By now, it should come as no surprise to most of you that I have been odd my whole life. As a child I spent much of my summers either freely roaming my neighborhood with bare feet or indoors making macro or micro-sized art, often while listening to my sisters' broadway tapes and CDs without their knowing. Usually each summer was a different medium for me to mess around with. When I was five or so my dad showed me how to make paper, the next year I was consumed with water colors, then colored pencils, then pastels, even At age 12 I had resorted to a full scale acrylic mural across my bedroom walls. However, due to having lost almost all my art made prior to 2005 in the flood, there were several years that had neatly dissipated in my imperfect memory. Ironically, these were probably some of the longest held art obsessions of my seven to eleven year old life. As a testament to these years, amongst the children's books and rubber snakes that surfaced in that box, I recovered three of my most prized miniature sculptures, which I used to spend hours a day producing.
I had made many miniature metal sculptures like my otter, at my father's dental lab, first sculpting wax versions using a soldering gun and open flame, then casting them using the crucibles and left-over metal bits from past crowns and bridges. They had to be small because large ones wouldn't fit in the tooth-sized containers used to make the mold. The result was a virtually indestructible hand-made toy that could fit in my school blouse pocket, even in math class, without anyone being the wiser.
Though a much easier process utilized vast quantities of multicolored polymer clay and my mother's oven. Only two products of these endeavors seem to have survived in my parents' house till today partly due to their fragility, though mostly because I kept them in bins on the bottom shelf of the lowest lying room in the house in August 2005.
However inappropriate it may be to laugh at Jesus dying on the cross, I still find it really hard for me to keep a straight face when I even so much as glance at this. I think I may have intended it to be an Easter present for my devoutly Catholic grandmother. Honestly, I was probably too embarrassed to give it to her. I never really could grasp the proportons of the human body as a kid.
Now poison dart frogs on the other hand...
The left was my favorite rubber toy frog, though I had a total of 12 or so poison dart frogs total. Being an avid zoo and aquarium visitor as a child, I remember being bothered by my toy's fake-looking spot pattern. For that reason, around age 10 or so, I decided to take a stab at it myself. In case you were wondering, yes, I made each spot out of a tiny flattened piece of black clay and stuck it to the body of the frog. I was obsessed.
It was quite amusing seeing the oddity of my youth displayed in three dimensions, though I have quite a few more boxes left to go through. Bloated clay Jesus give me strength!
[ 1 comment ] ( 37 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 216 )
I own 4 karate belts. All others I either gave away to my kohai or lost in one hurricane or another, I don't really remember. Before I started training karate I assumed that a person's belts were like trophies which should be displayed proudly on one's wall, with the greater number of colors symbolizing the greatest achievement. I also once believed that belts would be given to the student in some special ceremony.
Needless to say, I was a little startled when I passed my 8th kyu exam and was told: "There are some yellow belts are in the closet. They're $7." I guess it's a better method when I really think about it. I mean, what is the meaning of a piece of fabric anyway? It's just an item, something that can be taken away, something that has nothing in common with one's training, which can never be taken away.
Still, being the verbose sentimental person I am, of course I'd have a story about why I keep 4 right? Haha! Yep!
I lost my first white belt years ago, but I bought another one because it's quite useful for training in the dojo of other ryu (styles of karate) where I am not a black belt. In 2003 I used the heck out of that thing training in an Ashihara dojo in Maizuru.
The fancy tsuwamono belt with gold writing on it is actually my first black belt. It reads on one side "Louisiana Karate Association" and on the other, "Kaitlin" ...well... sort of. See, this belt was given to me by a friend of mine from Kyushu whose mother had taken to making up kanji for my name. Sadly, that friend of mine left the dojo in a storm one day and no one has heard from her since. My parents found it in the wreckage of their house a month or two after Katrina. I don't really wear it much anymore because it's extremely stiff and kind-of stands straight out like pippi long stockings when I tie it.
The plain belt on center left was my second black belt, which was given to me by the late sensei of the Purdue Challenge Karate Club because I had no clothes to train in after the hurricane. About a year and a half later Charles sensei died in in a car accident, which is why I hold onto the belt even though it doesn't fit me anymore. I never realized it at the time, but 19 year-old post-katrina me must have been pretty near to 100lbs.
Finally, the belt on the far right is my most frequently worn belt (as I'm sure you can see from the white around the edges). It's thin and plain and has no embroidery, but it fits perfectly and folds nicely into a suitcase for travel. All it says on it is "JKA" and "tokaido" which are the names of my organization and of my favorite gi company which manufactured it. It too was a gift, but its origins are a secret which I promised not to tell.
Though it doesn't matter to me what other people wear when they train, I usually feel most comfortable training in a uniform that is as plain as possible. I guess though my karate is nothing special, I'd still rather be judged by my technique than my clothing. Then again, this is all just personal opinion. Maybe that's just the way I am.
[ add comment ] ( 2413 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 166 )
Calendar
