Lost Dreams

I really can't remember why I launched into a kata form At my occupational therapy treatment a couple weeks ago. It was really kind of weird because I really haven't done kata forms and I don't know how many decades. I'm surprised I remembered as much as I did at the Tosh facility. Whatever I did totally lit up Nikki's eyes. She thought I was totally cool I could tell. Not cool in like “I want to get to know this guy” cool in the respect that I can't believe what this guy keeps pulling out of his hat tricks. And this really is something that might be worthwhile looking into. I always wanted to do martial arts. I don't even know when I was first exposed to martial arts. Maybe, way back on the farm where the guys went our church was a big Hawaiian dude named Eddie Ho. Use a coach or something over at the local junior college. His big claim to fame was being a judo expert and Hawaiian pit cooking. Every couple years they would dig a hole in the back of the Ward yard and Eddie would cook the most delicious tasting barbecue I've ever had. I also remember watching some karate competitions on an old Saturday show called the ABC Wild World Of Sports. I was totally blown away. I didn't even think about asking my parents if I can be trained in martial arts I did think that was an option. I did notice one day and one of my comic books in the back for a dollar 97 you could get a course and corrupt a that came with the dummy that showed all the pressure points. I cannot believe they would send all that for one dollar and $.97. My older brother who I worshiped happened to be visiting at that point in time. He rarely visited that he was here than when the package arrived. A midsized brown envelope that had a mimeographed book that showed a number of karate stances and then a large folded chart of a felon with a gun pointed toward the observer then different pressure points on the individual and that was it. I was crestfallen my older brother kind of made fun of me which hurt even more. But I started trying to learn a little this thing had to offer I learned some things but not very much and that was about it. Growing up I got involved in wrestling and that was as close as I got until the number years after my accident when living in Blackfoot Idaho I happen to come across a karate class one Saturday morning while driving to a friends house. There's a group of about seven people in karate gi's going through the motions. I stop my car got my wheelchair out and rolled over and talk to the sensei. You is a great guy. He was a black belt (of course) but he was open to teaching me and we started. I can't even remember the style. It was not a hard style like shotakan. My training was very rudimentary. I can't even remember my sensei's name. He was very serious however and he taught me my ffirst kata form I worked on it diligently for possibly four months when I was finally awarded my first yellow bar on my white belt. That was as far as I got life intervened but I cherished my white belt with its little yellow piece of electric tape. When I ever went to my kata forms I felt good but I also felt how significant my disability was. I could not really do my rising blocks with the snap that the other folks used. When you go through a kata form you move in the form of an “I”. It's sort of complicated but not bad but it's really meant to walk through you lose a lot of the fact if you're in a power chair or a manual chair. But like I said when I asked went through this process for my occupational therapist her eyes lit up. She wants me to consider getting involved once again with martial arts. I don't know if I'm ready to do that commitment at this point my life are even want to put myself through that kind of physical stress especially to my body after what my first physiatrist said about me destroyed my joints at this point my life. Perhaps, this should be something I could do in my manual chair again. But even then I'm still putting unwanted stress on 70-year-old joints. Sadly, I've lost my dream of becoming proficient in martial arts. I can see now how unimportant that was her would've been at that time in my life. I was chasing a dream like a dog chasing the car when he could do if you catch it…