Knowledge/Karate is Power

My new improv team is in the process of shedding our 'slave name' and re-branding ourselves. Each of us was allowed to suggest one team name. My choice: Karate for Dummies.


This name is near and dear to my heart because it's inspired by my pathetic childhood self. My mom would take my older sister and I to the Forbes Library; while Carrie perused cool teen dramas (including Spellbound by Christopher Pike that had a sex scene in it that I could never find), I typically went for the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and books about space, geology, or dinosaurs. But on one fateful day, I found a book on how to practice karate.


Truth be told, it couldn't have been a "...for Dummies" book since they published their first "how-to" software guide in '91 and didn't expand into general interest topics until the late 90's, but according to the Forbes online collections, there are two books that it could have been:


Karate Made Easy by Ralph Corrigan
or
Facing the Double-Edged Sword: the Art of Karate for Young People by Terrence Webster-Doyle.


While I don't remember the title, I do remember the instructional photos. I studied the poses in my room and drank in the details of each photo, calculating how far apart the feet should be, what direction the fingers should point, and where that clenched fist should rest on the chest.


But we lived in a small home that wasn't much bigger than my current apartment and soon  my sister uncovered what I was up to behind my closed bedroom door. She teased me relentlessly. I shamefully returned the book to the library and claimed I was over karate.


Although I had given up on the sport, I never gave up believing you could learn anything from a book. As a high school sophomore, I impulsively bought an electric guitar because I thought, "There's only six strings, how hard could it be?" and picked up a copy of Guitar for Dummies. This actually worked; I've never had a lesson and play guitar well today, but what took me eight years to achieve I could have easily done in two years with regular lessons. But I didn't want lessons. What I liked most of all was pouring over the book and figuring it out on my own. I felt like a scientist.


To this day, it's hard to see a bookstore and resist the temptation to go in. Bookstore have an irresistible energy. They're so full of potential. In those silent books are world of information and stories, just waiting to be unleashed.


In December of last year, I bought Making a Good Script Great so I could transfer a story from my head in a logical, coherent screenplay. In January, I bought Easy Spanish: Step-by-Step because I wanted to be prepared if I met my (ex)-boyfriend's Mexican parents. In February, I bought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet because a friend said it was a great story and beautifully written. When I moved a year ago, I fretted over which books to keep and which to give away, just like the stars of Hoarders who can't let go of empty soda bottles and pet-hair tumbleweeds. I absolutely love books.


It's funny now that I thought I could teach myself an ancient art form with a 4th grade reading level guide book, but I admire Young Susie's willingness to try. That's one of the things that I still like about myself: if  something interests me, my (lack of) skill doesn't prevent me from pursuing it. I go after my dreams and am attracted to people who aren't bystanders in their lives, but are a driving force toward their success.