stuff's happenin'

Yep, it's not because I'm not posting that I'm not training and that stuff isn'T happening, so here goes with a hodgepodge (my new favorite word) of karate stuff...

Let him pick a side

Knowing that February was coming fast and with it, supposedly a test, I asked my wife to be home on time on Wednesday so I could jam in an extra hour of class. She did make it and that class was nice, even better than most Wednesday night class in that it wasn't too crowded. We worked on punches for a little while to warmup then went on to work on locks, namely shionage and sankyo.

Quite honestly, I felt god with the two of them, better than I expected. Facing either a lapel grab, a hook punch or a direct punch, I was usually able to block/deflect the punch or get out of the grab and then put myself in position to follow it with either of the two locks. That was a feel good moment.

we ended by working on the locks out of a crossed wrist grab. Imagine an attacker grabing your right wrist with his right hand, a bit as if he was shaking your hand. Thats where we the one playing the attacker had to pick a side, either pull to his right, or to his left. Depending on which side he takes, shionage or sankyo comes just naturally. No need to think about what the name of the lock is, or to fight his pull, just let him pull and go with the lock. He pulls to his right, my left, it's sankyo. To his left, my right, it's shionage. Realizing I was able to simply do it, without even thinking, was another feel good moment.


So February as started

So yeah, we get to Saturday morning and the first thing our instructor tells us, in the middle of the warmup session, is that the test date has been set for February 17. I guess I feel good about that date. I mean, could I use more time to get ready? Well, who wouldn't? Still, I feel like stuff is coming along nicely and that I will be ready, or at least, I won't be doing much worse than any other 3rd kyu who will be on that test. You know, it's not that I compare myself with others so much, but you never want to be the one doing the most mistakes in a test...

That class was a good one though and it actually is the main reason why I'm saying I should be ready for that test. After doing some stance drills, we paired up to work on our self defense techniques. Our instructor asked us to do facing both a right (the more natural one) and a left handed attack. My partner and I decided to do them one by one, right then left and as such were going through them a bit slower than other paires who did all techniques right handed and then left handed. At one point, when we heard the other two pairs calling much higher techniques than the one we were working on, she told me something along the lines of "woah, we're slow". I didn't care much and told her we were learning to work them properly. When we got to the end however, we finished about 3-4 minutes before the other pairs, as it became obvious to us that they were finishing their left handed versions of the techniques.

Quitre honestly, the techniques were coming and flowing quite well. I was very happy with how it went. Two more weeks like that and I'm sure we'll be good to go.


Sad not to compete, but...

Yeah, not competing in the upcoming Levisien Open is kinda sad, but I've discovered that I've started enjoying "playing" with my bo so much more. While there's something to be said about having a bit of pressure to spice things up, too much of it is never a good thing. Without having to think about a competition coming up, I get to experiment stuff, try learning that new trick I saw, finally simply enjoy the escape of practicing with the bo. I practice martial arts for myself, to evade from the everyday stress. There's no need in making myself nervous about it. There's that, and as you know, the lack of practice time.

FM