growing up some more.

last night after i made dinner & cleaned the kitchen & combed my cat until she became over-stimulated & bit me (love bites, no blood drawn) a lot before rushing away to her true love, catnip, i decided to watch a video before bed. i found this short (20-minute) documentary that my undergraduate advisor had made in 1997 about (young) women in martial arts. i hadn't watched it since she finished it & gave me a copy.

i'm in the video a little bit & that was sort of weird, to see the 1997 me learning about wrist grabs & how to properly fall. it was rad to watch footage from my old karate dojo, of people i trained with doing throws & grappling & doing kata (forms). my advisor narrated the film, & all of the sudden she was talking about how she loves training with men because their energy is different, more explosive. um. woah.

i guess it's hard to talk about social conditioning in a sexist & misogynist culture without essentializing, but c'mon. i was like, dude, what a weak analysis. it was so unnerving to feel that way about someone whose work & theories shaped so much of my burgeoning feminist consciousness.

i need to think more about this. the video did remind me that capoiera is like the most beautiful thing i've ever seen in my life.

this morning when i got to work, p was already here & she made me hot chai with soymilk & we chatted for an hour before anyone else arrived. a good start to the day.