This Just In

Photo of Aaron at his first ever baseball game (Bats vs. Mudhens). Also likely his last for some goodly length of time, since both of his parents are so unoriented to team sports as to make this a likely once-in-a-lifetime experience, unless he goes off to spend some quality time with his Uncle Doug. In which case he'll see football.

First Impressions

Yesterday was our first class in our new dojo space. Good timing since it turned out to be an intermittantly stormy day - it would have been cancelled for certain if we'd still been outside.

We're renting space from a Jazzercise studio. This has a lot of pluses. First and nicest is having a decent floor again. After months of linoleum, and then grass at the park, it's lovely to be on a floor that's meant to be bounced around on. Grass has its advantages, I will admit, but day in and day out, there's a lot you can't really do outside - particularly in white gis! The floor at the new place is a textured tile with some give. It's not as nice and cushy as the foam floors, but it's miles and miles above slick-as-glass linoleum over concrete. Though we may have to start mopping it ourselves before class, as it's pretty darned filthy.

Other good things - we have a hanging bag again. Last night was the first time I've kicked or punched a bag since December. It's amazing how much a bag will tell you about your kicks, and I've missed that kind of completely personality-free feedback. Sensei may or may not see if your kick was off-center, but if the bag starts rotating, you were off. It's like the snap of your gi. If you hear it, you know your speed was good. If you don't, you didn't have good recoil. I swear that my uwagi (gi top) won't snap, but my kicks snap every time, so it's not the gi, it's my punches.

We also have a closet to call our very own, where we can leave the communal gear. Plus we're allowed to use the Jazzercise equipment, including balance balls, weights and steps. All-in-all it's a fairly sweet set-up. They are charging more than ideal, so Sensei is having to charge us more than he would like, at least until we add some more students. It's still barely half what the old place was charging, though, some I'm not about to complain. If we can pick up five or six new students, Sensei will be able to drop his prices to where he wants them.

Towards this end, he wants to hold a women's self-defense seminar in a month or two, advertising among the Jazzercise participants. I think it's a great idea, and apparently so does the Jazzercise lady. He wants me and T to be there specifically, as he feels that having women demonstrators will make it all seem more possible to women who aren't used to the idea of hitting others. Less intimidating. I hope it works. Based on my Turbokick class, I'm not sure I count as "not intimidating". I'm not exactly small, and the most common first impression word I'm getting these days is "strong". (My blog photo is a couple years out of date at this point. Subtract seventeen pounds and add a noticeable amount more muscle.) If I can, I'd like Rob to come be the mock attacker for the class. Rob is enough bigger than I am (6'4" to my 5'8"), that the size differential looks real - someone his size might attack someone my size. Sensei, for all his skill, is not a big guy - two inches shorter than me, in fact. I'm a little afraid that if we are the demonstration pair the reaction is likely to be skeptical, since in real life situations, people rarely choose victims bigger than they are unless weapons are involved.

All that is fairly peripheral, though. I don't seriously think a little skepticism is going to ruin a self-defense seminar if we run it well. Towards that end, I'm going to be rereading The Gift of Fear, which is chock-full of good information, and doing some other research. I do want us to be actually useful, not just a marketing ploy. And that means giving the women who come some real information. After all, anything physical we show them is likely to be forgotten in a few months, but solid tactical information is more likely to stick.

Home Again, Home Again Jiggety-Jog

We're back home again, having driven down from the reunion (in Minnesota, about 2 1/2 hours north of Minneapolis) yesterday - yes, all in one day. We hit the road at 6:30am which was a rude shock for the boys, who had been getting up between 9 and 10 all week. It backfired on us a little, as Aaron had some motion-sickness due to the discombobulation. He used to be prone when he was tiny, but hadn't thrown up in a car in years - until yesterday. Fortunately once he dropped off back to sleep he was fine.

The reunion was lovely. The reunion was at a lake. We had a protected swimming area (about 4' deep), with two water trampolines and a slide, a playground area, and a ping-pong table. There were boats and golfing available, but we never availed ourselves of them. We spent late afternoons swimming pretty much every day. Robbie is turning into a proper fish - I got lots of practice with throws by tossing him for a dunking every time he would splash me. Aaron is only just getting comfortable with deeper water, but made lots of progress. I think by next summer he'll have it down. We didn't get to spend as much time with my eldest brother and his family as we would have liked. Their eldest has autism and reacts badly to having his schedule mangled, so they only came up for one night (and the surrounding days). He's a sweetheart, though, much more affectionate and willing to have bodily contact than I'm used to with autistic kids. We gave him a Neopets dragon (talking, interactive toy) for his birthday, and it drew a smile out of him. We also got to meet his PCA, who is delightful herself. Apparently he took to her immediately when my SIL interviwed her, after hiding from all the other candidates.

Mom was also not much seen, as she came down with a nasty cold the day after we arrived. Mostly she stayed in and slept, showing up in late afternoon and then taking off again after dinner. She was still coughing and sniffling on the last day, but plainly feeling somewhat better. Fortunately we get another shot on Tuesday when she and Dad drive by here on their way back home.

We did get to see a good deal of my brother Bill and his wife and daughter, as well as my Dad. Bill and Kathryn (my niece), and I undertook to teach Robbie ping-pong. He did pretty well, moving from a 19 handicap to a 17 handicap over the course of about three days. By his last day, he was ready for me to drop his handicap against me to a 15. By contrast, when I was taught by my brothers, albeit at 6 not 10, I spent a couple of years playing with a 20 handicap. Bill is a ferocious player, and Kathryn is no slouch. Dad isn't as vigorous, but he's got plenty of experience and as a lefty with a deft touch with spin, he's dangerous himself. I play with a 10 handicap against Bill and 5 against both Kathryn and Dad - which I don't think is too shabby when the last time I played ping-pong was 11 years ago.

Rob got lots of lounging time, which he desperately needed. He actually spent the first three days reading and sleeping, which is almost unheard of for him. Usually he's itching to go do something after about one day of lounging.

I brought my tonfas and sais and managed to get in several sessions of kata practice. Apparently the people in the cabin next door found this very amusing. They spent mornings sunning out on the dock, and generally by the time I had gotten through one or two katas, they would have all turned around and started providing commentary on what I was doing. The more I use the tonfas Rob made me, the better I'm liking them - it's just such a treat to have something that's made to my exact measure.

My main project for this trip has been penguin socks - visible in the book cover in the photo at the top of the page. The first sock is almost done and it's coming out really cute. The directions aren't terribly good though. They're close enough to figure it out if you're an experienced sock knitter, but I woudn't recommend them otherwise. They've named the main color "M", and then don't differentiate it in the directions from the "M" of "make 1", their charts aren't well proofed (at least two errors in the penguin chart), and they just generally aren't as clear as they should be. There are several cute patterns in the book though, and I'm already planning on making their ladybug socks for my youngest niece.

So - home again, home again. Sensei has already called to say we're a go at the Jazzercise place, so starting Tuesday we're back on a regular schedule at a regular location. Go us!

Ai-Yi-Yi

Okay. We're supposed to be leaving tomorrow. We hope. Given how today is going, I am somewhat less confident of this than I was this morning.

It's currently 11 at night, and Rob just left to go trade in our current rental car for another. This will be our fourth (4th!) rental car of the day.

First off, if you value your sanity, I would give Thrifty a pass. The last time I rented from them, the service stank, but they did rent me the car I asked for at the price quoted, so I went there again since their quote was again lowest. Big mistake. It was like buying a cow and being told the legs are extra, as are the udder, horns, spots and moo.

Follow this up with a second rental car (specifically requested to have cruise control), which got a flat tire 500 yards from home. Which they chose to exchange for a third rental car - which after we had gotten it packed, turned out to not have cruise control. So we had to unpack it, and then when Rob gets back, repack into the new car (which by this point may very well be car #2 again with a fixed tire).

This is beginning to feel like Groundhog Day.

Off-Line

As of Sunday, me and mine are headed off to Minnesota for a family reunion. A minor family reunion this time. Only my parents and their descendants (and spouses) will be along, for a total of thirteen people, plus the possible wanderer from my sil's family. The more usual form of family reunion has my father's parents' descendants, which runs to considerably more people - five pairs in my father's generations, each with multiple children, most married with children of their own, it's quite the gathering. This one should be much quieter. It will be the first time I've seen my eldest brother and his family in three years, and I'm really looking forward to it. Kids change so much when they're little; my neice and nephew at 4 and 6 aren't going to bear much resemblence to the baby and toddler I remember.

We will have a computer along, but it won't be mine, so I don't anticipate posting while I'm gone. I may check up and respond to comments if I get on-line time, but don't count on it. I doubt we'd bring it at all, but Rob may need to do work so it has to come. I'm crossing my fingers that nothing goes wrong at the plant while he's gone - it's aggravating to have him trying to fix something long-distance while he's supposed to be relaxing - but it's still shutdown month, so I wouldn't take any kind of odds that he'll actually be allowed to have a week to himself. Typically it's between four and six weeks after shutdown ends before he gets a 48-hour period without having someone call with an emergency. Thank goodness this is his last year to do shutdown!

Aaron had his eigth birthday today - he gets three parties by the time all is said and done - one today that was just cake and presents, no guests - one he shares with his cousins at the reunion (they're all summer birthdays) - and one once school starts again so that he can find his friends to invite them. Today was a nice low-key day that mostly consisted of playing with some new toys (Bakugan), and going to Panera for breakfast and Burger King for all other meals.

And I did remember to break out the icepack after lunch - go me!

Pathetic Self Care

One of these days I will actually learn to take care of an injury rather than plowing through it.

No, I don't have any new injuries at the moment, thank goodness. The knee has settled back down and is behaving itself, though it does have a new, and very loud, click when bent deeply.

What's annoying is my back, which I sprained back in December, and which stills acts up occassionally. It's how frequently it acts up vs. how much it should act up that is making me annoyed with myself. You see there are three things I can do, any of which by themselves will prevent my back from hurting.

1) I can take ibuprofen at inflammation-reducing levels (I.e. every 4-6 hours whether my back hurts or not).

2) I can lie down and put my feet up, once with ice, or 2-3 times without ice, for 15 minutes each day.

3) I can do back exercises: 1 hour class, 4x a week. This prevents pain after about 3 weeks to a month of consistent exercise, and continues to work until I drop off significantly, defined as missing more than 2 classes/week for more than 1 week.

It says something about me that #3 was the first thing I discovered that worked, and that I figured it out more than six months before I realized that rest and/or taking ibuprofen also worked. In fact, I didn't even try them until a chiropractor pretty much forced me to.

It also says something that once I had worked up the exercise schedule I only fell off the exercise enough to have a recurrence twice between December and mid-May, both times during vacation weeks. On the other hand, now that summer's here and I can't fit the back classes into my schedule, I'm failing to follow through on rest or ibuprofen to the point where my back hurts more days than not - even though 15 minutes of rest/day is sufficient to prevent pain for that entire day. Mind you, I'm not someone who considers sitting (or lying) still a punishment. I can happily lie on the couch for hours reading, if I'll allow myself to do it.

But apparently I'm only permitting myself to actually take care of an injury if it is in some way a punishment for me. Lying around with an ice pack, reading a book is insufficiently difficult or something. Which is getting deeply annoying as I keep hitting evenings, when I pretty much can't go lie down - dinner, karate, baths, bedtimes, etc. - and discovering that oh crap, my back is going to make me miserable tonight, isn't it?

My subconscious is apparently a weird and masochistic place and I'm getting a little tired of it.

By Request

MALS wanted a more detailed explanation of backward-shaping, so I'll do my best.

I was first introduced to backward-shaping through the work of Karen Pryor, an animal trainer whose book Don't Shoot the Dog is one of a very few books I think pretty much everyone should read. Karen Pryor teaches positive reinforcement and clicker training, and while the book is marketed as a dog-training book, it has broad-based applications for teaching pretty much any kind of animal - including humans.

Backward-shaping involves two things. First is breaking a complicated task down into bite-sized bits, giving the trainee a high chance of success. The other is working from the unknown to the known, so that instead of starting with the part of the task the trainee knows well and progressing into successively less well known parts, you start with a part the trainee doesn't know and move from there into parts the trainee knows better and better.

Most people do this quite naturally with some tasks. When we teach a child to make cookies it's pretty common to start by teaching them to roll the dough into balls and put them on the tray. From there you progress backwards to having them add the fun ingredients like the chocolate chips, and from there to running the mixer, and from there to measuring ingredients. Each time you bake cookies, you start the child on something they don't know (measuring), and then progress into something they know better (mixing) and then into something they know well (making dough balls).

With other things, like pieces of music or karate katas, backward-shaping is counter-intuitive, but the principles work the same. You break the whole into bite-sized bits, something small enough to be taught in a single session, the same way you would if you were teaching (or learning) front-to-back. But instead of teaching the first portion of the sequence first, you start with the last one - the ending chords of the sonata, or the final pass of the kata. Once that's well established you back up to the next bit, and teach it. The trainee then learns the new bit and flows from that new section into the ending section that they already learned. So the training sequence for something that's been broken into five sections would look like this: 5, 45, 345, 2345, 12345.

One major advantage to backward-shaping is that the trainee is always working towards what they know, which tends to end training sessions on high notes, which is good for morale on both sides. One disadvantage is (as noted in the prior post) most students aren't used to learning this way and tend to be weirded out the first time they encounter it. My experience would tend to indicate that it's a pretty valuable technique when you can find people who are comfortable working this way, and I would encourage people to try it and see how it works for them.