Saturday, September 16, 2006

A bo, a sandwich and some Gatorade...

Today marked the start of our bo classes on Saturdays. With an 11:15 traditional class for both Andrew and I, in separate rooms, and a new time of 1:15 pm for the bo class, this meant we had to bring our lunch, as we only had an hour in between the two classes. That bo class used to be at 2:15 and we had time to get back home, eat something without being on a timer and come back to the school for the bo class, but now, since it takes about 15 minutes to go back and forth from the school, I thought we were better off with a sandwich.

We made the best of it and sat down in the lounge they have at the school. It's a neat little room they have set in between the women's and men's dressing rooms where there's a big screen TV hooked up to a DVD player. Playing today was Lilo and Stitch 2, a cute movie I'd not seen yet. I also used some of that one hour to do my three pinan kata very slowly, paying good attention to my every moves...

As I said, the day started off with a traditional class. Looking back at it, one could say I didn't get much done, but I was very happy with the class. We started out with our usual warmup/cardio session that included much abs work which I know I need. That was painful but in a good way, if that makes any sense. We then did our three blocking forms, well three for anybody under balck belt, with the third a few more times while the black belts did the fourth and fifth blocking forms. As they names implies, the blocking forms are just forms of blocks, no strikes. These are the first forms we learn, before we go on to the pinan series. We then all did our highest kata once. For me, that was Cat two.

From there, four of us went to work on Sushi No Kon Sho, the traditional bo kata that is needed to test for the black belt. We had done it from beginning to end last week but none of us was able to make it to the end today. Our instructor guided us through it and we worked on that for the rest of the class. I'm quite happy about how it went today because once our instructor showed us the end, I was able to do it a few times by myself. It's not a pretty rendition, but I can make it to the end and for now, that's an accomplishment.

Then came lunch with Andrew and while it wasn't much, to sit with him, watch TV while we ate a sandwich and drank some very blue Gatorade, I couldn't help but be happy. I mean, that was simply cool. Sometimes I didn't even watch the TV screen, I just watched him. I love my sons. :)

Then came the bo class. I think I've explained before, but this is an open style kind of bo class, where we practice stuff that's usually more suited to compete. We learned a kata designed by our instructor last Fall so technically, judges don't what we really intend to do. Traditional and open styles of weapons usually compete in the same competitions, one against another. Even different weapons compete against one another. I'm the only adult taking this class and in today's class, there was me and four other kids, including Andrew. At the start of the clas, our instructor each gave us the choice of either making up a new kata with him, as a class, or each work to improve and change our existing kata. I let Andrew decide for the two of us. I liked that we have a kata, that I feel good about it, that he looks to be at ease with it, but would have been okay with learning a new one made from scratch. Knowing that Andrew isn't a big "trier" of new stuff, I almost knew beforehand how he would go, and he asked to keep on working on his kata and improve it as we go. By "improve it" or "change it", I literally mean that. We started practicing that bo together last September. By December, we sort of knew our kata. We really learned it in January and entered our first competition in February. After that, Andrew started taking private bo classes and that's when our instructor started telling us about little things we could do differently and from the first competition to the second, we had added a little extra strike or two, then before the third, another one, and at the Quebec Open, we had a slightly different kata from the one we started with in January. That's what we will do this time again, maybe make the kata longer, with a few more strikes here or there.

About today's class, after we'd done our kata once in front of him, our instructor told us what he wanted us to work on this Fall. We know the kata, well today was rough but we'd not done it in a couple months, so this will come back to us, but he wants us to work on the precision of it all. Our stances for one, he wants me to correct how I'm often kind of leaning forward when I do my strikes. I agree with him and I know this is something I need to work on in traditional stuff, when doing some punches in some kata. He also wants us to work on hand placement on the bo. See when doing rapid strikes, your hands should be place both and one third of the bo. When you do a basic figure 8, your hands go to the middle. We have some figure 8 in our kata, but they are often followed by strikes, which means I need to bring my hands back to third-third-third. We spent most of the class working on that today. This will require some more work... It was a good back to basics kind of class, with our instructor leaving us with a comment that we would try to start working our kata next week.

I learned that the first competition of the season for our group of schools will be on October 15. Competitions are always on Sundays and I'm kind of tempted to enter us in it. As you can see in the list of competitions for 2005-06 (sorry for the French, looks like they have not updated their English listing yet), there are 6 competitions in all during the season. Last year, we did the last three. The fourth one on the list, the LĂ©vision Open, is our "home" competition, as it is organised by our school. That one's a given as is the Quebec Open. The NDL Open was the one we had the least fun at, mostly because it looked to be a bit too big for what they seemed able to handle. On the other hand, the Quebec Open, which was HUGE, ran smoothly. Right now, I'm thinking we might make 6 of them, taking the 2nd and 4th off, but this all remains to be seen...

Oh, and when I told you I was happy with how my learning of Sushi no kon sho went, I was even able to do it again, this time way later in the afternoon, in the backyard of our house, with no outside help, as if anybody could have helped me there anyway ;)

FM

4 comments:

Mathieu said...

Wow, you have lots of competitions!

We participate in karatequebec competitions only.

It's be nice to compete with those kyokushin guys near here, but they're part of no association whatsoever.

Great on your kata! Keep it up.

I'm completely jealous of your classes schedules. I wish there was more for me.

ha... alas, I didn't build the mini-dojo for nothing. :) haha, some friends of mine came this weekend to hit the bag. That was hilarious. I have a friend, 230lbs, 6'2. He produces the weakest hits I've seen. My gf hits harder! They learned a bit of kicking stuff. Crescent kick mostly.

Hope you guys enjoy those competition. Does Andrew participate in kumite?

mat

FrogMan said...

mat,

Yeah, many competitions, but we also have a pretty good network of schools all practicing the same style, so this makes it easier to have good competitions and actually have many competitors at every competitions. Very often we also see Yoseikan people come to our competitions and I've also seen people from Montreal, from the group of school that mrx is part of. They also practice the Nick Cerio's Kenpo style.

Watch out with the kyokushin guys, I hear they are pretty rough :)

About Sushi, as I said, very happy about it. And guess what? After doing the groceries yesterday I went to the backyard and was able to do it again from start to finish and with even a bit more conviction into it. I'm pretty certain I won't forget it now...

I gotta say I like our class schedules too, but then again, it might be because of the size of our school. No offense meant, but when I see that you are training with the new people who just started at your school, I kind of feel bad for you while we have some 10-12 regular adults whom are all 3rd kyu or higher. I'd guess there were about that many new white belts who started this Fall so they have to offer some decent hours in the week for everyone.

Andrew does kumite indeed. In fact this is where he used to get most of his medals early on as he'S god good instincts to find an opening to score points. He only started finishing in the medals in kata in the last year or so, actually when he started practicing the bo. Seems that it gave him some sort of confidence that he was kind of lacking, or a better understanding of what crispness he needed to add to his kata to score well with the judges while still be well rated by his instructors, i.e. not too much show to make it untraditional.

take care, Steve.

Mathieu said...

"No offense meant, but when I see that you are training with the new people who just started at your school, I kind of feel bad for you while we have some 10-12 regular adults whom are all 3rd kyu or higher."

Well, no offense taken. Is there one in those sentences?(nevermind)

10-12 persons 3rd kyu or higher! I'm completely jealous. I'm the sempai to the new comers... And I know next to nothing. It is limitating. There's no blue belt to show me a proper niseishi dai. No brown belt to help the blue belt and so on. It's weird being at the beginning of the wheel. In my old shotokan dojo, there were 5 1st kyu, 4 2nd kyu, 7green, 4 oranges, 2yelloe(me) and 3 white. So I was getting corrections non-stop. Which was good. Now, it's more like, 2 or 3 corrections in a week.

To add to all that, I had developped some habits over the summer. And when I went in Nova Scotia, it was a big dojo! That was so great! Can't help but feel like I'm missing something.

I surprise myself wishing there was a young, cocky bastard with a black belt that came in to make us work harder.

It's precisely why I train so much at home and cross-train and visit other dojo. Because while I've developped serious skills in some parts, in others, I'm weak.

We'll see how it all goes! Maybe I'll have to train with Sensei's sensei. Or train in Montreal... who knows.

Kyokushin, they train hard, that's for sure. And that's exactly why I'd like to train with them.

ha, who knows. I may have to switch styles in the end. But I'm in no hurry and anyways, my ribs still hurt so I don't do much kumite. I'd need one of my friend to come with me. Unfortunately, they're all out of town. But if one ever moves close - or me, I'll drag their asses in class before they even realize it. Beginner or not, I know of some "serious" fighters. I'd be nice to have that kind of spirit in the dojo. And maybe not.

big rant for nothing. Bottom line is I'm staying there for a while. When I truly feel I have nothing more to learn, I'll switch dojo's while telling Sensei about it. For now, I'm learning and learning. Even if it's not as fast as I'd want it to be.

:)

later

Mir said...

Ha ha..That's right.. you'd better watch out for us Kyokushin ka.. we are trouble with a capital "T"!!!

I wish you the bestest best in your competitions.

I'm glad to hear that you are taming that kata!