A Caveat

As happy as I was with the sword part of KSW's super seminar, I was equally as angry about something else that happened Wednesday night. If you've been following the story so far, you know that there is EXACTLY one reason I am a member of my dojon, why I do martial arts at all. It's a simple thing, and it is this:

To have fun.

So, on Wednesday night, in the middle of learning some sparring move, we'd be stopped periodically by the visiting instructor (some super-high ranking guy) to do push-ups for being too slow or not getting it or whatever. This is par for the course in my dojon, so I suffered through it all holding on to my usual smile. The third time we go down into push-up position, he tells us that the reason this time was that we were _smiling too much_.

We got a whole mini lecture about how we were meant to take the whole thing seriously and not "show our teeth."

Dude. The only teeth of mine you're seeing from now on are my FANGS. Because, you know what? I nearly quit on the spot. I'm not kidding. If there had been a way to stand up, respectuflly say, "no, sir, I will NOT take punishment for having a good time" and not cause my local instructors to lose face, I would have done it. I would have dropped my belt on the floor and walked away with no regrets.

You know, I understand that I can be too loud. I also get that my enthusiasm can be seen as disruptive at times, especially when class is over and I'm getting too wild with friends. I usually keep things like that under wraps during class, but I can get silly even when I don't mean to and I know that can be distracting to some of the other students. If my head instructor told me to stow it and give him push-ups in one of those situations, I wouldn't begrudge him for a moment and I would do them with an honestly penatent heart. But, when I laugh at myself for stumbling through the excercises, I consider that "right attitude." It is my very indominable spirit that smiles when I just ripped the hell out of my toe (which I'd done) that gets up to happily do it again and again.

I also understand that there are some cultural differences here. "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down." But, not ten minutes ago, the grandmaster of our tradition talked about how the secret to long life was having a happy home, a heart made lighter by mediation practice, and good living.

If smiling when I stumble isn't part of that, I really don't understand what life is all about and I really don't belong as part of this tradition, this martial art.

I am utterly mortified that I was asked to be ashamed of being enthusiastically goofy. I'm even angrier with myself that I gave him those push-ups.