Dear Kids,
After watching SBE in class for 6 months and helping him practice and seeing him go from white to white-with-black-stripe to orange belts, I’ve realized that I’ve been bitten by the karate bug. I spoke with SBE’s coach, and they have adult classes. So, this evening, I headed over to the class and had my first adult lesson (I did take a few classes when I was young at the JCC, but I didn’t get hooked).
First of all, I have to say that I was shocked at how hard it was. I was expecting to come in and ace the first day since, as I’ve said, I’ve been helping SBE practice and I’ve been watching his classes closely. Yea, I was very wrong. It’s really hard, which just ups my pride in the work SBE has put into his practice. I’m also in a lot of pain…I didn’t realize how many muscles you use for karate and how few I use regularly.
There was one person with a white-with-black-stripe belt, but the rest were purple, red, brown, and black (the coach said that this was a more fundamental class…hmmm) so it was pretty humiliating to be standing there having no idea what I’m doing while everyone around me was moving with ease. But one of the instructors came over and walked me through stuff, so that was nice.
I haven’t really talked about it here, but I’ve been on and off Noom for over a year now, and one of the things they talk about is frustration tolerance. They give two examples: one is a person who decides that they want to start taking Zumba classes to help with their weight loss and fitness. They attend one class and get so frustrated they can’t dance along with the rest of the class that the drop out and never return (low frustration tolerance). Conversely, another person tried Zumba and even though they felt embarrassed, frustrated, and self-conscious, they decide to stick it out for a few more lessons. Low and behold, after several lessons, the second person is dancing along and doing great (high frustration tolerance).
I had this idea in the front of my mind all through the class, and I’m committed for now. I just signed up for the class, so I will give it until the end of the session. If I see no improvement, then I won’t sign up for the next session…but if I do, I will sign up. I’m thinking that I have high frustration tolerance, at least for now.
It takes years to go from a white belt to a black belt. At your age, SBE, it’s no biggie. You won’t even be in college when you get your black belt if you keep up the way you’ve been doing. Me? Not so much. I’ll be really old by that time. Does it matter? Nope. And that’s today’s lesson. , remember that I started something new later in life. Age doesn’t matter…passion does. No matter how old you get, it’s never too late to try something new, pick up a new hobby, or step out of your comfort zone. Just do it, enjoy it, and don’t look back at how many years it took you to get started or how few you have left to continue it. Carpe diem and all of that.
Love,
Aba
