Eliza is telling me about something she did “last week” when she “went to a house with three boys that had a lot of toys in it.”

I am mystified and ask her questions to get to the bottom of this, because I cannot think of anyone who is a friend of ours who has three boys. What three boys, I ask. What were their names? Are you sure you weren’t thinking about friend X?

She can’t remember their names. No, she says, she is not thinking of friend X.

After a few more questions, she puts up her hand and shakes her head.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’ve told you too much already,” she says.

***

Eventually, it comes out she is thinking about a trio of cousins we visited in February of ‘08. Still, at least she is now differentiating the recent past, “yesterday,” from the distant past, “last week.”

***

Also: I attended the evening karate class tonight, since I figured I’d better start getting acquainted with the class I’m about to take over (yes, all systems appear to be go). There were a whole bunch of white and green belts with whom I was unfamiliar.

The instructor asked me to lead a group of newlings for part of the class, and, well, this is definitely the first time in my nearly 13 years of karate that I gave a command to practice a certain technique and got the response, “Sweet! Arigato, Sensei!”

I think I’m going to enjoy myself with this bunch.

11:55

ME walks in. She’s a third-degree black belt.

We’re the same rank but because she tested two years before me, she’s my senior. However, I know the kata we’re working on, the highest in our style, better than she does because I memorize kata fairly easily, something she admits she has a hard time with.

OK, my plan: I know she wants to work on it — she NEEDS to work on it — but I want to respect that she’s senior, so I will ask, and then I’ll let her decide whether she wants to stand next to me or behind me to follow me. We’ll go through the older kata quickly and then focus in on the new one for a good while, and perhaps do some sparring or kata analysis to round out the class.

11:58

OK, scratch that: B has just walked in.

She’s a second-degree brown belt, and in the minutes before class, she eagerly asks ME to work on the first advanced kata, which is the kata you learn just before you test for black belt. Her eagerness and uncertainty remind me that she’s just started learning and is excited about this new step and what it means for her training. I need to acknowledge that — there is nothing more discouraging than being excited to learn something new and to have your teacher ignore that.

She also doesn’t know the kata ME and I are working on yet, which means my earlier plan is no good.

Revised plan: Do a couple repetitions of all of the kata up to B’s newest, with special attention on the three brown-belt kata and her newest. B will work the brown belt stuff alone for a bit while I take a little time on the highest kata with ME. Come back together to work preset fighting sequences which B needs. Add in individual technique practice as necessary to bolster what B’s learning in her new kata.

12:01 

…never mind.

M has walked in. He’s not wearing his belt and I don’t know him (I don’t know some of the students below brown belt) but I know by the timid way he steps in the door that he’s a new white belt.

He is learning his first kata and literally every single thing I plan to do with the two women would freak him right out.

So here’s what I actually did:

Start with lots of punching (and to make it worthwhile for the advanced students, have them to double punches), then lots of first kata reps (make it challenging for the others by adding a Zen/meditation focus for them to work on). Follow by breaking the class in two, and I’ll work basic blocks with M, while ME picks up where she and B left of before class and works B’s new advanced kata. Shuffle the groups so B does first kata with M (she’s not a teacher but is advanced enough that I can trust her to model the kata well enough for M to get something out of following her lead). Meanwhile, ME and I take time to work the highest kata. Add in some kicks, some conditioning work, and voila, class.

It’s a careful balance between not overwhelming the newbie, not boring the high ranks, and making sure the class feel like a cohesive unit.

That’s why at the end, I finish the class by having them all together do first kata together once more — something they can all do now — and by pointing out that although everyone is of a different rank, everyone spent some time today feeling confused and uncertain, and that this is not only normal, it is necessary for progress.

For those of you who don’t read my Tweets, the Economic Sword of Damocles has fallen — Jim was laid off today. We have been expecting that he would be laid off sometime this year but were taken by surprise that it happened today. He just bought new work shoes on Saturday, too.

He’s OK, we’re OK for now. Oddly, this makes thing logistically easier, since we won’t be playing our traditional game of Eliza-hot-potato for the next little while and I imagine he is really going to enjoy that quiet time while she’s at preschool camp in July (although, don’t let that stop you if you hear of someone in need of a good writer/editor).

So many people were laid off, though, that it was shocking.

As my mom said when I told her: “Oh, and the paper is now going to be written by the squirrels and rats that live around the building?”

Ah well.

Here, have a pretty picture of a firework. It cheered me up.

I tell you, nunchucks are a dangerous weapon. Mostly to the person who is wielding them, if said person has no clue what she is doing. Amazingly, I have neither a black eye NOR a bloody nose, although I suspect I will be wearing turtlenecks for some time. This appears to be an achievement, if the senior members of the dojo are to be believed: When the head instructor divided us up to work on our various weapons (according to rank), the leader of my group looked back, laughed hollowly and said, “Good luck.”

Still, it was good. It’s important to be reminded on a regular basis that you have no clue. Not for purposes of being humbled, but just to keep you live to your task, whatever it is.

Change is in the wind at the dojo.

Last week, our sensei told a group of us that he was stepping back. He’ll continue to be the sort of guiding figure for the dojo, but the day-to-day of shaping its culture is being handed over to a new generation of teachers. Not completely new — we all teach already, but we still reflexively turn to him for guidance and follow the tone he sets. That’s as it should be, since he’s the director. But with him gone, his reasoning goes, we’ll be forced to seek out different answers, create our own culture. We have potential, he says, that is stymied with him there, and he has to leave for us to reach it.

If this sounds like an out-take from a medieval quest movie, that’s because it kind of felt that way. That’s is why “can you teach the Wednesday class?” is a benediction of sorts, particularly since Wednesday night is the dojo equivalent of must-see-TV. You don’t leave an idiot in charge of one of the most popular all-ranks classes, and you certainly don’t tell an idiot it’s now up to her to help ID and train the next generation of teachers.

I am the girl in the group. My plan is to make sure they never forget that — and at the same time to prove that it makes no difference. This has always been my way; it’s why I keep my toenails polished at all times and write essays about how birthing engages karate training and also push my students hard enough that they ask what branch of the military I was in.

I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about the college I attended. I went, as I’ve mentioned, to a Wicked Fancypants (i.e., causing much unnecessary expense to my mom) School to no discernible purpose, given that I ended up in such a middle-of-the-road job. It doesn’t suck (hey, I have one, right?) but I don’t make the huge amounts of money or have the fame or success my place of degree sort of demands. All of which makes me feel, from time to time, like I have failed at any WFC-societally-approved definition of success. (This may have something to do with me freaking out, going incommunicado and skipping my 15-year-reunion 2 weeks ago after promising everyone I’d come. But, Shhh! this is not the time for therapy.)

This depresses me until I remember, oh, wait, I don’t want to be a fancy lawyer. I just want to be really, really good at karate.

_____

And the part about jinxing it is that sensei is super-excited about this plan … sort of. Not because of any lack in us, he hastens to add, but because it is ri-goddamn-diculously hard to let go.

Herewith, a rare glimpse of my extreme literal-mindedness, which is probably funny only to me:

I was futzing with my organization’s website today, trying to get some items to show that just wouldn’t.

I sent an email to the guy who designed it for us, asking for help.

He emailed me a piece of code to add wherever I was trying to get said item to show: tn=”PATH TO ALBUM THUMBNAIL”

I put it in the page code, re-uploaded, and, nothing.

I emailed him back and included the page file so he could see how I was totally doing it right and the stupid page wasn’t working, DAMMIT! (Stuff like this spikes my blood pressure in about .02 seconds. I am frequently at my most homicidal when dealing with websites.)

He emails me back, about 10 seconds later: “You didn’t put in the path to album thumbnail… replace the items in red with the path to the actual thumbnail.”

My answer to him, once I stopped laughing: “I just pulled the equivalent of that old story where the person calls up tech support because they can’t find the “any” key, didn’t I?”