Though my French isn't good enough to know exactly why, it used to be a long-standing joke in my house that the meaning of our last name, "Baudier" was something akin to "one who rides donkies." However, due to my recent investigations on the internet, I have good reason to believe that the meaning of "Baudier" is something more like "brave warrior" ... which, pardon me for saying, is pretty hard-core (at least compared to "mule rider" or whatever it was). On the other hand, I can't help but laugh at the notion of such a strong name being attached to someone like me. I mean, when I was a child I used to be afraid of everything: elevators, escalators, planes, heights, even toxic mold. And let's face it, how many asthmatic, anemic (hence the bruises), underweight female karate-ka do you know? Sometimes it really makes me laugh how unsuited I must seem to the life of a karate-ka.
You know, having trained for several years now, I've seen quite a few people pass though dojos on a bad mission so to speak. In all of their actions and words and ways they present themselves to others it's clear that they are putting in effort for the sole purpose of getting something to which they feel entitled. Some people want a rank, some want to win a competition, but this type of mind is always expecting something in return. Often once such a person obtains his desired result he'll quit, and even more commonly, a karate-ka who thinks like this will fail at her mission and get very angry about injustices comitted. All I can figure is people like that must be very used to success. Perhaps one of the small advantages to being a born weakling is that I never have to worry about feeling entitled to anything.
To me karate is like a fall thunderstorm. Some days it waters my garden and brings in good weather, while other days I get pummeled with hail and flash floods that seem like they could shake the life out of my frail body. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that I love both training and storms in the same way. I do my best to prepare for both, but regardless of how else I fair, nothing could make me more satisfied than simply surviving one day of it to experience another. When you really think about it, compared to the strength of a hurricane (or the wrath of a sensei who can count REALLY fast) we're all pretty weak.
Perhaps it's just the low iron levels in my blood, but there's nothing like reaching that hot-cold calm feeling somewhere between what I thought was my maximum and the final seiza of the evening. When training gets to that point I feel equal to anyone.
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