The Kata, Part 1: Emotional Enemies
Last December, I got a bit of a health scare.
Well, maybe more like a final health warning.
My body yelled, “Yudit! If you do not start taking care of me, things are going to get bad!”
Ouch!
So, I did. And there is a long list of things that I needed to do and started doing. I am not going to bore you with that.
Needless to say that one of the things that absolutely needed to happen was NO SUGAR!
Off I went.
And that was challenging. And I have learned that the dragon is not just sugar. There are so many emotional enemies, flying dragons, that need to be slayed along the way to not touching or justifying “a little sugar.”
And that was challenging. And I have learned that the dragon is not just sugar. There are so many emotional enemies, flying dragons, that need to be slayed along the way to not touching or justifying “a little sugar.”
Today, I understood how what I have seen for years as slaying dragons (and if you ask my friends, I am constantly saying, “Another day slaying dragons!”) is helped by practicing Karate Kata.
1) When you are just learning Kata, is it hard to see the enemy. You may think it is one, but it is most likely many more and coming from different angles.
2) The more you learn and practice Kata, the easier it is to see the different enemies and the directions that they are approaching you from, but they are still hard to count.
3) Once you have reached a deeper proficiency in a Kata, not only can you see the enemies, and know where they are coming from, you understand the damage that you did to them, and whether or not they are just lying on the floor recovering while you deal with another, getting ready to come back, or whether you have really knocked them out and can safely walking away.
Yes, the end of the Kata is that moment when you know that you can safely walk away from this fight at this moment.
