Dysmorphia

The title should probably suggest the content warning here. 

Real talk: I'm struggling with body image right now. I'm tallish, like 5'8", 5'9", and I have always been solidly built. In junior high and high school I was pretty pudgy. Really, I've always been kind of pudgy. I tend to fat, my hips are big, my thighs don't fit into a lot of jeans, I've got big breasts. Many years ago, somewhere in the early 2000s, I was really quite poor, very likely depressed, and a bit anorexic. I refused to eat because I felt like I should suffer. It wasn't even because I felt like I should be thin. I refused to eat because I was lonely and angry about the world and I wanted to demonstrate that. I'd eat if I was going climbing or to yoga or something, but if we were at a party and there was a bag of chips out I wouldn't touch it even if I was ravenous: and I was eating maybe a meal a day, if that. And biking, and climbing, and doing yoga. I was also, occasionally, hurting myself in small subtle ways, like burning myself on the steam from the electric kettle. It wasn't a good time. 

Yeah, content warnings. 

Flash forward. Things get better. Around 2004, I really get into rock climbing. Around 2005, I start biking for transport. I start doing hiking trips. I've got a radio show, I'm into the poetry slam scene, I'm still broke but I've gotten over a lot of the emotional shit that was making me do self destructive things. I get into the best shape of my life: I'm climbing a couple of times a week, I'm biking 500km a month just getting around. 

White belt Kate!

In 2018, I get into judo. Yeah, I'm still a big girl, I still weigh in somewhere around 190 lbs and wear a size 5 gi. But I can piggyback other students, I can plank for three minutes, I can hold a wall sit for a couple of minutes. When someone in the class, or one of the instructors, mentions my size, I can laugh, and bust into an impromptu verse of "Brick House." I feel good. I take selfies in the office when I think I look cute. 

Bam, COVID-19. 

I did okay for a while. I had friends to hike with, my crew got back to climbing as soon as we could. But I wasn't biking to the office anymore. I wasn't doing judo a couple of times a week. I wasn't really getting to the climbing gym anything like as often. 

I put on weight. After about a decade or more of actually feeling all right about how I looked, I got fat. A year or so into the pandemic I hung a piece of cloth up over the bathroom mirror because I had started not wanting to take showers because I didn't want to look at myself as I got out. 

And I got weak. I started feeling reluctant about getting out climbing because all the people who knew me before would see that I'd lost a couple of grades, and anyone who didn't know me yet would look at me and think, "well, that fat fuck can't know much about climbing, she must be new." I started kind of defensively telling crusty old trad climbing stories when we did go out, so people would know I wasn't just some pudgy newb. I cried, once, after failing multiple times to even start a route I put up back in the day, saying in despair, "what if it never comes back?" to my belayer. 

So, back to martial arts. Lately, judo's been a challenge for my self-esteem. It's not that I don't want to go: I do, I still love it. But judo is a weight-reliant sport, and there are days when I go to class and my choices of partner are: thirteen-year-old, 110-pound girl; 5'2", 150-lb woman; 6'6", 250-lb guy. No one is my size, and what's the hardest, no one who I can safely work with can lift me. I don't know what I weigh and I don't want to; the thought makes me emotional. But I know that if I pair up with Robyn, and we are working on hip throws, she doesn't have a chance. And I will wind up calling over Ary, who's maybe fifteen and maybe 130 lbs, to let Robyn work with them, because I'm just too big. 

I can't do front somersaults without angling off because I can't tuck my legs in or support my weight with my arms. I can't do shoulder drags because there's too much of me on the ground. If the teacher wants us to do partner carries for warmups, I often can't find someone who is near my height and can carry me. Humiliatingly, once I got assigned to Ary, who picked me up in a honeymoon carry, walked across the room with me, and did a set of squats, when I couldn't do that with them. 

In kickboxing it matters less: range is more important: height, arm length, and speed matter more than weight. And a couple of the best fighters in the room are also carrying some weight, which makes me feel a lot better. It's the same with stick fighting: as long as I can move fast enough to counter and get a hit or two in I'm doing okay, and most of those guys are comparable in age and weight to me. I would like to be more flexible, for both of those, and lighter on my feet, but your weight isn't as omnipresent a factor as it is in a grappling sport like judo. It's hard to get through a judo class without one of the instructors saying to my partner, "okay, so it should work like this, but she's a lot heavier than you, so. . . "

I know what I should do is seek out the men in my judo club to work with. Bruce, who's 6'6" or some shit: Marcel, who's only able to make it sometimes because he's military, but is about 6 feet and my weight; this new black belt who checked our class out and is a dream to work with, Nick. But they tend to pair up together, and also I'm weaker than they are, so that's another whole set of frustrations (see my earlier post about getting hammered into the mat by Bruce and wanting to cry about it) and fears (I'm scared for my joints going up against people near my belt level who are a lot more physically powerful than me). 

So in the last class of our current session, last week, we were working on big lifting hip throws. And while I really do like working with Ary, who is a very cool kid, really knows their stuff, has a brown belt and competes nationally, and is utterly unbothered by my size. . . it kind of hurt to have them called out of the group of teenagers to come work with Robyn and me because it was clear Robyn was never going to be able to load me on her hip. 

And it's been hard lately for me to go in there and pull on the gi jacket knowing it doesn't close over my chest as much as it did. And the belt doesn't have as much tail as it did. Every time, it hurts a bit. I don't like summer because I can't change right out of the gi jacket and into a hoodie that will hide what I look like in a T-shirt. 

I know it's long and slow to get back, and it's harder the more often I get injured because I work too hard in training, and the more often I get discouraged and depressed and don't want to show up because I will feel weak. I clearly still love it enough to get over that: I've noticed I'll bail on climbing because I can't face being weaker than I was before some days and mostly. . . mostly I think I'm not doing that yet with martial arts. But it's clearly a problem, and it's clearly something I need to deal with. 

Go get one! https://www.bonfire.com/chubby-surprise/ 

The upshot, though, I think, is that it's in my head - at least, the judgement, the dismissal. We joke around but no one in my club thinks I'm not working hard or trying just because I'm heavier and weaker than I was. People in the stickfighting crew and the kickboxing class have told me outright that they can tell I'm getting better. I just have to get over feeling "fat" when I walk out the door to go learn more about fighting, and . . .  go learn more about fighting. And train to fight. 

(And maybe buy a longer belt so it feels less short when I tie it.)

One thing that has been actually a big help is Sensei Seth, the martial arts YouTuber. For one thing, he's a lot of fun, and he tries absolutely everything, and for someone like me who is really enjoying what I'm finding out from cross-training, he's an inspiration. He's also introduced me to a whole constellation of other YouTubers who are multidisciplinary and fun. But for another thing, he is a big dude. He's fast as hell and he can kick you in the head from a standing start, but he's not 2% body fat and ripped. He's a third degree black belt in karate, and he's not this wiry little thing. He marketed "Chubby Surprise" T-shirts. I'm here for it. He helps me be more interested in what I can do than what I look like again. 

 

Three good things for the end of the semester

 Last kickboxing class of the season today, and although it was a high gravity day for me (I was tired and sloppy) three good things happened, that let me finish off the semester really feeling like I've learned a thing or two:

One: While we were all sparring, Sonia came over and said, "While I love to see you using your kung fu, don't stop there. Follow that up with a strike!" and I realized that I had actually been using some kung fu: essentially an outside block to tie up her arm. 

Sonia's said before that she loves teaching kung fu to kickboxers, because while a lot of kung fu practice is kind of theoretical (there's a lot of practicing forms on your own), kickboxers will look at the moves and techniques and think, wait . . . I can use that. . . And apparently I have started doing that, which is pretty cool. Like, I was doing a hooking sort of "dragon gate" block to catch her jab and move around to the side. (I've also tried using some kung fu moves with the SLA guys: still can't make dragon gate work with weapons involved but I did land one sword move, kind of.)

Two: Sparring with another girl, a tall girl with long legs, I noticed that she was keeping her hands up but leaving a perfectly framed window for me to come straight through and hit her in the face. And I'd seen her doing that with another girl earlier - and she got hit straight through the hole she'd left. I tagged her about three times in the forehead, then said, "you're leaving me a space to come right through there." She changed up where her hands were, and then said, "Thanks, I always learn something when I spar with you." (First time we fought, I pointed out how freaking long her legs are and how she could just get massive range with kicks: the next time, she was really hard to hit and she pointed out, after I had to jump back out of the way, that I taught her that.) 

I am pleased and kind of surprised that I can see things like that - this fighter's telegraphing her kicks, that one leaves her left hand down all the time, that one throws swingy big hooks - and sometimes I can even take advantage of them. I worry sometimes that I'm being a splainer; I worry that I'm being irritating or overstepping if I do something like that, some demonstration of where that opening is, and then tell the other girl how I did it. I try not to do it too much because I know explaining is a habit of mine. But I think in this class we do a hell of a lot of learning from each other while we're sparring, and it was nice to be told that sometimes the things I spot are helpful. (Now, if only I could see where my weak spots and habits and tells are. The only one I know for sure is that I'm heavy on my feet and I can't duck in and back out - so I tend to go for the pocket and just eat a bunch of punches.)

Three: On the last bout, at the tail end, I solidly caught a roundhouse kick, then moved up, caught the back of her neck with the other hand, stepped in and swept the remaining foot, and gently lowered her to the floor just as the bell went off, which felt pretty elegant and also on brand (see above, about how I'm always going in close and trying to grapple). 

It was a hot and sweaty class and I took a lot of punches what with feeling dizzy and heavy and slow and having an incipient back spasm coming on, but it was still good. I can't believe how much more confident I feel about sparring in general.

We're off for the summer, but might be meeting up informally in parks, just to keep the skills up. I hope so: I want to hang on to the skills I've developed over the last year. I don't know if I've ever felt like I improved this much at anything within a year. As we were wrapping up, one of the other students told Sonia what a great class this is, how much fun it is, how much we're learning, and how safe and supported and encouraged Sonia makes us feel, and I couldn't agree more. 

Level up?

The crew from the last class of the winter 2023
kickboxing session.

There've been some things I've noticed this session in kickboxing. I think I've leveled up somehow.

I like the start of the session because there's a little more "back to basics," a chance for me to refocus on things like body mechanics and stance. We go back to breaking down the warmup drills and checking our technique: sparring goes back to "one attacks / one defends" and you can really think about combinations, blocks, and moving defensively. 

And also, there's that chance to help introduce new people to this new level, to say "hey, welcome, this is fun." I feel like I got a crash course in sparring and getting hit with the guys in Siling Labuyo Arnis, and that means that I can be the one that says, "hey, look: aim for my face, you're not going hard and it's my job not to get hit, honest to god, I'm okay with it." I'm willing to take a kick, or a punch. I've been knocked down, I've been hit in the head, I've been hit with sticks and shillelaghs, I've been taught how to fall. 

Early in the session, for our opening drills I paired up with one of the new students: she'd studied capoeira before and had come up through the beginner class but hadn't really had to aim her fists at anyone's face yet. "It's so scary!" she said after I told her to aim for my face. 

And then there's a weird thing I have been feeling in class lately. Maybe it was the effect of having some new intermediates in the class, but when we started through a round of "everyone spars with everyone else" - in a simple "one person attacks, one person defends" format, I started to see what I had learned in the last couple of sessions.

I've learned some things about range: there's that one girl who's tall and has really long legs, but wasn't using them enough (I told her that, though, and she took it to heart, so damn, there goes my advantage). There's another little, intense one who is naturally great at coming in low and ducking back out. The senior student has great combinations, so when I work with her I focus on reading them. Almost all of them have learned that if they do a big ol' haymaker I will get inside it, clinch, and either sweep their leg or knee them. 

I have started learning to read an opponent. I've started being able to think beyond punch, punch, crap I just got hit, back off, block, block. And I've started being able to decide "okay, this round I want to work on chaining up kicks" or "this round I'm going to slip, dodge, and weave" or "this round I'm going to think footwork."

I love it. It feels like a level up. I feel, right now, like I'm learning something in every single bout. 

Lawless ruffians: or, "participating in an activity without a permit"

 Well, we got kicked out of the park for sparring today. 

The SLA crew often get together on the weekend at Strathcona Park, where there's a big concrete circle that used to have some kind of pavilion on it. It makes a good spot to meet up and do some sparring. Badger sets up a camera, and we hang out, and take turns messing around in the circle. 

We'd been there about an hour today when all of a sudden a pair of guys in black uniforms showed up and told us to stop. They said we weren't allowed to be there. Admittedly, we were kind of baffled: this group have been meeting up there for literally years and never had an issue. Badger said as much. "We've had cops come by before and they've never had a problem with it."

"I'm not a cop, I'm bylaw, okay?" the guy said. "And you're participating in an unauthorized activity, so you're going to have to stop, and if we see you here again without a permit you will be charged."

No, you can't argue with a man in an official uniform who has decided how this is going to go. We did try to get some clarification: what bylaw exactly were we breaking? "Unauthorized activity," he said, "you can look it up for yourselves." We tried to look it up right there on our phones. Nothing available on the city website seemed to cover what we were doing: there were rules about interfering with other park users, but we weren't doing that; there were rules against "organized team sports," but as one of us pointed out, what we were doing was kind of the opposite of a team sport. "What counts as an 'activity'?" we asked. "Yoga? A picnic? Some friends throwing a football? Where's the line?"

The officer, of course, just doubled down. What was he going to do, say "oh, you're right, the bylaws don't cover what you're doing"? So we packed up. One of us, Phil, did follow him, filming, to ask again, "Are we not allowed to practice martial arts in the park?" 

The officer said we weren't allowed to do organized sports. "This is just a group of friends," Phil said. "Well, you can't do it," the officer said. "And you're hitting each other with sticks." 

(It sounds, in the video, like that part really made him kind of angry. I don't know why but there was emotion in his voice.)

"But it's consensual," Phil said. 

"No, it's not," said the officer (nonsensically). Then he reiterated that it "wasn't acceptable behaviour in the park," and that was pretty much it. Of course. 

As far as I can tell, there isn't a liability issue: if a group of people go to a park to play Frisbee and someone slips and breaks an ankle the city's not liable. If a group of people go to a park to spar, and someone slips and breaks an ankle, or takes a shillelagh to the shins, the city's still not liable. And this officer never even raised that. All he really said was that it wasn't "acceptable behaviour," and that it was "organized sports."

So where does the line land? When I used to meet up in a pocket park with my friend Alan to do stickfighting drills, practice breakfalls, and do some jujitsu, that wasn't organized sports. When my friend Robyn and I brought focus mitts out to the PSAC picket lines and started practicing kickboxing combinations, that wasn't organized sports.  If my kickboxing class meets up informally over the summer to practice, I bet that won't be organized sports. 

We weren't threatening anyone else, and I think it was pretty clear that we were friends playing around, not some kind of street brawl or fight club: it was noon on a Sunday, we had fencing masks on and we were laughing and ending every match with a hug. When other people come up and ask questions, we smile and tell them about it. Earlier that morning, an older woman in a sundress had come by and asked us about it, and we explained, and told her she could take all the photos she wanted. 

And okay, yes. I do see this version of the scene: a group of people (all but one of them men) in the park fighting each other with weapons. That is visually different from someone running martial arts forms or drills. (Leaving aside the fact that last year the police were called on a woman practicing tai chi alone with a practice sword in a park in Chinatown.) And there have been reports this spring about wild, unauthorized "boxing tournaments" at Britannia Beach, complete with drunk young men and general violence. And did someone else see us, get freaked out, and call it in? I don't know. I can charitably assume that that officer did a gut check and came up with "I don't like this," for whatever reason.

But still, he could have walked up and said, "Hey, can you tell me what's going on here?" instead of "Hey, you need to stop this and leave now." We would have stopped, pulled off the helmets, and explained. And okay, maybe my definition of "violence" is different from someone else's. But I still think that even before I got into martial arts, back when I thought actually doing it was scary, I'd have walked by that concrete circle and thought - "hey, cool, I wonder what they're doing? That looks interesting," rather than, "oh no! Violence!" 

But then, there is the fact that this is the City of Ottawa, the City That Fun Forgot, and, read broadly enough, the bylaw forbids "activity." 

"No person shall participate in or play baseball, softball, basketball. . . disk golf, skateboarding or any other sport or activity in a park except in an area designated by the General Manager for such respective purpose. . . " 

"Any other activity." 

Respectfully, what the fuck? 

What is a park for? 

Why do we have public, common spaces? Why even is, one might ask, Strathcona Park? What do you do with it? Walk through it going somewhere else? Sit on a park bench (there aren't many)? You can't play with your dog (dogs aren't allowed). I suppose you could lie on the grass and read a book, you could have a picnic. Your toddler could run around on the grass. But your kids can't have a sack race. And adults? Adults can't play here. Not without a permit and insurance. 

So, there are a few aspects of this in my head. 

One: at first when I talked about this online, I thought - well, if someone asks what specifically we were doing, and I say "we were sparring with sticks and staves and fake knives," then naturally they'll say, "well that sounds dangerous and transgressive so bylaw must have been right to shut it down." But honestly, the risk of injury is no greater than a particularly vigorous game of Frisbee or touch football. It's just that once it's a martial art people think differently about it. We're in a world where adults can only play within very strictly delineated spaces and if we get out of them, it's a threat. Nothing too vigorous; nothing too violent; no bruises, please, we're British.

And two: Oh my god this terrible city and its laws against people being people. Its assumption that we are not adults and capable of self-regulation. That bylaw, read literally, essentially says you need to have a permit to do anything other than sit, walk, jog, or fly a kite. 

Back when La Machine came to the city, there was a whole thing about barricades between the spectators and the machines. The City, thankfully, capitulated and allowed a flexible ribbon carried by volunteers to separate the crowds from the machines, which resulted in the most successful public spectacle we've ever had. It was intimate, it was moving, it didn't have portable steel fences corralling people onto the sidewalks. 

Also, three: if you're using a city park for something definable, something you can point at and name, like a game, a practice, a gathering, a meeting - someone, somewhere, wants you to pay money. Get a permit, get insurance, PAY someone for the right to use this public space in a particular way. YEP, it was capitalism all along. 

Who.

Woulda.

Thunk.