MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

In a desperate desire to increase my BJJ training time, I have recently organized some midday workouts with a few friends and training partners. The good news is that I am now getting a lot of extra work in. The bad news is that it never seems to be enough. There are just too many things I am not perfect at yet (read: everything), too many ideas and moves and drills and concepts that I want to improve at. Lately I have also been tossing around the idea of competing in BJJ for the first time. So over the weekend I decided to watch a few videos of someone who was the kind of competitor who would be in my division. (In other words, another very tiny purple belt.) This particular girl happens to also be an amateur MMA fighter, so what I watched was tape of her in a cage somewhere in Long Island attempting to pummel another tiny girl to death.  She was decent, this MMA girl. A good double leg takedown. A sharp front kick. A nice arm bar. She is 23. I hope she makes it. With ...

On the Friday evening, right after September 11, 2001, business owners all up and down Broadway were putting candles out in front of their stores. Other Upper Westside residents were putting them outside their apartment buildings, or on their windowsills, or in a makeshift alter on a random street corner. I remember walking up West End Avenue, amidst this sea of twinkling lights, and feeling at the same time both completely lost, and eternally grateful for the place I was walking towards. Since it was Friday night at the UWS dojo, we had sparring class. We wrapped up our hands, stuck them into our old, faded boxing gloves, and punched and kicked each other for an hour while out on Broadway the candles burned their way down to tiny nubs. This is not like that. I would never claim that the inauguration of a new president, no matter how repugnant and scary he may be, is comparable to the thousands of lives lost to those two airplanes. But it is Friday. And once again, I feel the sam...

When I was younger, I used to get a lot of stomach issues; heartburn, pains, bloating. I also had pretty bad health anxiety. These two things are not a good combination. Over the course of a couple of years I took every kind of antacid known to man, messed around with my diet and sat in multiple doctor's offices convinced that it was only a matter of time before they diagnosed a severe bleeding ulcer. There was nothing really wrong with me. About three summers ago I had a sinus infection. After a few days of antibiotics, I decided to sleep propped up on a stack of pillows in order to alleviate some of the sinus pressure and woke up with terrible neck and shoulder pain. This led to weeks of heating pads and ice packs and massages, along with a very panicky day where I swore I had meningitis. (I didn't. Health anxiety can be very convincing.) The shoulder/neck problems continued on and off for months, which eventually led to an MRI, which led to a diagnosis of herniated discs...

There was this guy who used to spar with us on Fridays, many, many years ago. Lets call him Bob. Bob was a black belt. He was very fast and super strong and I used to watch him knock the other students around the floor, terrified of when it would be my turn to fight him. When I finally faced off in front of him, I was pretty pathetic. I basically stood there with my hands up, afraid to throw anything for fear of getting killed. After about 30 seconds of this, Bob gave me a look of utter disgust and said, ''I am not going to hurt you." Apparently the idea that he, a big, male karate black belt, would attempt to kill me, a five foot two, relatively inexperienced lady, was incredibly insulting to him. "Just throw. Move around. It will be fine." It was fine. Ironically, Bob ultimately ended up being one of my favorite people to spar with. That was later, when I switched from being timid and sloppy to being that tiny aggressive girl who really loved the hard roun...

In November of 2004, about a week after the unexpected death of our karate instructor, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I held a meeting of parents at the old dojo. We sat with a small group of shell-shocked moms and dads to discuss the future of the kids classes, while their children had slippery sock races across the smooth wooden floor. We couldn't really stay in that space for long, we told them. The landlord wanted us out. We'd basically be squatting there until they locked the door or we found a new place.  But yes, we suppose we can have classes again if you want us to. I mean if you don't mind your kids taking karate with us instead of their real teacher who is dead now. Taking classes in the room where their teacher passed away. You know, if that isn't weird. (Don't worry, we didn't actually say all that. Not out loud anyway.) Yes, they said. Please have class. Can we have it tomorrow? Then two tween-aged junior black belt girls offered us the...

I am one of the lucky ones. While politically and internationally, 2016 was somewhat of a shit show, inside my own small circle it was a great year. I learned how to climb up cliff faces and how to be a little less afraid of the woods. I got my purple belt in jiu-jitsu. I taught another wonderful session of Kindergarten karate at PS84 in Brooklyn, along with all of my normal classes at the dojo. I finally got my drivers license, and leased a new car. On top of these cool accomplishments, I trained a lot. I learned a lot. I hugged my daughter a lot. I spent 365 days basically living my life and I am fortunate that that life is pretty damn good. Also, there was coffee. Lots of delicious coffee. But I know that I am one of the lucky ones. Close friends of mine suffered greatly this year. There was illness and injury, personal and financial stresses. There were unmet goals and disappointing outcomes. Lots of celebrities died this year. And then of course, there was Trump. I am g...