Yesterday was meetup #3 with the karate club. Oh boy it is hard to do those moves when you can see your awkwardness in the mirror. But people are so helpful. Near the end of practice they were helping me “understand” the form I need for side kicks. At one point I think one person was helping me balance while 3 others held my leg up trying to bring it backwards in a direction it currently doesn’t think it can go to. I need a lot of practice and more flexibility and some more core strength would help too.

If things work out I will eventually buy a karategi (I think that is what it is called…karate training uniform). Most of the people in the club have their names embroidered on their karategi and they told me I should think of kanji for me name. Why not use the katakana (メーガン　ドイッチャ）? Because you pay per character and it can be written in fewer kanji characters. So I have thought about this before. I think I know how it works of course I could be horrible wrong or unaware of some rules but…first I break my name down to: me - gan - do - i - cha and then I find kanji with readings of those syllables. Again, I might be totally missing something but…this is just to entertain myself. Taking my first name and a kanji reference book I found the following kanji for me:

目 (eye)
芽 (sprout)

and the following for gan:

岩 (rock)

岸 (coast, shore)

頑 (obstinate, stubborn)

願 (prayer, wish, vow)

丸 (circle)

元 (origin)

眼 (eye)

顔 (face)

含 (include)

癌 (cancer)

鴈 (wild goose)

Now for many of the above symbols, gan is a Chinese reading of the symbol. I don’t know if Chinese readings are typically used but I think you can use them. So what are good and meaningful combinations?　目眼(eye-eye)? 目顔(eye-face)? 目癌(eye-cancer)? The eye kanji would be good because it is very simple. But combinations of sprout might be more meaningful like, I am 芽願 (a sprout’s prayer). 芽頑 uses the kanji for “stubborn” which is typically viewed as a negative word but is it always negative? Stubborn can be firm, strong, steady. I am a stubborn sprout meaning that I am firmly rooted.
But am I?

Anyway, I will have to think about this one for a bit. Will probably also want to consider the aesthetics, recognizability (is that a word), and my ability to write the kanji.