Martial Arts and adoption

I totally managed to surprise Rob yesterday and didn't even plan on it! We were sitting together in the work room and I was doing piece work as we watched a football game. A commercial came on and since I find such things boring, I always start talking. I told him I had been watching an MMA fight the night before but didn't get to see who won as KC woke and was coughing and needed some cuddles and care. It was meant just as an aside on my part but Rob's jaw literally hit the table! He stared at me like I was someone he had never met before and said in this tone of shock "YOU watch MMA?" Well truthfully that would be the first time as I had never happened upon it before, but yes!

I asked him why he thought I might not want to watch MMA and his answer was that since I hate wrestling I would hate MMA. I do hate wrestling. It is fake. And stupid. And boring to me because of the first two reasons. But MMA is strategy and real fighting and a chance for me to pick out moves i know, styles I explored as a martial artist, etc.

Rob knows I studied karate for 12 years. But I stopped studying actively about 6 months into his life with us. Too much was going on with Fiona and I felt that integrating kids into the family was not hte time to spend 3 hours a week at the dojo. The family kept getting bigger and life got even busier and I have never returned to the dojo except to chat and say hi.

But for a long time it was huge in my life. I still remember my shodan test. It was fall in NE. Not early fall when it is still warm. Cold chilly fall. The test was outdoors and started in the afternoon. It was after 9 p.m. and pitch dark when we finished. They had flood lights so we could see. My feet were frozen blocks of ice. But in so many ways it was a transformative experience. I did something that prior to that I would not have thought myself capable of. I achieved a level of fitness that I was proud of. I had to create 5 of my own defenses and I was proud of my creativity as a martial artist and my ability to handle the surprises and stresses built into the test.

My nidan test was exciting too, but shodan has always stuck out in my mind as the most exciting, the most difficult, even though theoretically your second degree black belt should probably seem harder than first!

But actually, from an adoption standpoint, what it reminded me of, was the layers of which we know one another. Chet knows my karate life intimately. He grew up essentially with me as a martial artist. He watched me practice, and during the time that he too studied, we occasionally worked out together. The implements that hang on my wall are real to him in a way that they are somewhat mythical to the younger kids.

And it is like that for me with older child adoptions. I "know" Rob and Fiona's stories from the perspective of written assessments and verbal anecdotes shared with me by the children or adults who were present in their lives. But they too, have an air of mystery and myth. They are not our shared history. They are something before that colors and flavors our present, much like my love of martial arts flavored our conversation last evening.