MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

April has been a tough month for our family, injury wise. About 2 weeks ago, Matthew tore some cartilage in his ribcage. And then, a little over a week ago, I re-injured my neck/shoulder in the same way I had done over the summer.  So there was a week in there where both of us were in pain and Maya was home on Spring Break. It sounds horrible, but actually we had a nice vacation. She had a few playdates. We spent a lot of time at the playground. (A number of people have since commented on my lovely tan. No I did not go to Aruba. I went to Grand Street.) We lazed around. I used the heating pad. A lot. It was almost relaxing. In case you were wondering, I have an appointment with a sports medicine specialist next week. And Matthew went and had an x-ray after his injury, just to make sure nothing was broken. We are good, responsible adults. But because we are us, both Matthew and I took about a week off and then went back to jiu-jitsu to work through our respective inj...

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a tough round I had with one of the blue belts with whom I regularly train. To sum up, he is a very nice guy who went too hard. I came out of the round feeling beat up and demoralized. Unable to mount any kind of offense, or even defense really, I basically just tapped over and over and waited for the round to end.  It wasn't all bad. There are certainly things to be gained from this type of experience, and many of them I discussed in my previous blog post. But one of the most important things for a more advanced martial arts practitioner to understand is the mind of a beginner. A few months ago, I had this conversation with one of the women in our karate school: Me: How was sparring class tonight? Her: It was good. Except for my round with ___. He is terrible! Me: Yeah, he is a little spazzy. Just keep your hands up. He will get better. Her: I hate sparring with him. He hits way too hard!  Me: Don't be afraid to ask him to go a ...

Good morning. Happy Sunday! Happy Spring! That over there is my daughter, asleep in my bed. We just picked her up from her very first sleepover birthday party. Up until last night, she had only ever spent the night at her grandparents house, so this was a big deal.  The birthday was for two of Maya's best friends who are twins. There were 13 little girls at this party. Thirteen six and seven year old girls, eating oranges at midnight and singing "Let it Go" until the wee hours of the morning. I could never do that. These parents are my heroes.  I am not sure if Maya got any sleep. Her friend's mom texted me around 10:30 to say that she was singing along to Frozen. Around 11:15 there were five little girls still awake, giggling and telling scary stories. She sent them into the twins bedroom so they would not wake up the other kids who were all passed out on air mattresses on the living room floor. I am not sure what happened after that. Maya said something about ...