The "ME" Time In Karate Classes And In Writing

NaBloPoMo Post #17

Some of the girls in Women's Karate class that I teach

I get an immense joy and satisfaction from teaching the women's program in our dojo (karate school). It's especially true when students come up to me after class to tell me that they had fun and loved learning the lesson. Better yet, the satisfaction comes when women tell me how they were exhausted, overwhelmed with work or upset about something in their personal life and almost didn't come in for class that night. But they made an effort to come and were all the more happy that they did.

That hour or two of karate training is the personal time each person in the class deserves, the "me" time that nobody can interfere with. We often advice that students leave their life problems off the mat and concentrate fully on what they're doing. The problems will be there still when they leave the mat, but for the time of the class, it's only about them. It's amazing how many people leave a little happier.

Writing should take much the same form. It should be the "me" time of the writer that nobody can take away. For that time that you're writing, whether it's half an hour, an hour or half a day, you should not be thinking about anything else. Easier said than done, but all the more satisfying when accomplished.



In our dojo during a class. That's me in front, and my co-writer and dojo sister Tina Moss on the right. I think we were still brown belts at the time.