Impolite Company

Sun Dragon Kickathon!

 

(Cut to the chase and donate to our Kickathon at Support Sun Dragon!)

The Kickathon is an annual event at Sun Dragon and our main fundraiser for the year.  We gather at Zilker Park, throw a thousand kicks, break some boards, eat an extremely long sub from Thundercloud, and wake up sore the next morning.  This year, in addition to the kicking event at Zilker we'll be doing an evening of marathon sparring and another of marathon kata.  It's gonna be a long week, but it's all for a good cause, supporting our scholarship program specifically and supporting the school in general.

Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, the non profit I've been associated with for twelve years,  started over 23 years ago with a simple mission:  to make martial arts training and self defense instruction available to anyone who walked in the door.  Oh.  Wait.  That's not entirely true.  When Sun Dragon started it's goal was to make martial arts and self defence training available for women.  At the time, there were limited options for women who wanted to train and Sensei Suzanne wanted to created a space where women could train without discrimination, hazing, or being viewed as second class students.  Around 1999-2000, Sun Dragon began inviting men to train and today men and women train side-by-side, but the ethic remains of openness and accessibility for non-traditional students. (you can read the basics of our history here: Sun Dragon History )

I recently watched a video produced by one of our students ahead of her book launch next May (Smile at Strangers--Susan (George) Schorn Smile at Strangers--it's a wonderful book that gives a lot of our dojo's history along with George's personal history as a martial artist) that I think is a pretty good representation of what we do.  It's a montage of students breaking boards, one woman after another.  Okay, I'm in the middle of it somewhere.  It's almost a shame that the video is so well-edited because you miss the battles students fought to overcome hesitations and doubts and then triumphantly smash through their boards.  But I find it powerful just the same:

 

And, of course, there are the children.  Won't someone think of the children?  Okay.  I mainly teach kids classes and so thinking about how to teach children karate safely and effectively takes up a lot of my time.  Almost two-thirds of our students are children that range from four years old (I have nothing to do with them this young!) up to teenagers.  We've got some great kids and I think a wonderful program that opens up training for all kinds of children, gives them manageable challenges, helps them overcome those challenges and move to the next one.  We have a lot of fun, while still learning discipline, self control and principles of justice and respect that in time permeate their lives outside of the dojo.  And, of course, there's the video of children:

 

The money we raise at Kickathon goes to support the school in general and to fund our scholarship program.  Scholarships are scaled to income level and are designed to make sure everyone has the opportunity to train with us.  The scholarship program also applies to our self defense classes, which we offer annually at the dojo and in conjunction with various other non profits and groups in the Austin area.  We work with the Girl Scouts a great deal, we're currently offering classes that are focused on issues facing the LGBTQ community and we just recently had a series of free classes for children focused on bullying.

I'm proud of the work we do at Sun Dragon and I'm so glad to have been a part of the program for twelve years.  I've been a member of the board of directors for seven or eight years now and have been teaching or assisting teaching for almost as long.  If you'd like to help keep our school going, if you'd like to help us keep martial arts and self defense training accessible for all comers in the Austin area, I'd be honored to have your support.  You can make donations via this link:  Support Sun Dragon!

Thanks for taking the time to find out about Sun Dragon and the work we do.  Thanks also for your support!

 

Kickathon 2011

I know that some of you have been waiting on pins and needles for this announcement, but the time has come and Kickathon 2011 is just around the corner!  The Kickathon (which most spell check programs refuse to recognize as a proper word), is Sun Dragon's annual fundraiser.  It's like a walkathon, but with kicks.  I promise to do a thousand kicks with 50 or so of my boon companions and all you supporting, loving people out there donate money to Sun Dragon. 

Here's what it looked like last year:

 

First things first--why would a karate school do a fundraiser?  Sun Dragon is a nonprofit corporation, dedicated to teaching the martial arts and self defense skills to anyone who wants to train.  Our fundraiser helps us keep general tuition low and it helps us provide scholarships for anyone who can't afford to train or take one of our self defense seminars.

Sun Dragon Kickathon 2010

Back in the day, I used to post here and share to Facebook.  Times change.  I posted this to Facebook a few days back and thought I should put it up here, just in case anyone wanders by who doesn't keep up on FB: 

Hi Everybody!

It's that time of year--Sun Dragon's annual fundraiser to support our scholarship and self defense education programs (described below). Every dollar that you donate will go to keeping our doors open to anyone who's interested in studying karate and anyone who would like to take one of our comprehensive self defense training courses.  We believe that everyone should have these opportunities and with the help of donors like you over the years we've been able to welcome all comers, whether they can pay for classes or not.  Your support will help us continue to do this for another year.  If you've helped before and don't want to read any further, you can just click on the following link to become one of my sponsors with your tax deductible donation to Sun Dragon: 

 http://sundragon.dojiggy.com/pledge/index.cfm?mid=GRAHAM

What's a Kickathon?  It's like a Walkathon, only with kicks!  Sun Dragon students will be meeting at Zilker Park in Austin on November 6th to raise money but also to endure the physical challenge of throwing around 1500 kicks and punches (the youngest kids will be kicking and punching 200 times, older kids 500 times, adults 1000 times and those of us who are helping the kids will try to hit the 1500 mark).  As if that's not enough, we'll also have the chance to join in a fun run before the event or do kata for half an hour.  If you sign up as one of my sponsors then I'll be kicking and punching and kata-ing for you as well as for the dojo (I won't be running--there are limits to what I'll do for the school).

Training with Intention

This is a quote taken from Jeffrey Brooks book, Rhinoceros Zen:  Zen Martial Arts and the Path to Freedom:

In karate practice every move you make must be made with
intention. You can’t just reposition your body in the air, adopt the
posture of a punch or a block and think you are really training
karate. In karate your intention itself is what you are training.
A kata is a sequence of fighting moves performed against a series
of imaginary opponents. It is one of the two primary methods for
training in the traditional martial arts—not only on Okinawa, but in
China and Japan as well. If kata is trained without intention in the
movements it will not be useful for self- defense. If you are training
your intention, not just your posture, it is an effective means of
perfecting fighting skills.

Kata: Obsession in the Pursuit

Kata should be approach(ed) as art on one level, and the pursuit of the kata should, in my opinion, have all of the elements that I touched on: a fever, desire, even obsession. The pursuit of kata should involve the desire(,) the desire to achieve more tha(n) skill, but become art. . And let me be clear the word obsession, it teeters on imbalance. Hmmmm… teetering on the edge of imbalance – where the action is in pursuit of art.

                                            --Obsession in the Pursuit, from The Striking Post

It's a tough line to walk--there has to be an obsessive element to raise any pursuit to an art form that causes other parts of your life to suffer by comparison.  You don't want that to create an imbalance that makes your life too one-dimensional but you do want it to create a spirit of freedom that allows you to take chances and explore, both in your art and in the rest of your life.  Where you draw the line (and how well you hue to it) will be different for everyone.

Advent, Self Defense and Vulnerability

Vulnerability is a hellish word to type. 

A friend and training partner (well, okay, she outranks me) over at Sun Dragon writes a regular column on self defense and women over at McSweeney's that she calls Bitchslap:  A Column About Women and Fighting.  And it's always a rewarding read when she comes out with a new one.  Her latest is something of a meditation on the vulnerability (there it is again) of the human body and the really unfortunate fact that there are so many folks out there who like to take advantage of those vulnerabilities for their own power and gain.  She's cynical, sarcastic and funny and she uses those powers to consider vulnerability in terms of Jesus and his becoming human and Christmas all wrapped up in a healthy dose of what in the hell was he thinking when he agreed to be human? 

The natural readership of this article are the kids who are skeptical, those wacky atheists, or just the plain irreverent types like me who love a good twisting of a traditional story for non-traditional purposes.  But for any of you out there in the Christian camp with a thicker than average skin, you might find it interesting as well, a nice little push into the deep end of thinking about the full ramifications of the incarnation.  Sure, we've all had the occasional giggle about Jesus and the more scatological aspects of being human, but I think if you're going to believe that your God became man and dwelt among us, it's a good exercise to keep in mind what all that entails, Tidings of Comfort and, Uh,:

I grew up reciting the Nicene creed, which relates how Christ came down from heaven, and after some not entirely clear interaction between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (the Second Ecumenical Council was pretty vague about it), he became man. I've often wondered if Jesus really knew what he was getting into when he signed up for this. It must have been something like having your dad tell you he's buying you a new car for graduation, and it turns out to be a Pontiac Sunbird. I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed.

Another Post About Kata

And it's such a cop-out--I'm just going to redirect you to another good post from Ikigai blog, that is a compact and thought-provoking little piece on kata.  I think the biggest principle the writer touches on that is too often ignored is the idea that as karate students we should think about our kata, struggle with them, figure out what they're all about and then keep going back to them and thinking about them some more.  It's one thing to do the basic mental crunching of learning a new kata, another thing to get to a point of physical proficiency, but that's just the starting point, the jumping off point to learning from the kata.

How is Your Kata Reading Going?

A kata is like a book; one that explores the experiences and ideas of warriors from past generations. They encompass not just rote movements, but core principles that made these classical combatants so effective. As Hayes Sensei likes to say, “if you read a book many times over many years, the words never change. But if you are growing, the meaning and understanding of the book will grow with you.”

Cannibalism Today: I Still Prefer to Eat Johnson

Casual reading of someone's blog this morning ended with a Donner Party reference.  Sadly, this means I must embed the following Python sketches featuring cannibalism (Frank, I think we've got an eater!):

The Spirit of Christmas

The Spirit of Christmas (Jesus v. Santa) is the original South Park pilot that allegedly made the rounds in LA and eventually landed them their Comedy Central gig (apparently it was made as a video Christmas card for a Fox studios executive).  It is definitely not work safe and not safe for viewing in front of the children--well, unless you're cool with your kids hearing classic lines such as, "Dude, don't say 'pigfucker' in front of Jesus."  If so, then have at it.  I pretty much stopped watching South Park after the second or third season but this is just classic, unexpurgated, thoroughly irreverent South Park fun:

California Stars

I may have posted this tune before but I absolutely love it.  It's Wilco's version of a Woody Guthrie song that they originally recorded with Billy Bragg on their first Mermaid Avenue album.  While I think the version on the album is a little bit better, I much prefer this live video to the one with scrolling fancy lyrics and stock photos (if you can look away, follow the Youtube link in the video below and play the video for the song with the couple sitting in a field of some sort of grain leaning into each other):

Why Do You Do Kata?

I'm currently learning a new kata in karate, a particularly challenging one named Seienchin Kata that is turning me hither and yon, this way and that as I try to piece it together.  That, combined with some recent conversations about the application of various moves got me thinking about why we do kata and so I've been doing a bit of reading online and from books this morning.  I think that there are a number of different reasons we do kata, none of them are mutually exclusive and in order to get the full benefit of kata training I think we need to focus on different aspects at different times.  I'd like to touch on three or four different things and then end by pointing you to a very interesting blog post on kata application versus performance I ran across a few minutes ago.

Killer Mac-n-Cheese

This recipe is not universal, as it requires a Central Market in your town (preferably across the street from your karate dojo so that you can far too easily pop in after class and grab a container).  CC has this incredible mac-n-cheese blend that you can buy by the pound and cook yourself (they also sell it in smaller cooked portions, great for a meal for one person or a side for two).  What I usually do is buy a pound-plus and then serve it on a couple of different occasions.  This is a super-quick route to great mac-n-cheese--feel free to scoff at me for using the microwave.

1.  Buy mac-n-cheese from Central Market

2.  Take it home

3.  Densely pack about half a pound of mac-n-cheese into a broiler-safe gratin dish--it will be slightly mounded but that's okay; just make sure it doesn't overlap the sides.  Turn on your broiler (I use my toaster oven).

4.  Microwave for around a minute-and-a-half until the macaroni is warm through and slightly bubbly.  It should reduce down to fit the dish as it melts down.  

5.  Sprinkle the top of the dish with a healthy layer of bread crumbs--I've used Progresso Italian Herb bread crumbs because that's what I have on hand and because I like the finer small crumbs rather than something coarser. 

6.  Sprinkle the cajun blend of spices of your choice.  I use a blend called Tchoupitoulas that a friend gave me--supposedly this is Paul Prudhomme's version of Emeril's "essence".  I'm rather liberal with it (as in all things) because I like a little heat. 

7.  Stick it under the broiler.  Since I use the toaster oven, it takes a little longer.  If you're using your oven's broiler you'll need to keep a close eye on it as it will probably brown within a minute or two--you want it brown and bubbly, not black and carbony.  

That's it!  Last night I chopped up some pickled green chiles I had on hand and this was yet another revelation.  If you like the green mac-n-cheese at the Alamo Drafthouse you should try this--I'm thinking that chopping them up and adding them after the microwave step might be an even better way to do this but I haven't tried this yet (the macaroni is a little too lumpy and unwieldy to try this before nuking).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Alice's Restaurant

Rather than turning this whole Thanksgiving thing into some sort of maudlin exercise in thinking about, oh-my-god-I'm-so-thankful-for-this-and-that, I'm going with the lighthearted approach.  Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful and stuff, but I've been known on occasion to over-do it.  So today I return to a Thanksgiving tradition I've all but ignored for many years now--listening to Arlo Guthrie sing through Alice's Restaurant.  So today, in honor of and in full thanks for father rapers, dog-sniffin' prints, 8x10 color glossy photographs, forms and pencils, circles, arrows, Group W, psychiatrists and all-American kids from New York City, I give you Arlo Guthrie.  Happy Thanksgiving to all:

World Toilet Day

People need clean water to live a healthy life.  That's pretty much a no-brainer but the corollary that we don't always think about is that people also need a sanitary way to get rid of human waste--the lack of a sanitary toilet system can negate the gains made when people get clean drinking water.  While somewhere around 880 million people worldwide don't have access to clean drinking water, 2.5 billion don't have sanitary facilities. 

November 19th has been declared "World Toilet Day" by a group of nonprofits which are trying to raise awareness of the two-fold nature of the clean water problem.  You can find out more about the problem and what is being done to address it at Water for People.

Balancing Act

In order to balance out what some might view as the not so terribly light-hearted previous post, I give you The Mighty Boosh and The Soup Song:

Never Shall I Forget

Elie Wiesel wrote this of his memory of the life that ended after his first night in Auschwitz.  As my friend Janice mentioned on Facebook, these are the images and thoughts that stay with you forever, the ones that remind us what human beings are capable of doing to one another:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.  Never shall I forget that smoke.  Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.  Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.  Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself.  Never.

                                                                                            from Night

Elie Wiesel's "Night"

There are some books that defy description and Night is one of those.  Of all the Holocaust accounts I've read, Wiesel's is the most harrowing because he not only evokes the agony of the physical suffering of the camps, he also presents the full force of the spiritual suffering.  The excerpt I'm quoting today is at the beginning of the book, before the Nazis have entered his town, and it comes from a conversation between the young protagonist and Moshe the Beadle, a local homeless man who is also an adept in the ways of cabbala (Before the quote, I do have to acknowledge my friend from college, April, who I believe first introduced me to Wiesel--thanks for cluing me in to yet another author who has consistently depressed the hell out of me and given me exquisite tastes of the horror that man can visit upon his fellow man!):

After that day I saw him often.  he explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

"Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating.  "That is the true dialogue.  Man questions God and God answers.  But we don't understand His answers.  We can't understand them.  Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death.  You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself."

"And why do you pray, Moshe?"  I asked him.

"I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions."

A Few More Thoughts on Asher Lev

This is probably going to be more about me than about Asher Lev, which is fine--I think Asher's gotten plenty of press over the years and he won't miss the attention.  On reading the final chapter a couple of days ago I experienced all over again why I loved this book so much the first time I read it, though I think it became more poignant on subsequent readings.  Asher is an Hasidic Jew, caught between the warring traditions of his religion and his art and his father's inability to reconcile himself to the choices that Asher makes.  The first time I read the story I was a student in a small Bible institute, tucked away in the Adirondack Mountains.  Though I was there by my own choice and I wasn't consciously feeling any conflicts between the way I thought and the way of life demanded of students at the B.I., the tensions in Asher Lev resonated with me and I'm pretty certain I cried reading that last chapter.  I had lived that conflict between the expectations of family and friends and the pointing of my internal compass in the past and I may have even figured that those tensions were going to become a part of my life again in the future.  

Leaves

The pink almost makes it too hard for me to look at this one:

More Karen Armstrong

Saturday mornings I usually wake up to the NPR show Sound Opinions.  Sunday mornings, I frequently wake up to Speaking of Faith.  Both shows are pretty cool because they introduce me to either music or religious perspectives that I may not be that familiar with.  On this morning's Speaking of Faith, there was an extended interview from 2004 with Karen Armstrong--you can listen to it in its entirety without edits at this link (1:26:00):  Unedited Interview with Karen Armstrong.  For other things Armstrong, check out her TED presentation from back in 2008: