“No, no, no, no, no.”

What does full-contact karate have to do with senior care and activities?  I was reading the book Smile at Strangers: and Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly, by Susan Schorn, a while back.  In it, she chronicles her embrace of karate training, and how it improved her life.   

Schorn credits her karate instructor (sensei) with teaching her the fine art of being able to say, “No,” when she chose to.  Her sensei made them practice saying, “No, no, no, no, no,” to another student’s relentless badgering.  A lot of us are really softies.  We hate to say no.  Apparently this is especially true of those of us in the “helping” professions.  But what do you say when a family member insists that their resident attend every scheduled activity every day?  And the resident is tired, sick, cognitively impaired, and telling you they don’t want to do that?  And you know that if you do manage to push that resident to every activity, other residents will not be able to participate in some things because of it?

Surprisingly, in the process of learning to say, “No,” Schorn found that she also learned to be able to say, “Yes,” when she chose to.  Sometimes it was in the form of the ritual response the karate students said when the sensei gave them instructions.  “Osu,” meant “yes” in the sense of agreeing to do something hard or challenging … or even impossible.  Our jobs can be hard or challenging … or even impossible at times.  Nobody makes us do it.  We choose.

Schorn’s karate school was run on a shoestring.  That meant that when the wiring went bad or the plumbing broke, the adult students learned how to step up to the plate and fix things, or at least work around them.  Sometimes not having everything perfect can bring out the best in you.  This is a comforting thought since things are so rarely perfect!

Schorn’s sensei also taught them that it was okay to make mistakes, in fact, mistakes were expected.  We all tend to be risk averse, but learning any skill requires trying something new, something we may not succeed at.  Oh, yes, the group activity that falls flat.  The chemistry just wasn’t there, and we felt really stupid as we finished up, collected the supplies and put things away.  Then we went out and started the next activity.

Okay, so beating the tar out of your fellow students, and of course, having the tar beat out of you is somehow a good thing?  That, my friends, is life.  It can beat the tar out of you.  Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to give it back, kick for kick?

© Donna Stuart, ADPC    April 7, 2014*

Schorn, Susan. Smile At Strangers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

This article first appeared on the Metrolina Activity Professionals Association Facebook page on 4/7/2014.