Karate Weapons And A Learning Disorder
I did a full psycho-neurological assessment about five years ago courtesy of a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting adults with learning disorders in their careers. The testing indicated I had real problems with “immediate and long term visual and non-verbal memory.” Not long after I had an appointment with Dr. Atilla Turguay (one of the top experts on ADHD in Canada) who does a quick three-part test of working memory and did okay on verbal and numerical but miserably on the visual part. When I told him the results on the psychological testing he just nodded. I have been taking karate now for about seven years. I started because it was recommended by the psychiatrist who diagnosed me with ADHD. I now have a first degree black belt and am preparing for a grading for a second degree this fall. I get by. I have to make some minor adjustments in my learning style to accommodate problems with focus and attention but I do have a black belt so I must be doing something right. Knowing that I had this visual working memory problem I also started classes in Kobujutsu a few months ago thinking it would help with the visual working memory problems. It’s been tough going. Time after time I have find myself standing on the dojo floor, just after the sensei has demonstrated something and is waiting for me to duplicate what he has just shown me. I am searching my mind for a mental picture of what he has just done and there is nothing. He’s waiting. I’m waiting. Nothing is happening. Eventually I do something and get corrected again (my sensai has the patience of Job) and wait for the mental picture…and wait. This Sunday I am being graded for a yellow belt, the first belt after white which is what you start with. The symbolic meaning of the white belt is that it is a clean slate…nothing on it. You know nothing and you don’t know you know nothing. A yellow essentially means you now know enough to know you don’t know anything. The point of all this is how much harder it has been for me to learn weapons than just straight karate. There is something about extending my control beyond my physical self that stops me dead. In Kobujutsu you usually start training with the bo (a six-foot wooden staff). I have to imagine that I am striking some target that is at least three or four feet from where I am gripping the bo. And that’s where my brain gets into trouble. What keeps me going, class after class, is the knowledge, no really the hope, that this training is making a difference in my visual working memory. I wish I could say that I know it is making a difference but I don’t. I just hope.