The Pandemic Taketh Away…

There’s no shortage of areas that have been affected by the pandemic, including work, schooling and social aspects. Some businesses have closed, some jobs have sent their staff to work from home and schooling was largely done online in the past year with graduating classes having virtual ceremonies or none at all. For me, the biggest effect was having the karate dojo close,

Although I recently wrote about how good it was to be back in the swing of things, we got word last week that we were once again closing amidst increased restrictions. This came after consulting with a martial arts association that the dojo is affiliated with, as they regulate what conditions we can train under and what’s permitted. Although we were scheduled to have class, last Tuesday, we got word on Monday that training in the dojo would be temporarily “paused” until it could be properly determined what we were safely permitted to do or not. A wise precaution. Or, is it…?

To some extent, I totally get it. Karate is a contact art, requiring practitioners to have some hands-on contact with each other while training in the dojo. Having someone literally in your face while training, without knowing their medical status, vaccination status or whether to not they may be a carrier can be a concern. And it certainly doesn’t conform to social distancing requirements. But one needs to recognize that to an extent, some conditions are more of a society-calming placebo than an effective means of stemming the virus’ propagation. That’s strictly an opinion, of course.

As it stands, we lost the entirety of last week without any word on what will become of classes for the foreseeable future. We were doing Zoom classes last year, which was a good alternative but it lacked a certain “oomph.” With this 4th wave hitting Saskatchewan, who knows what may come of all this. I don’t have a crystal ball. After 33 years of studying karate, I’m well-suited to continue training on my own, despite the fact the ambiance and joy of training with others definitely brings something to the table. If the world and society could just right itself, all of this would be significantly easier. I guess we’ll just have to wait it out. ☯️