MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

The long road of martial arts training has many obstacles. There are injuries, which hopefully are few and far between, but when they occur can put you out of commission for weeks. There is the rest of your life, your job, your family, things which you may actually enjoy but which take time away from your training. There are times where your motivation lags, your momentum slows, times when you just don't feel like it. And sometimes the obstacle is you. Or, in the case of jiu-jitsu, me. The other day I left jiu-jitsu class in a rare mood: confident. I had done well with the drills. (Meaning that I got them right pretty quickly, executed them effectively and didn't need someone to draw me a blueprint) I had a rolled with a few people and felt in control. That is success in my book. Not that I beat anyone, although I do get the occasional submission nowadays, but that I felt that I was in control. I defended and escaped when I wanted to. I tried moves when they were appropriat...

About ten years ago, a bunch of students from our dojo went on a trip to Montreal to compete in a knockdown karate tournament. Our group of fighters included two women, a couple of lower belts, a young man named Clai (now he is Sensei Clai) who later went on to become a world champion, and a young black belt named Rudie. Rudie was fast and strong and was best known for winning his fights via knockout, often by a spinning back kick. This tournament proved to be no different. In order to get to Montreal we had rented a 16 passenger van which a few students took turns driving. (A few students did not include me. I am one of those odd NYC creatures you call "adult with no drivers license". ) As he passed through toll plazas, Rudie liked to hand his money over with this cheerful comment: "Fight the violence, increase the peace." He thought he was being funny. Inevitably, every time he did this one of us would remind him of all the people he knocked out that weekend. ...

I am an extremely coordinated clumsy person. I can remember 54 move katas. Sometimes I can even execute said katas with incredible power and grace. It is not unheard of for me to do an hour of jiu-jitsu in the afternoon followed by an hour of karate and 45 minutes of sparring in the evening, all without a single injury. Then I trip over my feet while crossing the street and my knee hurts for days.  I frequently bump my head on the corners of the cabinet doors in my kitchen (doors which no one ever remembers to close) and once, while climbing nimbly out of the front seat,  I actually closed the car door on my face. (Matthew was kind enough to not laugh at me, although it clearly took extreme effort.) Also, occasionally I wake up in the morning in pain and I have no idea what happened. Perhaps I am Batman? Perhaps while part of me is sleeping, another part is out fighting crime on the streets of Brooklyn? Last night, while in blissful slumber, I somehow injured my back....

Some of you may have heard of this woman. Her name is Lenore Skenazy. This is her website:  http://www.freerangekids.com/ . She wrote a book entitled "Free- Range Kids: How to Raise Self- Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts With Worry). Most recently she has been in the news (ok, by news I mean Twitter and the Dr. Drew show) for organizing a $350 "unsupervised playdate" in Central Park. Yes, it is true. You can pay her $350 bucks to drop your kid, aged 8-18, off in the park to play with other kids, no grownups allowed. She will sit in a coffee shop nearby, holding a cellphone just in case anything goes wrong.  What could possibly go wrong??? But forget all the problems with this silly idea. (Do not worry, I do not think she has had anyone sign up yet.) Forget the fact that if your kid is old enough to play in the park alone you can just send them there for free. Here is the thing about Lenore Skenazy: She is absolutely right. Not about the Central Park playdate,...

"I give her a Fig Newton, just to immobilize her, just to stop it, cause she loves Fig Newtons, I go, ‘Here honey, have a Fig Newton,’ and she goes, ‘They’re not called Fig Newtons, they’re called Pig Newtons!’ and I go, ‘No they’re not, they’re called Fig Newtons.’ And right away in my head I’m like, what are you doing? Why? What is to be gained? Why do you care? Just, yeah, Pig Newtons, fine, go ahead, good luck to you, go through life, see what kind of job you can hold down with s--t like that flying around your head, I don’t care, I’ll be dead. But for some reason I engaged, ‘No honey, they’re called Fig Newtons.’ She goes, ‘No! You don’t know. You don’t know! They’re called Pig Newtons!’ And I just, I feel this rage building inside. Because it’s not that she’s wrong, she’s three, she’s entitled to be wrong, but it’s the f--king arrogance of this kid! No humility! No decent sense of self doubt. She’s not going, “Dad, I think those are Pig Newtons, are you sure that you have i...

I have had some awesome sparring partners over the years. There was the Energizer Bunny black belt who used to push me to the point where I was nothing but a fiery ball of adrenaline. I always threw my best techniques with him. He almost knocked me out once, but hey, it happens. (I was younger then. Also, not a mom. Nowadays I am much less accepting of my brain being rattled around.) There was also the black belt whose eyes would glaze over in the middle of the round and you would have to start telling him jokes in order to make sure he didn't kill you. He was less fun. But the worst sparring partners are the ones who just don't pay attention. Hey buddy, use your eyes! (Those are those two round things in the front of your face.) If we are sparring together and I am bouncing around throwing light punch combinations and very controlled kicks why would you blast me in the leg? What part of my body language told you that I wanted to go hard? If your vision is not qui...

Just a heads up: this is going to be somewhat of a girly post. But don't worry, my male readers. Even though there will be no testosteroney tales about rolling around on a mat trying to choke out sweaty men, I promise to throw in the occasional reference to boobs. And in order to help you out I will even put them in bold. Boobs. There, wasn't that nice. Every month I have a little dialogue with myself. It goes something like this: Me: So, it's about that time sweetheart. You feel that headache? Those achy muscles. Yup, you know what that means. Your monthly buddy is on her way. Other me: Hooray! I like feeling exhausted and moody and slightly anemic for three days.  I can't wait! Me: But at least you're not pregnant. Other me: Yes there's that. Me: Hmm. What if we made a mistake last month? What if you don't get your period this time? What if you do, in fact, have a bun in the oven RIGHT NOW? Other me:_ Boobs! (I thought you might need it. After...

Everyone has a different ritual to honor the dead. There are memorials that feel like funerals with lots of black  dresses and many mentions of "God's plan", and memorials that feel like parties with humorous tales of happier times and alcohol that flows like a river. I am an atheist so while there may in fact be a plan to the universe, I do not believe it has been concocted by a magical, white-bearded being in the sky. I do, however, believe in honoring those who are no longer with us. Eleven years ago, our country, and NYC in particular, was devastated by the horrible attacks on the World Trade Center. We all know the story: planes used as missiles, people jumping out of buildings, the sour smell of smoke in the air for weeks, the diminished skyline, the heroes lost. I was living in Astoria at the time, and after hours of staring at the TV in horror, I could no longer stand to be away from Matthew (who I was not yet living with). Since the only viable method...

Last week Maya started kindergarten . It went well. She has some friends in her class from pre k, her teacher seems very competant (she has 22 4-5 year olds to wrangle all on her own, no easy task), she had chicken and rice for lunch. She found the bathroom ok. All important things. After school we went to the playground with some of her buddies . She was walking around with one of her girlfriends, doing girly things like talking and giggling, when at some point some boys became involved in their play. The boys wanted to be the bad guys. ( Do five year old boys know any other games??) Suddenly I look over and this one boy has wrapped his arms around Maya and is holding her down. Maya tells him to let go. He pulls on her ( not in a mean way really, he still thinks it is part of the game. He has not noticed that she is not having any fun.) Maya pushes him away. ( It was a good push, he went far) He makes to hit her. She throws a front kick. This is when I step in. I give the boy a...

This fall, after much consideration, we finally did away with the once-a-week tuition option at our dojo. Now, you are welcome to only come one day but you will be paying the unlimited rate like everyone else. So it is to your financial benefit to train as often as possible. There are many reasons that led us to this decision but rather than bore you with our business conversations it will suffice to say this: taking class once a week sucks! I know this as a teacher and I know it as a jiu-jitsu student. When I first joined my BJJ school, Maya was still home most of the time. Between mommy duties and dojo duties I did not really come consistently. So I got nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. I was confused and beat up and more confused and more beat up. I could not remember a single move from one week to the next. It sucked. Who would have thunk it? It seems that the more you train, the better you get. And the less you train the more you suck. What a novel concept. As a mom, I am not a f...