Previously…1.3 – Fledgeling Author
I started doing karate at university and enjoyed it until the training dojo was moved to a farm outside town. I had to stop training because I only had a bicycle for transport and the farm was quite a ways out and classes were at night. But I continued fencing and became reasonably adept at it, until my left leg gave out and started to collapse out from under me!
I’ve always had problems with my back, having quite a serious scoliosis curve to the right and front and looking back at photos of myself as a child and even at university, I realise that a comparison to the hunchback of Notre Dame wouldn’t be far out! So I’ve had quite a lot of physiotherapy in my life and even went for chiropractic adjustment and more unknown treatments (Body Stress Release – although it was still in its infancy then).
I ended up going to a wholistic doctor, a qualified medical general practitioner, who had also studied chiropractic and acupuncture and only uses homeopathic medication. Eventually though, he referred me to a specialist, and after being sent from one to the other, after five of them kept on telling me that there was nothing wrong with my back, let’s cut the leg and have a look, I ended up having an operation that removed a blob of fatty tissue with its own blood supply that had built up in my leg and resulted in me having lots of scar tissue and not solving the original problem of pain and collapse!
When I was working, I eventually found a martial art system that advertised karate, tai chi, weapons and health and after talking to the instructor for five minutes, I knew that I had found what I wanted to do. He gave treatments that worked the whole body and after a few, we determined that a nerve was pinching in my lower back, the sciatic nerve, the one that feeds the whole leg! No wonder the whole leg would go into a spasm and literally collapse out from underneath me! Of course, the fact that in fencing you rest on your left leg the whole time had lots to do with aggravating it! I never could sit on my legs for long.
So, after a while, I wanted to find out more about the whole system. Their full time training headquarters were three hours’ drive away from me, so when I had the opportunity of going on a week winter training camp (gashuku), I decided to stay a couple of days extra and find out exactly what they do there.
I ended up staying for four days and didn’t want to go home!
At this stage, I had already moved out, away from my old bachelor husband, were staying in my own house, and was financially secure (the cushy computer job at the local government office – re-writing the database system for their Fleet Management System).
So there was nothing holding me back.
When I went back home, I gave in a month’s notice at work, started packing and three months later had moved to the training facility on a farm out in the middle of nowhere.
My mom freaked!
“You can’t do karate full time! How are you going to live??!! You’re earning a good salary! You can’t do this!”
She nearly disinherited me on the spot! But I was determined. I had always wanted to do martial arts, but had never felt inclined to go and study in China or Japan. And here was a full time centre, right on my doorstep! I knew deep down that this is what I had always wanted to do.
It was going to be damn hard work, and I’m not really the physical sort. But it just felt right, somehow. I sold everything I didn’t need, cashed in policies and got the money for the first six months training together.
So, there I was, for the first month, sleeping on the floor in the dojo (training hall), packing up my bed every morning, and digging a septic tank for the senior instructor’s new house, through a 3m (9ft) stone bank with an iron bar and a pick axe!
For the next period, my life consisted of martial art in life. Training, working, thinking, eating.
“Karate Kid” would be a good starting point! Just multiply it by fifteen!
The whole centre was based on a community idea, like a kibbutz. There were several families staying there and we did everything ourselves. The building of houses and other buildings, vegetable gardens, sheep, everything. We were reasonably self sufficient. And no electricity. There was not even electricity pylons allowed over the farm! Everything was kept as natural as possible. Some of the houses had solar panels for lights, and we used gas and wood stoves for cooking and heating up our shower water!
We had our own private school for the kids and because of my background, I ended up being one of the teachers.
After a month or three in the training hall, I was moved to a room of my own in a building like a backpackers hostel, called the Lodge.
Seeing that I was a lot older than most of the students there and had already had a life (I was 32), it was felt that I could progress a little bit faster than they were used to, so after another month I was allocated a place of my own! A little caravan just off the main complex (and not so far away from a senior instructor’s house, so my music couldn’t be too loud!), but I was on my own!
And this is where it all started happening.
My stay in this little caravan was the beginning of a whole new life for me…
A rebirth…
…and a traumatic one at that!