First karate class of the year

It could have been flu. It could have been something more sinister. Whatever it was, it came just before the new year. My voice hadn't fully recovered yet, nor had my energy levels. The karate class was more of a challenge than it would usually be. The joint and muscle pain that followed was a reminder that I had yet to recover fully.

The focus of the class was self-defence drills for the upcoming grading. I had hoped to move up a belt, but was given a work shift that made it impossible to attend. Maybe that's a good thing. Going through the drills with a partner was confusing, and he became confused too. The problem with having learned wing chun for six years, and practised it almost daily during those six years, was that those movements became a default response. As much as I tried to stick to practising karate, something within me wanted to keep doing wing chun.

A woman wearing a white belt, marking her as a novice, was telling people senior to her what to do. When the instructor had the class going through katas, she apparently knew gekisai dai ichi, gekisai dai ni and sanchin. As a white belt, she should only know gekisai dai ichi. I saw her talking to the instructor's wife during the class, as a friend rather than a student talking to an assistant instructor. Then, I understood what had happened.

Any sense of competitiveness quickly evaporated. In my own time, I practice shorinji-ryu karate, as well as goju-ryu. The tai chi I practise may be having an influence on my karate. I'm also, as already stated, the man who can't stop doing wing chun in a karate class. As much as I don't like to think about it, I also have autism spectrum disorder. Why should I feel compelled to compete with someone who is not on the same journey as me? The coloured belts don't matter either. Getting through the next class without feeling absolutely terrible afterwards matters.