It is the bane of every dojo parent’s existence – the white karate suit. Why dress children in white? Of all the colours, why choose the most unforgiving, most difficult to maintain, most revealing colour of all? Why something that will get dirty 20 minutes before a grading?
I remember a kid asking me once, “when do we learn to break boards?” and I responded with “when trees attack!”
(Shut up, I thought it was funny.)
For the most part, that usually settles the discussion, but tamashiwari (translated as ‘trial by wood’) keeps cropping up in my reading and research.
Anyway, now I juggle two titles: Sensei, and Mom. And like all mothers before me, I am going to offer unsolicited wisdom, as revenge for all the unwanted advice I got from family, friends and complete strangers in the queue at Checkers (because nothing inspires condescending advice from randoms like a baby bump. The same f*ckers won’t offer you a chair to sit on, but they will ask about whether you plan to have natural birth or not. Rude.)
I worked as a social media manager in my past life, before I ran away from corporate to become an instructor, and it was a constant battle of shiny, happy updates and vapid copy, my English degrees weeping on the wall while I used hashtags and SEO-friendly babble to sell books, or book launches.
While the noble art of being an instructor goes back to the first time someone said “hey, let me show… Read more Apps for Instructors
“No matter how you excel in the art of “Ti” (Okinawan precursor to Karate), and in your scholastic endeavours, nothing… Read more How to Balance Training and Studying
What do you do with a BA in English? What is my life going to be? Four years of college… Read more As Practical As You Make It
“We rescue because it feels good,” Lahey says. Parents want to rescue their kids from everything, and so do instructors,… Read more Don’t Save: Teach
There’s a lot to be said for the wise Sensei motif, but any teacher worth their classroom will tell you… Read more Lessons From My Students
A Sensei is many things – janitor, nurse, counsellor, accountant, career guidance coach, wailing wall, mentor, caterer, event manager, teacher and role model. Even when we don’t want to be, we are always in a gi.
