Triangle Shirtwaist fire drill; two things
First
NYU’s CAS Silver center is connected to two buildings: Waverly and Brown. Brown used to be the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the very same in which all of those workers were trapped and died in the fire at the beginning of the last century. Today during Lit Int a boy interrupted the class about what he suspected was an alarm. The professor determined that since the alarm wasn’t sounding on our floor and no one else was leaving, we would stay. As soon as she finished saying this, the alarm rang a few times more audibly, so we had to leave. It was a very irregular alarm, though, staying constant for a few seconds and beeping a few more times before stopping, and then starting again. We all casually stood up and gathered our things and turned in our papers before heading out to the crowd in the hall waiting to get into the Silver stairwell. If it had been a serious, real fire, people probably would have died. Taking the Waverly stairs is definitely a quicker escape, even with the slight disorientation at coming out from a different stairwell on the ground floor. Still, the fire escape routes here do not seem much improved.
Second
1. One of the black belts brought (presumably) his child to stretch class last night. It almost made me want (to adopt) a baby. The kid, who couldn’t even walk on his (her?) own yet, wore a little gi complete with a white belt. He (she?) was probably the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen.
2. Slightly worrisome: A sensei (4th dan) is leaving the Seido organization, and not just because he is moving. He assured us at the end of class that there was nothing wrong with Seido and encouraged us to keep training. He said that it was time for him to move on, and though the path would change, the love of karate was still there. So maybe he wants to start his own school? That’s what Kaicho did when he withdrew from Kyokushin. But Kaicho withdrew because he disagreed with the choices made by and the new beliefs of Oyama Kancho. In reading Kaicho’s (probably biased) autobiography, I realized how fortunate it was that I was turned off by the kumite emphasis in Kyokushin (which had seemed highly appealing until I observed a class) because I too disagreed with the principles of the grandmaster. So if a sensei is leaving Seido forever, does that suggest that there are now such flaws in my style? It does not seem possible considering how strong Kaicho’s feelings were just 30 years ago. Still, I must be alert to changes in the organization and not continue training blindly if definite problems make themselves known.