Karate Moleskine

Originally uploaded by MikeOliveri.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of my Shuri-ryu karate training at the Academy of Okinawan Karate.

It amazes me how far I’ve come in just one year. In addition to losing a lot of weight, my stances have become longer and lower, my kicks have gotten higher, and my techniques have become a lot sharper. I advanced two belt ranks, I learned two kata, and I’m learning to use the sai and bo.

What surprises me most is we never stop learning; not just new techniques, but new applications for or tweaks to what we already know. For example, just as a punch feels natural, sensei starts pointing out finer detail like elbow position. Also, I’ve been running my kata the same way for weeks with little comment. Last night, sensei tells me my hand techniques look great, now we can work on my stances in the second half of the kata.

Something else I just learned was I should have had a notebook all along. I showed up to a Black Belt Club workout and saw several people with notebooks. I asked my sensei if I should be bringing one, and he told me karateka should have notebooks at every class. He doesn’t always give detailed lessons, but he frequently throws out terms I tend to forget after a week or two.

I bought a Moleskine sketchbook to rectify that, which is what prompted the photo above. I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle around the dojo, so I personalized it by stenciling the kanji for the word “karate” onto the front with a silver Sharpie. The sketchbook will be a little sturdier than a lined notebook, it will allow me to doodle in footwork and diagrams, and I’ve even started turning it into a sort of scrap book by including photos of some of the Okinawan masters in the Shuri-ryu lineage. (Yes, I’m a geek that way.)

This first year has been a good one. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this next year takes me.

It worked so well that a week later I set up a to-do list for my writing in my Moleskine. The notebook is with me all the time (unlike the Palm), it keeps my job work and writing work separate, and it’s faster than flipping through all my notes (or the index I adopted over the summer) to see what I’ve got cooking when my mind goes blank.

The only problem is these lists look rather daunting at first. I wrote my to-do list on a right-hand page near the back of the Moleskine, thinking I’d have plenty of room. Wrong! I filled it up in about two minutes and if I add anything more I’ll be overflowing to the left page. Why is it so easy to forget how busy I really am?

I’ve long thought organization is a big part of my problem. I’m just scatterbrained by nature. I obsess about new tasks and forget old ones. I’m lucky if I’ll be able to finish this blog post if something shiny catches my eye while I’m working on it. I looked into the Getting Things Done (GTD) system, but I don’t want to make this a religion, nor do I want to spend time learning (and obsessing over) a whole new system. Just cursory looks at some of the GTD-oriented software was enough to realize I’m not near anal enough for GTD.

A simple to-do list I can handle. Everyone knows how a to-do list works: you make a list and cross things off as you accomplish them. But it turns out there’s a little bit of art to it, too, as shown in this Lifehack article. Most of it is just tips on handling your to-do list and how to make sure you don’t just put it aside and start another one the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Yes, a lot of it is common sense. But think about it: how much of it do you actually do?

I don’t know that something as simple as a to-do list will make 2008 my “best year ever,” but it’s a start.