MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

I didn't go to my normal Monday morning class today. I packed my gi and everything but could not drag myself out the door. Having just returned from a weekend getaway to the Poconos, I am unmotivated to do anything, which includes wash the suitcase full of dirty clothes, restock the fridge, and work on jiu-jitsu drills. I was happy to be on vacation. Last week was a frustrating one for training, one of those weeks that makes me think I must just suck at jiu-jitsu. The last time I trained was Wednesday. It was another chapter in my neverending quest to submit the new girl. The new girl is bigger than me. She has strong legs. I have no idea how long she has been doing jiu-jitsu, only that she is a white belt like me and I first met her 2 weeks ago. She is very nice. She is a good partner, eager to learn, and not awkward and spazzy like many students are in the beginning. In other words, she rarely elbows me in the nose by accident. I know more jiu-jitsu than the new girl. During ...

Time to confess. I watch a few really bad TV shows. I watch America's Next Top Model. I sometimes enjoy the ridiculous drunken antics of Snooki and Deena. And lately I have been peeking in on this truly terrible waste of time called Dance Moms. For those of you who have better things to do with your lives let me summarize. The show is about a wicked witch of a dance coach, a bunch of competitive young dancers and their overprivileged whiny moms. Each episode, which is most certainly staged, involves the teacher shouting at her dancers, the moms shouting at her and everyone gossiping and bitching behind each others backs. It is not a good show. It does however raise the question about how much abuse one parent will subject their child to in order for them to "succeed". I used to be a gymnast. I competed in gymnastics in the 1980's and early 90's when it was all about Mary Lou Retton, Kerri Strug (that tiny thing who heroically, and unnecessarily it turned out, ...

I spend a lot of time trying to not get beat up by guys. Sometimes they are throwing shin kicks at my legs. Other times they are aiming punches at my ribs. And at least three times a week I spend my lunch hour rolling on a mat with some sweaty man as I attempt to keep him from choking me with my own arm.  I am not being attacked against my will, I actually pay money for this experience. There are not too many women in my jiu-jitsu classes. I am not sure if this is the norm with BJJ schools, or if my place, which puts a fair amount of emphasis on competition and feels like a men's locker room, is not so appealing to women. (There are often men in towels walking to and from the shower. If this is your thing please sign up.)  On the contrary, I know a lot of women karatekas. Every few months our dojo teams up with the others in our style to host a women's only sparring class. The newer students love it because it is more comfortable for them. The black belts love it because the...

This morning I was messing around on Facebook when I came across and article by columnist, Paula Dvorak, entitled ‘What is the point of having kids if your life ends when theirs begins?’  The title was a quote from a man who had recently written her for parenting advice.  Like debating the existence of God , it used to be that saying anything negative about your kids was a huge taboo. Kids were a gift, a joy, a blessing. Only secretly, after a few glasses of Merlot, was it ok to admit that there was nothing cute about colic. At some point in the time that I have been a parent it became ok to be honest. Yes having a toddler throw Cheerios at you and say "You are a bad mommy?" can be a bit trying. Yes it is hard to be functional at work when you were up at 3am cleaning puke off your sick child's sheets. This camaraderie between frustrated parents was wonderfully liberating. You hate your kid sometimes? Me too!  Unfortunately this new found freedom of speech eventuall...

This winter Maya learned how to ice skate. She fell a lot, but by the end of the first day she was zipping around the rink, pulling me along with her. This was the first day. By the second day of skating we were fighting. She had actually gotten so good so fast that her holding my hand was making her fall more. When I tried to explain this to her she got angry.  The second time we went skating together I vowed to not bug her about holding my hand. Instead we fought about the way she kept lifting her leg up in front of her. Again I tried to "help" by explaining that it was making her fall on her butt. There we were again on the ice shouting at each other. This one resolved itself over hot chocolate where I calmly promised to not bug her anymore if she would stop snapping at me. Maya is terrible at getting help. She thinks she knows everything and wants to do everything herself. As someone who knows this I clearly should have just let her keep falling until she either figured...

Today Maya took the public school gifted and talented (G&T) test. Here is how it all went: When we got to the school lunchroom we presented our letter and her birth certificate. They handed her (my 4 year old) a tiny pink Post-it with her name on it. As far as we could tell this was the only thing identifying her. Matthew was pretty sure that if she lost that Post-it we would never see Maya again. She had barely removed her coat when a lady came in to the lunchroom, called her name and took her out. Matthew and I then sat down at one of the white, public school lunchroom benches with all the other bewildered parents. We had no idea where they took her. We had no idea who she was with. We had no idea what they did with her. (Alien anal probes immediately came to mind). Matthew and I played a game on his tablet where you have to stop falling missiles from destroying your city. About 45 minutes later Maya returned. That was the G&T test. All the info we have about ...