Clever Magazine,Spr'09 " Getting in Touch with my Inner Ninja " (www.clevermag.com)

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Getting in Touch with My Inner Ninja

by Melissa Westemeier

Growing up bookish and asthmatic and harboring fanstastical aspirations of becoming a ballerina, I never perceived myself as athletic. Picked second to last for gym class teams (the last kid picked was even smaller and less coordinated than me, with coke-bottle glasses, an accessory that team captains deemed less acceptable than my inhaler) and being the oldest daughter of a mother who never played team sports and a father disappointed to sire only daughters, I encouraged to participate in “individual sports.” In the Seventies, this meant riding a bike and swimming. The exception was a brief foray into basketball—by design to impress my father. quit after one season—deciding it was less humiliating to sit as a spectator at the girls’ games than to sit as benchwarmer, especially when our team had a 30-point advantage.

My exercise came from dance classes, tap, ballet and jazz. The stretching, turning, leaping, and balancing came easily—I could nail a double pirouette, I could pull off a flawless pas de chat. I took years and years of lessons—even into college. The sad truth was I lacked grace. My movements were fine, but the connection between the steps—the moment that separates the prima donnas from the chorus members—well, let’s just say I never got to see the front part of the stage near the audience.

As an adult I practiced yoga, went power-walking, and took up bowling and golf. I married a sports fanatic and gave birth to three sons all destined to follow in their father’s footsteps across baseball diamonds, basketball courts and football fields. I am the undisputed “unnatural” athlete of our family.

We were quick to enroll our firstborn in a karate school a friend opened. The advantages of self-defense, self-control and self-discipline were an easy sell—especially when combined with the promise that kicking and punching would only improve Travis’s coordination and skills for sports.

Sitting on the sidelines of his karate classes, it occurred to me that karate looked a lot like dancing—the steps went together, lots of kicking, some spinning. But instead of using their arms to frame their faces and extend the lines of their bodies, they balled up their hands into fists and punched and jabbed at the space around them. It looked sort of fun.

“Do you want to try it?” my husband asked me when I mentioned this observation.

“Oh, I don’t know …” I trailed off. The karate classes were male-dominated, mostly high school aged boys. I didn’t relish the thought of looking like a complete dork. Besides, another friend just opened up a yoga studio right next to the karate school …

But my husband, Doug, has flashes of brilliant intuition and last Christmas I opened a bright white karate uniform—stiff cotton pajama pants and tie-around tunic. As the mother of three sons, I wear nothing white so even wearing this uniform seemed a stretch.

“Look, you said you’d like to try it, so I bought you six months of lessons. If you like it, we’ll buy more. If not, well, at least you tried,” Doug explained to me when I expressed my doubts.

“That’s true,” I agreed, tying on the tunic. It was pretty comfortable.

A week later I stood at attention with my fellow karate students, my nerves jangling, my stomach churning, my mouth dry. I’d watched Travis take two years of classes, he was a year away from earning his black belt, so the instructions were simple for me to follow. And then they brought out the big pads and had us partner up.

“Front leg round kick, front kick, jab, punch, hook, punch,” the instructor barked.

My fists and feet pummeled the pad my partner held in front of me. Sweat broke out on my face while I flailed away, each move expertly striking the pad with strength developed from years of hauling around children, groceries and garden mulch.

“Wow—nice kicks!” the assistant instructor complemented me.

“We should trade belts,” my partner said when we switched places, “you’re really good at this. I can never get my kicks to land where they’re supposed to.”

“You have really natural kicks,” the head instructor told me after telling me to aim higher. “You can kick up here,” she gestured with her hand at nose level, “where the black belts kick.”

I returned home exhausted but grinning. “That was a blast!” I crowed to my husband, untying my white karate belt. “I never knew how much fun it could be to hit and kick stuff. And what a work out!”

It turns out that I am a natural athlete under the right circumstances. My inner ninja has been waiting patiently for thirty-six years for me to discover her existence. Karate comes as naturally to me as breathing. It’s fun, it’s easy, and I love it. I’ll never be a prima donna ballerina or a marathon runner or even a city-league-softball player. I’ll probably always be an average bowler and a below average golfer, but I’ve found that I’m a born fighter. My balance and flexibility make my karate moves look graceful. I execute take down and defensive moves with speed that surprises me still. I’ve got physical fitness and endurance to spar and hold my own with the teenaged boys in my class. I’ve begun the journey to earning my black belt and anyone who’s seen a Jackie Chan movie knows that takes a certain level of athleticism.

I have tapped into my inner athlete and she kicks butt! Ai-yah!