I loved going to the dojo and went for nearly a decade 3- 5
times a week. I stayed in shape,
developed flexibility and strength, learned all sorts of new skills, got some
nice belts, and made lots of friends. All three of the kids participated to a greater or lesser degree. Two of them got black belts. Kate then moved onto jitsui which she has trained for half a decade in: David got interested in boxing and trained for a year.
But about 5 years ago (around age 55), my combined hip and back
problems took the fun out of it. After a few years of multiple back spasms and
a very rapid decline in my ability to kick, I made a sad decision. The straw that moved me was when the doctors convinced me that I was going
irreparable damage to my back (since I had one fused-up hip).
This week, the decision got revisited and punctuated. My wife decided to redo parts of the house
and we had to do some cleanup. Sadly, so
sadly, I was confronted with a few piles of old gis and equipment. I stared at it in dismay. I sulked. I put on
my gi for one last time and did a little shadow boxing with front kicks (I can’t do round houses
or side kicks at all anymore).
Then I packed it all up and gave it away. Sad. It was a really fun era for me. I was lucky to have it.
So now it’s just swimming and biking. Ok, swimming and
biking it iS!
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