I'm not Bendy, Dammit!

Knowns: 1) I am a brown belt in Shotokan Karate
2) I suck
3) I will never test for black belt
4) I am not black belt material
5) I do it for health reasons

I’m about as flexible as a brick. I’m 5’2” 120 lb of tight muscle that does not flex. At all. Ever. My husband told me once that I was the least flexible person he had ever met. Of course, he doesn’t go around checking flexibility, so I feel certain that it really translates into, “You are the least flexible woman I have ever slept with.” Heh. Nice.

In Karate flexibility is very important. If you can’t raise your knee up high enough when you kick, you can make contact with your opponent’s knee and break your toes. That hurts. For a long time.

I have been diagnosed with low bone density and am on that power curve to osteoporosis. It’s pretty much ‘small woman’s disease’. To combat this, I have taken up strength training as well as the Karate, which is high impact. Unfortunately, the strength training can directly counter act my flexibility which causes problems in Karate. In particular, when I’ve done an extensive amount of leg work, my glutes get so tight I can only raise my leg to knee level and pretty much kick at someone’s shin. Real menace to society, I am. “Watch out! Don’t mess with me or I’ll kick you in the shin!”

Normally it doesn’t bother me and I just work with it. When we spar, I stay enough away so as to not make any sort of contact. Meanwhile, my Sensei is on me all the time about my gross lack of flexibility. I guess I kind of let it slide off my back at this point. In Karate, you strive to seek perfection, never achieving it, so I’ll never really be flexible enough. However, I know it’s a problem when the girl I work out with, who is a professional trainer tells me I need to take a stretching class. They actually have classes for that. Stretching.

I inform my Sensei last week that I’m doing this in an effort to improve my flexibility. And if any of you work out, yes, I stretch between each set and try to stretch on my own. I’m just not flexible and I came by it honestly as TGOO is the King of Inflexibility. Any ‘stretchiness’ I have, came from my beloved Mother, and trust me, I didn’t get much.

Flash forward to Monday’s training. We’re doing all these kicks and my Sensei stops the class. He looks right at me and says, “When do you start your stretching class?” I replied, “Tomorrow morning” to which he said, emphatically, “Thank God!” As a brown belt, the flexibility thing is becoming a real issue.

Yesterday was my first stretch class. It was 15 minutes of abs and 20 minutes of stretching. The 15 minutes of ab work was a piece of cake. The 20 minutes following of stretching… let’s just say, I’d rather give blood. (That one’s for you, Grau!) It was the most painful horrific 20 minutes of my life. I think childbirth may have been less painful. And I did one without drugs. I am just NOT bendy. Period. I’m watching all these older women become human pretzels. The instructor is saying, “OK, everyone sit tall and now bend forward, keeping your back straight.” I look in the mirror, I am making an enormous effort to bend forward, yet I am still shaped like a perfect ‘L’, while everyone else is in some sort of ‘V’ shape and every now and then there is some Princess Pretzel Petunia who is touching her nose to her knees. I hate her.

So now that is what I do every Tuesday at 9:30, I go to Stretching Hell. And I sure as hell hope it works. Because I’m already over it and it’s only been one class.