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| Becoming a Second Degree |
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Carmen and me when I earned my
second degree black belt. |
A number of years ago (summer 2003), I (John Edelson) got divorced and was trying to sign my son up for soccer (I played competitively until my mid 40s). Instead, my xwife put him in a dojo. So I was watching my son in his karate class and my reaction was that while I liked the dojo, I didn't much like being a spectator. Four years later, I had earned a black belt. Two and a half years after that, I earned a second stripe.
This blog chronicles my trip into the martial arts world and how the martial arts affects (and is affected) by the other parts of my life. For instance sometimes in my office, I find myself sounding like a karate instructor. I heard myself in a meeting last week talking in rhymes and expecting my colleagues to answer on cue: "
Habbits we train are habbits we....".(
Gain is the answer that I somehow expected them to respond with).
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| John and Carmen Edelson |
My story includes what you would expect from a 50 year old active in karate (I have recommendations on ice packs). And some of those unexpected adventures that appear in my life. Since my kids read this, I'll be careful to watch my punctuation and grammar and to keep any innuendo buried in the boring parts. And my sweet wife sometimes has trouble appreciating how much time I spend in the dojo. And she certainly has trouble understanding why I would arrive home and then start blogging about the dojo. So understand that I post
time permitting.
I've had a lot of fun. Here's me sparring with my son in 2010 and boxing again in 2017.
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Backyard Bugo
Sparring Practice at Home |
July 2014 update In 2013, after several years of recurring back spasms, I sadly retired from the dojo and kickboxing. The doctors told me that my right hip was the source of the problem. Since it has limited movement (no cartilage, an oval shape, and bone spurs), my side and round house kicks were contorting my back in ways that were creating both short-term and long-term problems. So after 2-3 years of a repeating cycle of back spams, time off, and then restarts, I've put my gi away and have had a void in my life ever since. I'm looking to find a sports outlet that includes all the sense of community and the social life that the dojo provided me for almost a decade. I've tried running tris, joining gyms, and I'm now getting interested in boxing for which I have high hopes.
My dojo (Lavallee's National Training Center) changed dramatically in 2012 which I touch on here.
July 2024 update. Like the symmetry? It's ten years since I said anything new about myself. The company that I started in 2003 grew steadily for 20 years and after selling it, I retired at the start of 2023. I dabble in board work but mostly, I don't work anymore. It was a great career, no complaints. My retirement does have a focus: I'd like to become a competitive table tennis player. The posts in 2023 and 2024 reflect this new focus. I still swim and still practice at the Nine Rounds gym (no more sparring though. I am 66...) We travel a lot (we have a shared apartment in Paris) and I'm trying to learn Spanish.
What else should I tell you? I've lived for over
nearly a decade in South Florida (since 1998). Before here, I've lived on three continents and four countries (7 years in the UK, 2 years in France, 2 years in Cameroon, and the rest Stateside) and I got married in the end of 2008. I feel that I'm very lucky.
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| John Edelson aka a Black Belt at 50, getting ready for class |
The Blog's Background: I started this blog initially to help me remember my katas. In the months before getting my black belt, the training got more intense and the blog became part of that effort: I wrote about each step in the process and posted a lot of pictures, a sort of yearbook for my black belt class. This was back in the days when having a picture on the world wide web was pretty cool. It was before Facebook.
After I got my black belt, the intensity dissipated. I thought about phasing out karate (I'd like to play some tennis) and mothballing the blog. Instead, I decided that this would be a new beginning for both. The black belt was the beginning of my new phase in the martial arts. And my blogging also went into into a new gear.
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My First Black Belt Cycle Team
Jennifer Melrose (2nd), Cathy, Agnes Gallo,
Pat Livnat, Coach Boland,
Scott, Jay, and Me |
The Art of Blogging
I also read other people's blogs and have become interested in the "art of blogging". In fact, I've taken a course on
How to Write a Blog that other People will Want to Read - Earn a Black Belt in Blogging (disclosure. I am run the company that offers it.) If you want to learn to blog, it's a great course,
sign up NOW . A few years ago, we renamed the course to
Blog Writing Course. It turns out the martial arts language, which Black Belt Mama and I liked so much, was a little baffling to the public). The course is still up but hasn't been updated really since 2010 so its free now.
Some Facts and Small Print. My name is John Edelson. You can contact me by commenting on the blog or emailing: BBat50 (at ) gmail.com. If you have something of interest to say, I accept guest-posts particularly about Lavallees, the martial arts, or being elderly and in the martial arts I routinely ignore/reject all product or service promotions or other efforts to bring commerce into it. I have accepted posts to help local friends, nutritionist, and such when I thought they might be of interest to my readers. So far, I've never accepted any money or in-kind to promote anything (ie a free ringside seat at a UFC match would be nice). But if I do accept any stuff, I'll disclose it. Hell, I'll brag about it! Astute observers will note a little promotion of some of my websites on the sidebar of my blog. My day job is running Time4Learning.com, Time4Writing.com, VocabularySpellingCity.com, and Science4Us.com (and some others).
And if anyone feels that I have misused any pictures or other IP or maligned anyone or thing or if they just don't like the picture of themself, please contact me and I'll try to resolve it. At least one sensei has contacted me to take down a photo that they thought was less flattering than they would have liked.
OUSE!
Postscript - This blog started a community site helping us learn our kata and documenting our journey towards black belt. I trained for a decade but around age 55, my hip movement and back deteriorated so much that I sadly retired from the martial arts. Since then, I've blogged here infrequently but, hopefully my upcoming hip replacement, will have back in the dojo....
In my declining years, I still managed to spar with my "little boy". Check out the difference between the backyard bugo of above and this post from about a decade later:
Father Son Sparring.
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