Wax On / Wax Off

Much alike my Russian Winter blog entry from last year I again find myself confronted with a huge list of tasks to complete before I can sink my teeth into my next writing project. It’s not a Herculean task because let’s face it, he only had twelve things on a list to check off. My list is far longer. Between painting half the rooms in the house and looking at the long grass, shabby front door, decrepit fence, bare decking, moss covered everything, it’s true I have a lot on my plate. These will be done but only if I ignore the kids. Rather than look at this seemingly endless list as an impossibility, I think I should take the Daniel Larusso approach.

1984’s The Karate Kid throws up a genuinely valid idea that hard work and repetition reap hidden benefits. Actually it’s not Daniel’s (Ralph Macchio) approach but his mentor Mr Miyagi’s that I should be adhering to. I’m going to stop short of trying to catch flies with chopsticks but there is painting and polishing to do and he did plenty of that in the film. When this list is tended to and the car’s polished and the fence painted it’s quite likely that while my limbs will be near breaking point, I am going to be pretty awesome at karate. Martial art expertise is quite clearly implied in the film as a bi-product of boring, hard and repetitive work. When Daniel pulls off the ‘Crane’ move with only one functioning leg, he proves that all that hard work was worth it. Who am I to argue with Hollywood? It has to be true.

Doing DIY makes you awesome at Karate.

Doing DIY makes you awesome at Karate.

So we have established I will be at near ‘Sensei’ levels of skill once I have finished but what other skills will result as a bi-product of my spring (now summer but still feels like winter) cleaning list? Lets see:

Climbing Ladders: Six feet of ladder multiplied by two hundred ascents (and therefore two hundred descents) per room on average multipled by the eight rooms that were painted is equivalent to nineteen thousand two hundred feet. 19,200 feet! That’s Mt Kilmanjaro bitches and I didn’t even leave my house! So now I’m a mountaineer as well as the head of a Dojo.

Multitasking: While still on the subject of ladders…I can hold a paintbrush and a cup of tea with one foot on a ladder and the other dangling in the air searching for firm footing while telling child #1 to finish lunch, child #2 to wash their hands and singing to child #3. I’m still trying to figure out how to take a phone call while all that is going on.

Fencing, Decking and Polishing Car: These tasks are still to come, so what can I expect? Well using the ‘Miyagi’ extrapolation, I can expect to be built like Schwarzenegger during his Mr Universe days. That is to say rippling with muscle and sinue and able to lift heavy structures and leap small children in a single bound. I won’t go so far as to star in action movies or enter into politics à la, Schwarzenegger though.

Writing: When all is said and done I will return to writing and with that I may lose my newly inherited super powers (until next spring that is). But all is not lost…writing too can sometimes be boring and repetitive and as a result new powers may emerge. All that two finger typing will give me the strongest index fingers in the known universe and my constantly shifting rump will be toned to a calloused hardness making no seat too uncomfortable. There will be nowhere I can’t sit down. What can I say, it’s looking rosy.

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2 Responses

  1. Janet says:

    Love it!!! See, all the DIY is for your own good 🙂 x

  2. Frankie says:

    Think of all the contemplative ideas time you will have doing all that physical repetitive work..sounds a bit like bagging spinach!! xxx

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