Karate-do

 So when I said I was dedicating the first week of June to "Japan Week", what I really meant was the third week of June. Ha! I am finally ready to jump right in though, and am kicking Japan Week off with our once in a lifetime experience of taking Karate in Japan!

I feel like I was barely able to keep up over the last two years with all of the big going's on for the family, but didn't get a chance to blog about some of our favorite Japanese experiences and places over the long run. This is what I hope to accomplish now.

While we were in Tokyo, we were very excited to jump on the opportunity to have Porter take Karate- instructed by several fantastic Sensei who also just happened to be highly decorated and pretty much amazing, winning competitions the world over! These guys were no regular Joe down at the Community Center (no offense to Joe at the Community Center). I'm just making a point that these guys were literally championship teachers. It was an amazing and authentic opportunity that we had to take!

I had also been looking for something special that Porter and I could do together, to have be "our thing"; so with the encouragement of a good friend I decided to do it along with Porter! I couldn't ask him to try new things if I wasn't willing to try them too, huh?!

It was a fantastic workout, and excellent for our brains as well with trying to concentrate on remembering the steps, the details of doing them correctly, and trying to function in the class that largely conducted in Japanese! The language aspect was actually one of my favorites as it definitely helped us feel the uniqueness of the experience. They did speak to us in English when trying to give us individual instruction etc, but all of the Do-Jo etiquette, counting, names of the Katas, etc. was done in Japanese and we were expected to learn most of this language. Full disclosure, aside from  my basic set of Good Morning, Good Night, Thank you, Excuse Me, Sorry, - all of the rest of Japanese I knew was Karate Japanese. At least that's something, huh? 

 Overall, it was quite the experience, and if I'm being honest- kind of stressful but in a "proud of your accomplishment" kind of way. For the testing we had to go clear across Tokyo to some huge Martial Arts/ Athletic Center where we tested with all of the local Japanese Karate Students in front of a bunch of Masters (our Sensei being one of them), all the way up to the Tokyo Grand Master! (I think anyway, as once again it was all in Japanese:) Talk about intimidating!! For a bit there it was definitely a case of "what did we get ourselves into"!  

After our testing, they would do  a separate belting ceremony at our Do-Jo where we were awarded by the Grand Master. It was a bit of an intense experience, and I was very proud of Porter for hanging in there! Unfortunately we only were able to do it for the first year that we lived in Japan, as Porter broke his arm twice during the next year, so we had to quit. Those are the breaks though sometimes! (Literally:) We will always remember this experience though!