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I arrive a few minutes late to the dojo, bad form, but I’m only here to observe the kids class that begins two hours before mine. And yet I’m barely out of my shoes and there is Dori, who says, [...]

I’m hiking up the driveway in a denim mini-skirt, knee-high leather boots, and an ivory tweed dress coat. There’s an R.E.I. daypack on my back with hip and chest straps, a handlamp across my [...]

I miss one class and come back to see the other two white belts have red bands on their belts. Another has a patch on his gi and oh, the beastly concept of competition rears its head. What does [...]

[Welcome Seattlest readers! Since moving to The South, I’ve learned that grits stands for Girls Raised in The South. Good luck cooking yours, and don’t hold back on the cheese!]

[Dear, patient readers. Bear with me as I explore this world of karate. I cannot seem to stop writing about it in gross detail. I hope, at least, there is a kernel of the teachings offered in the [...]

I keep remembering things that Hanshi said during class that slipped my mind when I sat down to write about them. For instance, the fact that all the katas are forms that were invented by a [...]

In addition to practicing at home, I’ve taken to stretching and warming up before I drive to class, just to focus my mind a little bit. I sing along with my recording of Khenpo Tsultrim’s “Songs [...]

Hanshi begins with a lecture about katas, “our most formal form.” He says outsiders call them the dance of karate, but really, the katas are imaginative combat versus multiple attackers. Hanshi [...]

All day I think about the eggshell. I think about how easily perfection cracks when it is only for its own sake. I think about my nature as a person, the ways I learn best, and the limits of [...]

“What do you do with the shell after you’ve cracked an egg?” Hanshi says. We are in the dojo and this time I remembered to bow. I know now to call him Hanshi or Sir and I also know never to stand [...]