Bloody Nose

I wrote this in my journal in January 30, 2006.

Guess what? My sensei was at class today and he was in his gi! I was happy he was in his gi because the last two times he was in sweats. I asked Marsha if he not being there was a fluke. She said yes because he normally got on people’s cases when they didn’t show up for class. Hopefully, he won’t miss class for awhile.

Before class, I saw Sensei teach Emily I think the beginning moves in Saifa. I think she is the best student that can do Karate. We started class by learning harder and newer moves called moving attack. There are three sequences called number one, two, and three. We do them in this order; one, two, three, three, two, one. We go forward with the first three and go backwards on the last three.

After we did that, we split off into groups. Sensei went to another part of the gym to teach the advanced group. Captain David started teaching us FDS. Then, we went through Moving Attack again. While doing that, my nose decided to bleed. I went to the bathroom and Captain David sent Tiffany with me to see if I was all right. Of course, I was fine, it just happens sometimes. It was a little one, but it took five min. to stop. When I went back to the gym, Sensei asked if I was all right. I was lucky that I didn’t get any blood on my gi.

(I had a similar experience during Gasshuku. When we were doing kata, I started to have a bloody nose. Therefore, I stopped what I was doing and went up stairs to the girls bathroom. A few min. later, Sempai Linda came up to see what was wrong and to see if I was all right. I told her that I had a little bloody nose. She waited with me until it was done. Then, I followed her down stairs and out on the dojo floor. When I came back in line, Sempai Dale said “Welcome back.” Ten min. later Sensei asked why I left and I told him. I don’t know why my nose likes to do that. When I was a little kid, I had bloody noses all the time. When I cried too hard, it would start to bleed.)

While practicing, I noticed that Sensei made the other group run a few times. I even saw Naomi run by herself. The advanced Emily and Naomi said that Sensei likes to make people run when they make many mistakes.

When I get tired down blocking and switching to kokutsu dachi or near the end of class, it’s hard to keep my technique up. Nevertheless, when I know that Sensei or Captain David is watching me, I do my best not to slack off.

I’ve been practicing lately by myself at home. Today, I noticed that I did some moves wrong when practicing and that defiantly showed today. I’ll get better. At least Sensei said that I have improved during class. I’m glad that he noticed.