heart in caring for yours.

but you and i can’t even do that because you and i don’t even have each other anymore. nor can we let go. we are like ghosts, breath taken by the maze of poisoned concrete, returning because the threshhold is not our friend. and instead of making love and laughing at death, or drinking cheap beer and watching a movie as the day darkens, we go to our separate corners of the town and yell at each other through our smartphones over bills that are past due. it sounds like tiny electric bugles, like victory trumpets echoing in a rich man’s porcelain toilet bowl.

shortly after i made first geup (Red Belt), i was invited to join the dojang’s core demo team (CDT). [Clarification: I was invited to perform in the Demo Team for Korea Night. Only recently (It is now May 30, a day after our Korea Night performance) was I asked to join the CDT. More on this soon in its own post.) To me, this is a huge honor. to be invited, you have to some degree or combination of good technique, dedication, discipline, and passion. i’m sure the formula varies for each person considered, and i’m not here to try and claim that nobody gets on without having X, Y, or Z of A, B, or C. i don’t so much care for that part of the equation. but to have a chance to represent the school and perform in venues in a live setting really thrills me. it steps up the challenges i already take on in taekwondo and for USTC (my dojang), and offers a chance for me to demonstrate and practice even greater discipline and control of technique. the snazzy blue, reflective dobok with the texture and pattern that reminds me of rattlesnake skin is fun, and so is working with a team as a unit. obviously, people take it seriously to different degrees, but i take it very seriously. i have a high standard for myself as it is, and want to bring that to the team, and help show the world through our performance, the level of quality possible to manifest; a level of quality which mirrors the standard which master lee sets forth. because i am dramatic about just about everything as well as prone to a wee bit of the self-aggrandizement, i think of us as the elite squad of USTC; the SEALs unit, the creme de la creme. but thinking of it that way is also my way of demanding full concentration and commitment to the team and how we do and not treating it casually or lightly. and that’s the way i approach my art in general.

the first venue i’ll be participating in is Korea Night. i’m not sure if this is going to take place at the university, or is a local town thing. but it will be an exceptional audience, i am told. for obvious, i think, reasons. mainly that we practice a korean martial art. and one that koreans tend to be very proud of. with good reason! so we are drilling especially hard due to this factor. sloppiness will be noticed. sloppiness not just in technique, but in protocol such as bowing. these are the kind of demands and challenges i enjoy very much. drills, form, physical control, memory, refining performance…physical art. i don’t so much enjoy the demands and protocol of everyday mainstream society. that’s a performance i engage in to varying degrees, according to the current context and why i might feel the need to conform to those requirements. but demo team is part of my chosen art, and i’m all about spending lots of time honing my performance. i am also told that chances are good that we will be met with a very warm reception by this particular crowd. all in all, these are exciting thoughts for me on my first demo team performance, though i won’t pretend they don’t also ratchet up the pressure!

taekwondo practice and protocol—and this especially shows in team coordination and performance such as the demo team embodies—is very military in nature. our march-jog onto and off of stage, the “left face” commands and such, the proper way you move your feet when following these orders; the chain of command; the hierarchy; the respect shown, and how it is shown, the drills, the counting, and so on. i’ve had conversations with martial artist friends that this aspect of our training is satisfying both to practitioners who enjoy the discipline and form of such things, as well as to those of us who feel at home training as warriors, but abstain from the US military due to personal conflict in beliefs with/distaste for the various wars and chaos of our country’s international policies, not to mention the horrific deeds and outcomes of these wars. it is a great middle ground, to my mind.

the first night at demo practice was fun. as well as a bit bewildering! ay, it was like the first day (well, not quite that bewildering) at the dojang all over again. trying to keep up with the format, with drills and shouts and formation that i have only seen once or twice when watching demo team videos on facebook. and that, from a distant camera and mirrored, as it was facing the team, not standing with them. i was a bit lost, but was told i was picking up fast. all in all, i was right where i should have been. you walk and trip before you run. i’ll practice at home today more, and in the days in between demo practice. we have another session tonight. today is a full TKD day. between noon practice, assisting the instruction of kids class, and then later, demo team practice, its TKD all day long.

i need to bone up on Koryo big time. it’s a complex poomsae (hey, it’s the first black belt poomsae after all), i just learned it first three weeks ago, and then last night, we did it facing the mirror instead of the front of the class. whoa. i got really lost for most of it. that irritated the hell out of me. though, yes, i’m being hard on myself. as it is, i’m picking it up relatively fast (or so i’m told), and now putting extra demands on myself with the change in orientation before i really have it cemented in my muscle memory. but all i can do is practice every day a few times until its solid. i have three weeks until Korea night. i’m going to practice it until there is no hesitation. i’m going to practice it from different angles. i’m going to visualize the stage and audience in my mind so it’s not a total shock out there under the lights, and with people making noise and watching. performing Koryo (name of ancient Korean dynasty) on Korea night in my first demo team performance. wow. it’s definitely a challenge, but i’m going to meet it.

i shaved my head for the first night of demo team. for me, it represented a new phase of my practice, as well as ridding myself of the energy and time and fretting i’ve long been putting into my physical adornment; the braiding, the gel, the oils, the dye, the straightening irons, the bandannas, the hats, the self-obsession in the dojang mirror with my hair puffing out, the time i spend watching sweat roll off my hair, wiping it off my face. it was a total joy to shave it off. i let all that nonsense go as the thick, dark hair fell to the floor. i think of the buddhist initiates, the monks who shave their heads as a sign of their dedication and simplicity and rejecting unnecessary vanity or wasted energy in unimportant areas.

i’m also going to use this opportunity to introduce more greens and grains and fruits and veggies into my diet, as i’ve been meaning to do. it all feels right. it’s all happening right on time. i’m entering the final stretch before black belt. time to refine, bear down, purify, dedicate without reserve to this path.

learning a new poomsae is a bit of a longer-arc of satisfaction. to first memorize the basic moves takes me from 5 days to 2 weeks. even so, that is with trying every day, and getting a higher rank’s help or watching a video to refresh the memory. five days is my fastest yet, and that is because i really love Taegeuk Chil Jang and want to really dive into it.

to shift the pattern into muscle memory takes  a month or so to begin; not to complete. to really sink them into that memory, and to refine your moves further; to add power to them (happens once you have the confidence that comes with total memorization), and really begin to shape it up can take months. these times are also dependent on the amount of time you put into your practice, your standard of excellence, and a person’s ability, or their level of “kinesthetic intelligence” as one friend worded it this morning.

so that’s a longer term satisfaction.

lately, two things have been happening that bring satisfaction on an even longer timeline. one is flexibility.

increasing flexibility is not something you can do quickly, obviously. especially when you are talking about the larger hip tendons. hamstrings, too. and it hurts! if it doesn’t hurt at all, you aren’t stretching far enough. although i suppose to what degree you feel pain over it depends on how hard you stretch, which depends on how fast you want to gain flexibility. even so, there is no rushing it past a certain point. it’s going to take months and months, and years, too. of course, if you begin training in your teens or younger, you can keep that natural level of flexibility by continuing to train and stretch as you age. but i didn’t do that. i began in my late 20s, and then took a break from training that lasted over a decade.

how limber you are is going to affect how high you can kick, and how loose you are overall. which will affect the degree of injury you sustain at times, and how fast you can move, and so on. plus it’s healthy to remain as limber as your body will allow. even if you are not training in anything. not that i did much stretching while i wasn’t training. but as i get older, i think this sort of thing is more important. so one of my goals has been to increase my flexibility. in june, i set a goal to be able to do a sideways split in one year. that gives me until june of this year (2011). i really have no idea at all if that is possible or probable, but i set the goal, so i’m going to see if i can meet it. last june i was nowhere close, but a year seemed like long enough to pull it off.

lately, i’ve noticed progress i’ve been making.

you always feel resistance to your stretching, that’s just the nature of stretching. you bend or reach until it hurts. and then you hold it. breathe deeply, keep pushing, and hold it. one day you realize if you push hard enough, you can touch your head to your knee. wow! little markers like that. very satisfying. or like when i throw my leg over the bike seat to get on and ride, that it is no longer an effort. this is notable, too. my bike is actually too big for my body; i bought it because it looked cool, and was cheap second hand, and available when my old one was stolen. so getting my leg over the seat used to be a bit of an ordeal. but anymore, it’s not a problem.

another sign: when i do my sideways split stretch (put your legs as far apart as they can go, and let your weight push down on your legs and keep trying to push your legs further as you do), i can no longer keep my soles planted firmly on the ground. at the end of the stretch, i’m having to rest more on the insides of my feet. that’s great! that means i am getting closer to that split. getting this far took almost eight months. four more to go!

another long-term gain i’ve been making—and this is one of my most important ones—is my lung power. lung capacity. another area that cannot be rushed. it’s also an area that has been a long-term physical challenge.

i was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma when i was 19, and before that, never understood why i would burn out on the basketball court, doubled over with chest pain after a few minutes. i thought i had a heart problem and just…dealt with it. i just lived with it. it wasn’t even until 19 i was diagnosed, and prescribed albuterol to take 30 minutes before exercising, which helps prevent my bronchial tubes from perversely closing up when my brain needs oxygen. but it doesn’t solve the problem. hell, when i came back to training in june of 2010, i was heaving before the trial lesson was over at the new dojang! i couldn’t even lift my legs anymore and finish properly. and that’s just a mini workout of about ten minutes or so where you are stretching and throwing kicks. in the beginning—no, in fact, for a solid 7 months—i dreaded each class. because it meant pain, serious pain in my lungs. it meant i worried about even being able to keep up. i’ve written about this issue in depth before.

lately—and this is just the last week or two—i’ve felt this changing. i can’t tell you how this elates me. to be able to finish the first 20-30 minutes of class stronger. that’s the period where we stretch and then throw punches, blocks, and numerous styles of kicks from both sides/arms/legs, over and over. it still gets me sweating and breathing very hard and nearly out of breath. but i end with more breath now. i don’t get that deep chest pain of an oxygen-starved heart quite as much, where i end up clutching the front of my dobok without realizing it. sometimes i don’t get that pain at all.

it is novel, and amazing, to make it through sparring sessions or other drills with a bit of strength and wind, not just flopping all over as if i’m going to drop any second. a couple times i’ve even seen other people who were more out of breath than me. which, let me tell you, is definitely new. and quite a strange realization to my mind. it reminds me of the days i finally had a growth spurt at 16 and the delayed reaction as i realized there were people in the world shorter than me. it took years to acknowledge that. my brain had trouble recognizing the fact. but i’m smaller than…everyone! said my mind. after years of countless class photo sessions and lining up by height, or not being allowed on amusement park rides, or being thought five or more years younger than i was as a child, it was hard to accept that things change. but they do.

and after almost a year of pain and continued effort, and my body is responding. that’s what i find so amazing about my body. from callus to muscle to lung capacity to flexibility. it adapts. you provide it with a world in which to function, and a set of operations to perform, and while it will resist along the way, it will adapt. it will stretch to fit the environment.

the biking back and forth to the dojang adds a challenge on top of training, and no doubt has helped in the effort to push my lungs. every time i come up the hill by the stadium, i look to the spot on the side of the road where i used to rest because i couldn’t push any further up the hill due to my lungs hurting. every time i pass that spot i remember sitting there, embarrassed. imagining drivers and passengers in cars passing by me were thinking less of me, or mocking me.

i know the biking has helped because on those rare times i catch a ride home from training, i feel less exhausted walking in the front door.

–

occasionally i think back to when higher ranks would instruct me to relax. that i was carrying tension in my body; that it would slow me down, that it would steal breath. it’s been a long time since i’ve heard that. over half a year. i’d like to think i’ve loosened up a lot. i’m sure i have. i feel that i have.

–

on that topic, one of the things i find very beautiful about the taekwondo and dojang community and about the long, slow, climb up the ranks is how it is a community thing. your form, your technique itself and thus one day, your black belt, is created by many people. you ask for and receive unsolicited, too, many pointers and tips on your form; on your execution of techniques. that’s how it works. higher ranks help lower ranks.

the effort, the perseverance, the will to complete your task and that long path to black belt—that is all you. but all along the way, you learn from other people. so when you do get that black belt one day, you can beam with pride in all you pushed through; in meeting that goal you made years ago; in every drop of sweat and every moment of pain you refused to let stop you. but you can also feel warm and grateful and loved in that countless people helped you become what you are.

–

making brown belt is noticed in the dojang. i mean, most people are happy to see others advance. we always congratulate each other when we are present for the ritual, or notice a new belt. and it is a sincere congratulation. we all know what it feels like. we are all there doing the same thing. but i noticed after i made brown belt—the penultimate geup/color belt before black (tho there are four more rank advancements before the black belt test, marked by tape stripes on our belts there are only brown and red belts before you reach black)—it was especially remarked on. extra congratulations were made, that nearly co-conspiratorial warmth you get from the black belts as you rise above green was more palpable. and all of that for good reason. just as you get used to watching white and yellow and green belts drop out of training at a regular and brisk rate, the higher someone climbs in rank, the more  you begin to feel they will be there with you at the “top.” and after all, as one black belt remarked to me while helping me learn my new poomsae, Taegeuk Chil Jang: “You’re one of the upper ranks now.”

by itself, brown is just a color. by itself, a belt is just a symbol. but along with all these other happenings and marks of progress i see and feel happening with my body and my martial art, it feels a real achievement.

not really an original statement. but…it is, because i make it of my own impulse, fed by my own experience, felt by my own heart.

when you don’t do things right for your kids it can create such a deep pain as to be indescribable. as if you stumbled upon time travel, went back into the past to some fateful horrible day etched on your palm, somewhere along your lifeline, where you were hurt deeply, disfigured spiritually, or where you yourself did wrong, or met bad circumstance, and in time traveling were given the chance to correct it or prevent it—and yet, only let it happen again.

that still doesn’t get it across. no. that’s not right at all.

anyway, i’ve learned not all people feel to the same depth. or better yet: not all people have the same ability for intensity within the possible range of feelings.

we all can get angry! most people don’t have a problem feeling full of boasty pride. self pity comes to all humans easily in my experience. self-righteousness is also pretty commonly accessed by those i’ve met in my time on this planet.

not all people have the same capacity for empathy or compassion, however.

so it would be silly to make simple statements, general statements, absolute statements as i did a few paragraphs ago, about children.

some men are not part of their kids lives and it doesn’t bother them, to all appearances. they just walk on. lord. i…yeah. i’ll be honest. there are times i envy that. each child i have is attached to me. a neural-emotional invisible cord plugged into the deepest part of me. which means that when i find myself separated by circumstance or distance (or both), it is painful to me. it’s not something that really goes away.

but in my experience

when you do something right for your kids; when you teach a good lesson that you were taught (or were never taught); when you are there for them; when you see them imitating behaviors of yours that you believe will serve them well and make them a decent and good person, or even when it has nothing to do with you and you simply become aware that they are in one way or another a soulful and beautiful person…it fills your heart beyond capacity, and sometimes tears flow from the happiness you feel over it.

the thing is…

all those things that get in the way of you fully connecting with other humans beings are lacking in that connection to your children. because while they are Other,  they are at the same time YOU. so the connection is unencumbered; it is uninhibited, it is unsullied, and complete, and without self consciousness, and without competition, and without fear. a fat pipeline into the heart of, and a uncomplicated love for, the spirit and well being of another being.

in that, you become small, unimportant. you don’t mind if you fall or fail or have missed a, b, or c in your own life. if you can help them be okay, it’s all okay. if you can have their love, it’s enough. if you can can make sure their belly is full, you are satisfied. if you can keep them away from a moment of pain, you’ll accept three.

it’s like finding a room in your house where you get to be jesus christ. or. well, you get to embody his teachings. not in a way that earns you dollars or fame. but in a real way, where you don’t matter and at the same time you are full of love. not in rhetoric, but in real time.

and that is really quite a place for a human being to be operating.

all that said, i never enacted any grand scheme in bringing children into the world. none of it was cool-headed decisions. my children more or less thrust themselves upon the world. each of their spirits demanded to be present; took charge and created openings wherein they could enter this plane. this is part of why i respect my children so much. they are beautiful, wise, powerful souls who were kind enough to grant me a part in their emergence. i do my best to impart the wisdom i feel i have to pass along. i do my best to nurture them as humans ought to be nurtured. i hope they forgive where i lag or lull or am not up to the task.

all the while, i watch them all in wonder.

and when they come over, on their own accord, to kiss me on the forehead and tuck me in—”nigh’, nigh’, papi”—when i doze off on the futon in the middle of the day on new year’s eve, i am sure that this world is a beautiful place full of bliss for every person and thing alive, even when we forget that such things are possible.

the mind and body will lean toward, will try to align with, other nearby sentient beings. this is a motion as inevitable as the will toward empathy. menstrual cycles synchronize, shared realities and delusions are formed, couples grow to resemble each other, facially….

this means that you can find yourself in a place uncomfortable to yourself, in a mode of thinking that restricts you, constrains you, fails to invigorate you, or exercise your full capacity. if you spend too much time feeding your mind thought patterns that, to you, are clutter, unnecessary, wrong, diseased, or misleading, you can even lose sight of where you began to mimic these shapes.

it is enlightening and beautiful to interact with all kinds of humans. but it is very important to preference time and conversations with those who nourish your preferred flow, with those whose thinking inspires your own, with those who do not exist in such a space as to, by comparison, make your own natural experience present as alien. it can be hard enough to hear your own natural voice within, given all the bombardment of noise about us. but you will know where you are at all times, if you reach into yourself and connect with your feelings and experience with the self-trust that is the key to all your own secrets.

abandon such company. there is no need to criticize anyone unduly on your way along. just as molecules seek out other specifically-configured molecules to properly bond with and thus become more stable by sharing certain electrons, so do we.  certain energies need other specific energies. the path there may be, at times, lonely. but make that choice. otherwise, you will confuse your own mind and fail to meet your higher purpose.

the loneliness you will engender by pretending to think in some other way than you actually do is far more murky and convoluted than the brief and clear pang of moving along on the path by yourself until the next molecular meetup transpires.

clay, slow clay, clay that moves, granite hearbeat, ocean that moves, slow motion tides, work the sculpture, work the body, move the world, make the world, talk to the world, hands on the world, world embracing itself

simple no theory, no intellectual quotient, no debated notion, no quandary, no insecurity all alone with mother earth, talking stone, whispering vine, bellowing plane, tilting cosmo, dawning constellation, fingertips skypainting, palms pounding trunks into motion, heavens lifting and falling, tidal authority.

being, pure being. alone with no comparison to another, no judgment on what should ought might over there be. filter discarded, dirty filter unneeded. all corrupted ideas residing in the electrostatic portion called thought can be wiped.

in the study and science of being, there is motion. sensation. contraction. expansion. effort. pause. appreciation. all truth. all alone, being and standing as one, in truth.

i have these words right now. yesterday i had few. and it was a grand experience. you know…. and instead of trying to map it out here, i think i shall instead keep it small. so as not to drown out the raw, gorgeous, simple experience with a looming shadow cast by lovingly manufactured descriptions. writing about some things…even when you get it right, especially when you go all out and “get it right”…writing about those things led someone once to coin the phrase “kissing and telling.” and why would they think that worth its own phrase? because when you do that, something sacred, no matter how frail or significant, leaves.

so i’ll just note that i passed my belt test, and it was a good moment, a good reflection, and a moment that will inspire me going forward. which i will do.

—

sometimes i have conversations with some people in the world of twitters and both of us experience an uncomfortable place, i think. where we both care passionately about a topic or idea, but have different experiences with it and feelings about it. we cannot change each other’s minds about it. i guess we don’t understand the others’ point, in the end, as much as we think we do. or why keep having conflict? maybe in those moments, we’re not being good at hearing…or at expressing what it is we are feeling or thinking.

one of those areas of conflict i’ve met online is in my striving for the positive; for what is possible in a moment (not necessarily what is probable or practical); for sending a continual (or as much as possible) message of YES to myself. YES to my bones, to my blood, to my immune system, to my brain. by now it is automatic. it has been maybe 15 years i’ve been training my own mind to do this. (some projects are long term ones!)

this comes to me from many things. one is common sense. one is the study, however peripheral, of the effects upon the body of mental energy/belief. in self-healing. (interests indirectly found through being the son of a nurse). one is a thread from my days as a counselor, and before that, as a student interested in CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (which attempts to retrain thought chains in the mind and mental habits with willful forced changed habit). and another important fragment of this tapestried philosophy (and practice) of mine, is martial arts. tho i’ll note that the philosophy of YOU CAN DO IT and I CAN DO IT and YES I CAN is probably inherent in all athletic training.

the conflict i run into with others is a certain backlash that proposes that espousing this attitude (or what they perceive to be this attitude) is harmful to others; it is preventing “emotional diversity.” some say this (i’ve seen it referred to as the “stay posi cult” !)  is a way to hush, to shut down those who might have a negative attitude or experience at the moment, or comments that are seen as not to be fitting in with this approach.

it’s so strange, in a way, that we have this argument that won’t resolve. on the one hand, i think they are not really hearing me, but instead are remembering some other people they ran into, or an experience they had. because i’m sure there are some automatons out there who shovel and tamp over every uncomfortable blip in a day with “stay positive!” and if around them, i might struggle with urges to belt them until they cried good and hard. but that is not at all what i’m talking about. that’s why i wonder if our problem is one of communicating our reality. or perhaps of listening. or both?

i also wonder if these people have ever even trained athletically, or have had some other experience with tending to their own energy in mindful, manipulated doses and so could understand this view on it at all. that we are often less a plaything of the tides of emotion or pain than we imagine.

mostly i think that they feel that people who promote this (or related) idea(s) are directly criticizing them, as they are aware that they do hold many non-positive thoughts and feelings throughout time. in the “use positivity” talk, they see a target on their natural selves.

i get that, totally.

as i see it, this reaction misses the point entirely. we are human. as a human, you cannot be positive every moment. you cannot account for any given emotional experience you may have. and you must allow all these seasons to pass through your being as they need to. trying to control yourself and the world and render either polar would be impossible and unhealthy.

BUT

you CAN train yourself to be ready at all times with a reflex to the positive. or i can. maybe you can, too. maybe you cannot. so i don’t want to assume. but if you are like me, then you CAN program yourself to respond differently to adversity, to challenge, to setback, and to pain. so it’s not a matter of controlling those forces…but of your relationship to those forces. CBT teaches us that as deep and profound and real as feelings are, they are built on structures of thought. they are part of a chain that has been constructed over time. you can rebuild that chain. science tells us that when you do this, you reroute your own nerve synapses.

when i am attempting to make things happen in my life, be it a project i’m working on, a piece of art i am attempting, a hook kick to a sparring partner’s head, a flawless performance of poomsae, there is no room for me to sit around like charlie brown and begin second-guessing myself. that’s just not how you do it. you are attempting, in moving forward and up, to unseat entropy! to meet a freight train nose to nose. and you have to be ready for that weight and that effort. you have to load the furnace before you hit the hill.

you don’t begin to run across the floor and prepare to launch yourself at a target or sparring partner in a flying side kick and think “I can do this! Or…maybe I can’t. And if I can’t, that’s okay, I’m still a valuable person in the world!” There is no room for this. There is only room for I can do this. I trust in myself. I’ve trained well. My muscles know what to do. And I will do my best what I have to do consciously. And if I fall or fail, I will get right back up into fighting stance.

Actually, there is no room for all that, either! Time is of the essence sometimes. So there is all that, but you encapsulate it in this:

I can do it.

And you help make it true. You do. Hell, you can watch the difference immediately. In a very concrete happening. Like a kick.

As you launch a kick (or cartwheel, or any activity that takes effort, training, skill and doing), ware your energy and the non-verbal energy that your brain is messaging to your body. If there is a dim, dour, hesitant, anxious, fearful, unsure, confused [ all are NO energy ] in your body, your kick will fall a little short. be a bit weak. perhaps off balance. but launch the same kick and first catch yourself. catch that energy in your body. in your mind. see it, refuse it, redirect it. change it. reshape it. resend it: yes i can do this kick. yes i will land high. yes i will keep my balance. yes i will explode into power at the right moment. i can do it.

your kick—or poomsae—or whatever else will look remarkably different. guaranteed. will feel different.

and this energy and mental messaging sent to your body over and over, every day as you progress in achievement to arrive at abilities you never before possessed, has an observable effect over time. on yourself and your life.

once you’ve seen and lived this…you cannot unsee it! nor would you. you can wield energy to affect your own destiny at will. why would you want to forget this?

so. does this mean you will always get what you want? always be what you want? never feel bad, never stumble, never trip? no.

additionally, being human, sometimes i like to just sit in the rain. sure. sometimes i want to savor a painful moment, or allow myself to fully embrace moments of doubt or whatever else. but when they come along, it will be a conscious choice of mine and i will be a participant in a chosen event, not a piece of leaf wildly careening in a stream.

tho this is not an always or never thing, either. you can do it moment by moment. no need for an unrelenting committal, if the idea is intimidating. no need to tell yourself “From here on in!!!! I will always !!!!”

it begins with a decision. and then with a habit you begin to create.

there is no denying that we can all access this power, and that it is a real force within you. either this will all make immediate sense to you, or you won’t understand it, or will have endless quarrel with it.

people who hear talk of the power of positivity and simply reduce it to “emotional policing” are having a different conversation. i get you. you don’t want me or anyone dictating your state of mind. you don’t want pressure away from your preferred mode of operation, whatever it might be. i guess when i slip up and try to remind others there is another reaction to have, it’s not so different on my end. peoples’ haphazard application and (lack of) control of their own energy creates noise in my signal, as well. i don’t want pressure away from my preferred mode of operation, either.

so we will learn to travel the highway together, at our different speeds, with our different styles, with our various destinations. and when we can manage it, to pull off at rest stops and have small tailgate parties.

mostly, i’d want those who have not experienced what can be done by focusing your energy selectively to experience it. or to recognize that they do experience it. because we all do this to different extents. it’s how we’ve learned anything at all, it’s how we’ve made it through the things we have, only to grow deeper and stronger.

—

i think the culture here begins teaching you early on that you are a passive recipient. pushes you down that road to thinking you must go along, must suffer, must acquiesce and aren’t good or strong enough to really do much about it. then again, if only the messages transmitted throughout so many layers of US culture were so simple. the truth is, the messaging with which we are bombarded with for the most part is far more convoluted and crazymaking. an odd mix, designed to pull you in splits. on one hand we are taught we are mighty, number one, top dog, unstoppable, best evah. on the other, we are shown that most of us hate our jobs, loathe our bosses, envy our neighbors, desperately scramble for a sense of satisfaction through endless toys and distraction, use pills to escape a billion pains, fear the smells of our own body, and gather in conforming hordes.

to successfully navigate chaos like that, you really do need to reclaim ownership of your volition, energy, emotional state, and self-image. or you will be dead early, if only in spirit.

today i define weakness as anything that interferes with one’s ability to thrive, or that endangers one’s chances at survival. so i see it as a very practical matter. and i’ve had to, as if i’d nurtured my own weakness to any great extent in the past—that is, if i’d been romantic about it or excused it or fed into my own—i’d not be alive today. or if i had lived, i’d have no real measure of self-respect.

if i bring agency into the definition, i’d say weakness is a choice to avoid work that one could do; work that would cause one to thrive.

despite the human being’s many aspirations to complexity and his illusions of being a divine mammal, at heart we are ants that hold hands. that is, in all our various ways, we scuttle and shuffle and scramble to secure our own warm place and store of food and a hill that rises above the rain, and we’ll eat each other if we have to do so. but we hold hands on the way. here and there. we are organisms that seek power and to thrive. this is nothing more than a mechanism that insures our living has some degree of protection and forward momentum.

no creatures in nature have an issue with this aside from (some of) us. the trouble is, we dress everything up with that same romantic lean toward complexity and a desire for great meaning. that’s our brain, and we can’t really help doing so. half the time, people don’t even know their own intention, but at heart, it’s a scramble to thrive and to dominate that which stands in the way of survival or those things that would drain energy and thus prohibit our ability to thrive.

it is important to be clear about this in your mind.

i think, too, many misinterpret strength. strength is not the absence of tears, nor the constant ability to do everything we set out to do. neither is strength the ability to match each person around us in deeds, nor to live up to what society wants for us.

strength is simply a motion. it is a reflex. strength is a decision to remain in that motion. strength is a commitment to clarity and an abdication of ego whenever ego threatens clarity.

ego will often disguise itself as strength. ego will attempt to pull down the room to a level we can reach so that we feel we are remaining equal, rather than see the terrain for what it is and find how best to navigate it anyway, in our way, in the way we are able, in the way we are built. in this way, unbound ego invites and fosters weakness.

strength is refusing to sit in a puddle of piss and complain about the sores forming on our skin. strength is walking until it dries. or if we can’t walk, crawling until it dries. strength is laughing at our pissy pants, not lying and claiming it is spilt coffee. strength is the ability to let go, in an instant, of long-cherished ideas if we are able to envision a plateau that would take us higher. strength is choosing to laugh when we knock over a tower we just spent an hour building, and simply picking up the pieces and continuing. weakness is making a huge sigh, moan, and complaint about it; loud enough that everyone turns our way to sympathize with our plight.

it really has to do with that motion. that decision. underneath everything and aside from externals, a commitment to that motion. and it is a choice.

someone came at me on twitter yesterday. earlier, i had commented about my timeline, about how a majority of people on my reading list at the moment were dumping anger, self-pity, or other negative emotions. one woman and myself talked about that immediately; about remaining energy-conscious when in a group. i said something to the effect that we all have our moments, i was just commenting on the momentary pile-up. that was that. “yikes!” i said. we laughed. well, as much as you can laugh on twitter.

later on, someone decided to identify with that negative noise i had pointed out. even though they were not one of the people i had seen doing this. they apparently felt associated with negativity nonetheless and launched into a heated condemnation of “positive people,” claiming, in effect, that “positive people are the weakest people” because (in their view), “positive people” couldn’t stand others feeling non-positive emotions. their rant had that unmistakeable sound of a long-practiced argument.

i tend not to want to get into involved talks that require nuance and heavy doses of text on twitter. it’s just not a good place for it. it’s a good place for soundbytes. for glimpses, for exclamations, and for light chatter. if a person brings such topics my way, i may get pithy, or jokey instead. that is my way of reminding them that it’s simply not a good vehicle for the topic they are attempting. this was one of those cases. the person was clearly upset and felt the need to defend their own predilection for negativity by attacking those they felt were targeting them. they did that ant thing, that insect thing, that animal kingdom thing of scrambling for the upper position. but with the human addition of pretending otherwise; posing themselves as stronger for allowing all emotions to exist (though clearly not!) and positioning “positive people” as “the weakest.”

so you see what i mean about confusing dances that really are simple at heart.

“strength is a privilege!” they spat at me, brandishing popular internet ideology intended to humble me or evoke apology. the comment seemed obvious, and if strength is a privilege, it is one i’ve earned and i am proud of. as if strength were a negative trait! but really, they weren’t even hearing me. they were hearing a conversation they have been having with the world for years before they met me. they didn’t even know my own definitions of these words. they declared that they just didn’t have it “easy like me.” again, posing themselves as the stronger, even in weakness. having no idea of what i’ve lived. perhaps i could have launched into some story about the horror forests i’ve navigated and made it through, complete with lessons. maybe it would have been a moment to talk about my own bouts with suicide, or with being gang-jumped or my household of childhood abuse….

but they had already made up their mind about who i am and what my views on the world were.

as i said, it was more of a conversation with themselves, than with me. often i feel i owe it to people a reasonable degree younger than me (i believe in their 20s, in this case) to remember that in such cases they speak out of ignorance and with that arrogance of youth that thinks it knows far more than it could. obviously, it was an abrupt display of laziness to assume so much about me. had they wanted to learn from me, or see me, they might’ve found things that they related to, or that could help them. they might have parsed out my definitions of strength and weakness and learned that i do not attach them to the achievements or values they imagined i did. but more than anything else, they wanted a target for their anger, and a way to disguise their own self-doubt.

laziness is another form of weakness. for it will endanger your ability to thrive and survive. and it will put others at risk, as well.

as many people do, they projected upon me their own faults. claiming to be up front, “not hitting you and hiding my hand.” despite their caustic spray of cloaked humor every day, often aimed at pulling down others so that they feel worthy. (passive aggressiveness is by definition, hitting and hiding your hand.) at bemoaning the world’s unfair requirements and definitions that pose them as weak. this is a constant running theme of theirs. i don’t really care, i usually find them entertaining and a bit endearing. they are funny. though i think they spend far too much time on justifying their own tendencies not to match up to the rest of the world. and as has been said, “the man who justifies does not convince.”

let me be clear. when i condemn weakness, it is not a moral evaluation. and it is not a statement about how many hours you can work in a day. it is a comment about psychic energy. it is saying “you are choosing to be weak. you are endangering me and the herd when you make this choice.” that is why i spoke of wanting to kick whiny, negative people. they are a danger. and i would never speak or feel that way about someone who had no choice but to be but who they were, or for someone who did not meet A, B, or C of the world’s arbitrary societal standards.

i do feel great contempt, however, for those who choose it. or who choose to spend countless amounts of energy trying to normalize mediocrity so that they feel on level ground.

perhaps in their own confusion this person was unable to read nuance into these matters. at one point, they oddly argued against “having to feel happy all the time.” but that had nothing to do with what i had said earlier. or what i feel or believe! i am not happy all the time. nor are strong people. that is, of course, an unreasonable and inhuman idea. it is what you do with that feeling, who you point to, what motion you are committed to. in any case, i am glad my own vision is not so binary to be divided between “happy all the time” and “weak” with no gray area. that would definitely make navigating the terrain of life difficult. but again, this is one of those things that happens when someone is not really arguing with you, but having a conversation with themselves or ghosts in their own past.

tears? sorrow? confusion? failure? yes, strong people have these things. in the last year or two i spent much time crying. feeling low. this was not a sign of weakness, but rather a result of my being weak earlier. that is, i had done someone else wrong by running around and lying to them. and cheating and lying are weakness. it was weakness on my part because it was an abdication of work that i could have done if i wanted. it was weakness that endangered someone else’s ability to thrive or survive. again, it was a choice to be weak. and i paid for that choice. further weakness would have been to justify it endlessly. to say “all the world cheats” and thus try to pose myself on level or higher ground. that sleight of hand thing. but i enact a commitment to strength, which meant facing it. and hurting. and taking all the lashes i had coming my way. they were lashes, after all, dealt by my own conscience. and they struck at my ego. an ego i am willing to destroy, as it will always rebuild and is hardly the most important part of me.

and because i am, yes, a strong person. because i owned and own my actions. and i keep moving.

this is how i grow and remain strong, by the way. by choosing clarity when i look out over my terrain. over my deeds. by knowing in my heart, i am bigger than any of my bad choices. and that i can always move toward that higher plateau. it has nothing to do with society’s requirements of me, or values. it has nothing to do with other people. that is why other people cannot touch it. that is why i know i am a strong person.

finally, i write all of this not to defend my actions, nor to explain. at least not as a primary motive. nor do i submit these definitions and understandings for approval. while i need friends, i do not need many, and i do not need any specific people as friends. especially if they see things in a way that would make our beliefs on these things incompatible. if you have different definitions of strength and weakness, then be that. live that. it takes nothing from me, and i don’t mind. but if they threaten my own survival or ability to thrive, i will cast you away.

i write this simply as a way of sharing valuable knowledge that i have paid for in blood, in tears, in sweat, with years. it is yours if it helps you.

the last post on taekwondo that i wrote mentioned my right hip. that has healed, and my thumb (recently jammed up when i got kicked in the hand) is nearly healed. my foot…did i write about that here? i think not. here’s a link, tho there’s blood involved, so if you’re not into that sort of thing, skip it. suffice to say that pouring tea, my cup broke and splashed boiled water onto my foot along with a chunk of glass that gashed me into the layers of fat in my foot.

that’s finally healed enough to not require a bandage when i sleep or walk around the house, though since it’s so wide open (ER wanted to stitch it, i said nah) it will take a while to scar over hard. that one was obviously not from training, tho it sure does get in the way of training. for one thing, i did that to my foot two days before my belt test! i wasn’t sure on that day if i’d blown it for myself, after all it took about 8 hours to stop bleeding. but i tested anyway, which included sparring. there was no way i was going to miss that test and then spend two more months preparing when i had practiced hard and was ready to go right then. it went well. bled a little, but i had my foot bandaged, and though we’ve not got our certificates or belts or any indication to the results of the test yet, i’m confident in saying i passed.

especially since yesterday, master lee let me begin learning Taegeuk Sa-Jang, after watching me perform Taegeuk Sam Jang one more time. i love it, especially the Jebi Poom Mok Chigi (combo knife-hand inside strike to the neck in conjunction with high knife hand block). been practicing and trying to remember that one since last night. if i’m going to double test and double train from now until october, that will require my centering martial arts even more than before. [EDIT, a year later: I didn't double test for anything except when I tested from Red belt to Chodanbo, double testing for Red Instructor and Chodanbo in one. And that was because they share the same Poomsae, so I had less to learn. And I'm glad I took everything prior at the regular pace. Once I got to Blue belt, I realized it was best to take my time and absorb things at a measured pace.]

which i am fine with. i don’t want lots of do-nothing time, nor do i want to keep filling my time with what i have in the past. staying in touch with the political scene enough to do my weekly News With Nezua videos is fine. any more than that and i’m just gonna be ill. the political scene, cultural scene in the USA these days is sickening, absolutely disgusting. it’s poison. so i don’t mind at all turning away from that, and anyone who has been paying attention knows i’ve been turning away from it for a while.

also i have no interest in putting so much energy into women online (or in person) as i may have in the past. and when i say the past, i mean for the last handful of years. (decade? let’s be real…decades) we see what that led to, and anyway, it was mostly reaction. reaction to a loneliness from long ago, reaction to misdirected thirst, reaction to my own confusion about where i was at. about ethnic identity, about aging. about commitment, change, and so on. as i’ve said before, i always insist on paying top dollar for my lessons. but then, i own them and i truly value them. they are mine. and this one has been a long, long time coming. i’m sure i’ll write on it more. but i may save most of that for a book i’m working on.

in fact, looking back at posts i’ve written a while ago (wow, february of 2009???) remind me that this winter i feel i’ve traveled through in coming to a new spring has, in actuality, been more than one winter; it has taken years. i fix on one line from that post i just linked: i have not fully emerged from what feels like this cocoon of change.

at this point, finally—and it seemed like forever that i was moving toward here—i feel i have. and yes, of course there will be other plateaus. but for now, this is good. feels good. stronger, more centered. less compromised.

and my life has become much simpler. i’ve finally learned to live on my own, which is no small feat, as i’ve lived with women since i was about 17. it was either the street, institutional life, dorms, or shacked up with a girl. (hell, even in the dorms i was shacked up with a girl!) until i was 40, i never even had my own place. and it was needed. i needed to learn how to be with myself, how to pay my rent and bills, and do stuff that i guess you are supposed to be figuring out in your late teens or early 20s. typically. then again, i’ve never been typical. but for the last year and half or more, i’ve lived here all alone. there’s been a lot of loneliness and a bit of pain. and of course, it couldn’t have happened any other way. but i’m not there in that pain anymore. or in that shame. mostly because i see that i had to travel through what i did to get here. to act as if i didn’t learn the lesson, or to repeat the mistakes? that would be shameful.

today all i really want is to work on my art, enjoy my children, and train in taekwondo. i don’t want to be famous, i don’t want an entourage of women, i don’t want a lot of the distractions i thought i once did. granted, i do want to be with someone. i do long for affection and intimacy. still. but i don’t mind spending time with myself, or working on myself. i’m in better shape mentally, emotionally, and physically then i’ve been in a long, long, time. and i’m proud of that. i have a lot more to offer someone, and more so, i am more content and less distracted and my energies are purer and stronger because i’m not bleeding them out left and right. and i’m not using anyone to try and fill myself or sublimate needs.

i might not need to be rich, but i do still want a better income. i’m tired of being broke as hell. i applied to one local TV PA job yesterday, which i’ve not done for a long time. i make money enough for rent and a few bills and for me and luna in TKD with what i get from my weekly NWN vids, and that’s been good enough for a while, although it leaves nothing extra. but that’s not doing it anymore. not sure where i’ll find more income, but i will.

also, i think i’ll paint my walls. this apartment has been thought of a few ways by me. mostly as transitional, though. and i’ve been here for years now. 3? 4? a while. and if i can’t have a lawn, then dammit, i’m going to make these walls colorful.

now i’ve got to spend time editing video, and later, going to the dojang.