Remembrance

Today I feel strong.  Not fat.  Not slow.  Not awkward.  Not clumsy.  Strong.  It’s been a very long time since I felt this kind of strength.  Years maybe.  Since my last half-marathon.  Which was in March of 2010.  I’d forgotten how it felt to be at ease in my own skin.  I’ve been fighting one injury or another for almost five years now.  There have been little pockets of wellness – but I took up running because my wrist was too damaged to fight – and eventually to climb.  I took up biking because my feet and ankles were too damaged to run.  And in-between I’ve lost teeth, gained weight, acquired an allergy to my life… And I’ve given up a lot.  Most of the things I’ve given up were ideas of myself – a concept of myself rocking a bikini, the impression of myself as a quality athlete, the idea that I am something special.  I am, and I’m not.  And who the hell cares if I can rock a bikini?

Anyway, today was someone else’s black belt test.  I never went through the traditional black belt test.  When my teacher died back in 2007, I was a couple months away from my test.  I knew what I was supposed to know.  I had a lot of sparring time under my belt.  I was just about ready.  That was then.  Now I realize that I have forgotten most of my techniques.  I remember the Kata only because I loved the Kata.  And it’s been years since I sparred – really sparred – anyone.  I often wonder if I deserve my rank.  If I was as sharp as I was back then… maybe.  Now?  I don’t know.  But today I was the practice dummy for someone else.  And it was interesting to both recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each technique – including the ones I didn’t know – and to allow myself to succumb to those techniques anyway.  Many of them are great techniques that would work well in any alley.  Many more of them were created in a dojo and would get the practitioner killed in the real world.  This is not an unknown thing.  But it is often unspoken.  I am ok with not knowing 100 techniques that do not work.  But that isn’t why I feel strong.

I was the designated sparring partner for this test.  And for the first time in a very long time – perhaps because of the amount of time I’ve spent on the heavy bag lately – I felt in the groove.  He got the better of me in a couple of clashes.  I got the better of him in a couple more.  It was very close.  Very.  And if we had been going full strength, it probably would have been different.  For both of us.  But as it was, we both had a chance to draw on the training we’ve received.  And the well I tapped was deep.  Far deeper than I remember it being.  I had moves I never remembered using in my previous matches.  I had a presence of mind that I barely remember even in my best of matches.  I could feel my breathing, it was actually the most challenging part, and I could feel how it changed my energy and how when I calmed it, just a little, how my reflexes sped up and my vision sharpened and my movements became more defined.

The adrenaline was pumping very hard.  For about 8 minutes probably – shorter than I expected – my adrenaline was doing a steady drip into my system, keeping me literally on my toes.  I’d planned for this to be at least 15 minutes.  I’d trained for it to be 15 minutes.  I’m so glad it wasn’t 15 minutes.  My heart would have exploded.  And my heart normally beats at 58 beats per minute.  It is not a flabby heart.  But the extra time was unnecessary.  Because of the quality.  The quality of this match was amazing.

I grin when I get a good hit – sending or receiving.  A solid move that has good targeting and excellent execution will get a smile out of me – even if it is me getting hit.  I don’t remember when this started happening – when I started to grin during a fight.  People tell me it is intimidating – that to face off on someone who is grinning madly at them in a fight is unnerving.  The grin, it means I am in the moment.  It means that I am nowhere else but there – focused and alive and completely present.  It happens without me even thinking about it.  It means I am serious.

I was very serious in this match.

I needed this.  Last week I went and filed for the restraining order against my neighbor.  It was humiliating.  Dehumanizing.  And misogynistic.  I got the order – when he admitted to beating on my door while high on meth, oh and he had the hospital blood tests to prove it, the judge stopped asking questions and started signing.  Still, is that what I need to protect me?  A piece of paper that says “stay away or else”?  Because I know I can do better with that.  I know I have the strength and the ability to hurt someone – to damage people who threaten me.  I know that I wanted to get the order to protect him – to give him concrete reasons to stay away from me.  And to protect me if ever I did need to physically defend myself.  But the process…

The process left me sick.  As though I would vomit – for almost two days.  I had to submit to a kind of humiliation that I do not think any judge or founding father or civil rights lawyer could understand – not unless they were female and forced to describe in detail the kind of sexual harassment I experienced to a bunch of complete strangers while the sexual harasser stood there next to you and called you a liar.  Because that is what happened.  And I allowed it.

I felt violated – all over again.
I also felt relieved once the order was received.  But humiliating myself to get something I want is not my modus operandi.  I have walked away from much more over much less.

Why should I have to submit myself to a completely different set of rules just because I don’t have a goddamn cock?  Why should I have to allow myself to be publicly denigrated for protection?  Males don’t generally have that problem.

And I know that I could physically take care of myself.  I knew it wasn’t necessary.  I knew that if I needed to, I could hurt him.  And I did it anyway.

I needed this test.  It wasn’t my test.  But I was still being evaluated for my ability and my strength.  My skills were still on display.

And they were satisfactory.

I. Am. Not. A. Victim.

I am not.  I need to remember that, because sometimes it gets difficult.  I feel like so much is happening out of my control and I am just along for the ride.  And that is true.  But that does not make me a victim.  It makes me human.

I am going to start working toward feeling strong more often.  This is healthy.  This is right.  This is good.  And I need good.  I want good.  I deserve good.

And that is something else I need to remember.