First,

Hi.

            In this diary entry I would like to share with you some of good and bad moments that I have experienced during my Karate life.

When I was a kid I was a bit overweight (I’m being nice to myself now) I tried all sorts of sports like soccer, handball, basketball and swimming. I always gave up. I got so mad at myself for letting the team down and the other kids kept letting me know that it was all my fault (which didn’t really help). Shortly after I gave up on handball I signed up for Karate. In the first class I thought that the instructor was going to kill us. I mean we were jumping for almost ten minutes, really brutal stuff ;). After the warm up we started the class and I kept making mistakes. I thought doing gedan-barai fast was just something for magical black belts. Even though I was making mistakes I felt good because no one was making fun of me for it and I wasn’t ruining anything for anybody. After the class in the locker room, again no one made fun of me (the locker room is usually where all the bullying happens). After a short three months of killer warm-ups (and five push-ups in almost every class) I received my half yellow belt.

I remember skipping home like a little fairy princess and yelling "I have the yellow belt in Karate". I was so proud and it felt so good. I hadn’t given up I had continued and achieved something. At that moment I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop training and I wouldn’t give up until I had gotten my black belt. I was only ten at the time but already I had big plans and an even bigger stomach. Instead of playing soccer with the other kids at school I found myself a little corner and did Kihon Kata (I wonder why they were mean to me). Today March 2, it is almost a month until my sensei Masao Kawasoe comes to Iceland and I try for my shodan. Coming this close to my goal of seven years has made me take a road trip down the highway of my memories (teehee).

One of the sadder memories I have was when my sensei told me to sit out on grading. My passion for Karate had been torn out of me, stamped on, lit on fire and thrown into the ocean. I even came close to quitting. My dad had recently given me a book about Karate "Shotokan Free Fighting Techniques" by Keinosuke Enoeda and Charles Mack. I went to my other sensei (I have many pretty ones ;)) and asked him if he knew anything about Enoeda sensei. He told me that it had been Enoeda that graded him from shodan up until sandan. About five minutes into our conversation my sensei offered to loan me Enoeda sensei’s bio and before I knew it I was sitting at home ignoring my math homework and reading "Enoeda-Tiger of Shotokan karate" by Rod Butler. Let me just say, what a fantastic book! It’s filled with pictures and fun stories and facts about this great karate sensei Keinosuke Enoeda. That was such a turning point in my karate life. Reading this book didn’t just give me my passion for karate back but also enhanced it. Even though I never met the man he’s probably one of the more influential characters in my life. You see, recently I made a change in my academic studies. I changed from arts to sports. I did this so that I could become a better Karate instructor and to gain a better understanding of how the body works. This would have never happened had I not read Enoeda sensei’s bio. In fact, had I not read his bio by now karate would probably just be another “sport” I gave up on.

Anyways, time for some happier stuff, don’t you think? Of course I have many good friends in karate and with that follow many good memories. I am not however going to start listing them all here because that would just take forever. I’ll just tell you guys one. I was in a gasshuko one year ago and Sensei Poh Lim had just given a big speech about how inspiration goes both ways. Meaning that the instructor needs to obtain inspiration from the students and the students need to obtain inspiration from the teacher. Then he started to count quite loudly and the entire class went bananas, everybody was trying their best. The energy in the room was amazing. After the last Kiai he pointed at me (and a friend of mine) and told us to line up in front of the class; three clubs watching maybe 40 - 50 people, brown belts only. Poh Lim Sensei then said this is very good and hajime and again the two of us went bananas and biggest Kiai of our lives. That was an awesome moment for me I had stood out in a huge brown belt class.

As always I hope you enjoyed the entry.

Ossu