Reverb10: Community

I just signed up for Reverb10: “…annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead…” With daily prompts, you create something each day leading up to December 31 (in my case, a blog post) and comment on at least one other person’s piece for that day. Fun!

Today’s prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

I have choices for this one! At work I manage a team that is devoted to developing an online community both on our corporate site and in social media. I could easily write about that. But since I spend more waking hours of my life thinking about work than I care to divulge, I think I’ll write about my karate community.

Truth be told, I discovered this wonderful group of people more than three years ago, but it was only in this last year that I claimed it as a community of my own. My youngest son decided about four years ago that he wanted to try karate. He was only five at the time, but we looked into it for him and decided to let him go to Action Karate in New Britain. We soon discovered that Action Karate is no standard school. Our son was learning not only about the “ninja moves” he wanted to learn, but about self-discipline, focus, self-confidence and respect along with balance, eye contact, and more. Our older son soon followed and with that, my husband and I earned a free ticket to adult classes. I reluctantly gave it a shot, but I’m not by any stretch an athlete or an extrovert and found it difficult to integrate. I was clumsy, shy and frankly, embarrassed by how difficult I found the whole thing while my husband sailed through as if he had been doing this all his life. I quit for many months, and then tried again… and quit again. Finally I went back, determined to see this thing through, and somehow found my groove. I focused on one self-defense at a time, made connections with one friend at a time, zeroed in on what felt good and laughed off what felt awkward. By the beginning of 2010, I realized I had found a home. I look forward to going to karate not only because it is a good release physically but because emotionally and socially it is a safe haven. Everyone there is striving for their personal best – not competing, not showing off, and reaching out to people with a shared interest in personal development. It just feels good to be there. Now, my husband has his black belt and both of my sons have their junior black belts. I will test for mine next fall and while it’s a monumental task to memorize over 80 self-defense moves, 9 katas and develop the physical stamina to survive the hours-long workout, I know I will be successful because there is a community of people I trust there to support and guide me. ASAH!