My first Randori and I broke my foot

Sensei said that we shouldn’t train to the point where we get bloody knuckles. I’m planning never hurting them again by hitting the Makiwara. Once a Sensei from a different city got blood all over a Makiwara and ruined the pad that covered it. It had an illustration of a tiger that had clear tape around it.

I didn’t realize that knuckle push-ups will always hurt. Now that I think about it, I think I realized it when Sempai John told me to ignore the pain when we were doing them together during Gasshuku. I didn’t realize that it hurt him too.

I don’t think I was using a roundhouse at that time. I know that we I practiced once with him when he was telling me what to do. When I was sparring, I never aimed at the head. I was just aiming at his stomach. I know that one time he roundhouse and touched my neck lightly. I’m thinking he either blocked hard when I front snap kicked and broke it. Or he broke it when he tripped me with is sweep kick. I was going for a low kick while all of a sudden he dropped to the ground and swept me off my foot, which made me land on my butt. I remember as time went on, we punched and kicked harder. I don’t know how I broke my foot when I sparred with him. That’s all I remember that has to do any thing that deals with kicking and my feet.

This is what I said on karatekorner.com. “Last night was my first experience of actually sparring with someone. I loved it and thought that it was really fun. I learned that I need to practice these techniques by myself so I can use them correctly and have good form when I actually spar. Of course, the black belt was really easy on me by not defending and evading all of my strikes. He usually let me attack first. When did attacked me, sometimes I didn’t effectively block his strike because I’m not used to blocking yet and wasn’t expecting it. It did feel good when I got a counter attack in when he attacked me and started blocking all of my moves.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be the only white belt to spar with a black belt last night. As I was sparring with him, the other white belts just stood and watched. I would have thought that Sensei would pick a higher and more experienced white belt to spar with Sempai. When he was teaching us the sparring techniques, I know that I didn’t perform as well as my fellow white belts. My kicks were horrible because I’m so uncoordinated. I wasn’t chambering with my kicks because I wanted to keep up with everybody else. My crescent and sweep kicks were bad because I didn’t make half circles. In addition, many of my kicks were off target. By the end of his lesson, I was slower and performing worse than everybody else because I was so tired. Therefore, I was surprised that Sensei still wanted me to spar with him.”

This is what I said in my journal. “For a good hour, Sempai David taught us sparring moves. It was nice to work with him again. I learned how to do all types of kicks. Most of my kicks stunk. Sensei noticed and yelled at me to chamber. Some of my kicks were way off target. Sempai noticed and tried to correct me. I think we were going too fast because my quality of my technique was bad. Cory was doing better than me! As we were doing that Sensei came up behind me and slapped the top of my shoulders. Of course, that startled me. Sensei corrected and reminded me to be in Sanchin Dachi. Sempai had to remind me to make a circle when I swept kick. When we were done, I was tired. Then Captain David asked me if I Randoried with anyone before. I said that I thought so. Then he said not to break his ribs. We stared to spar. First, he told me what to do and as time when on, I made up my own stuff. However, he was really good. Once he kicked my neck. Another time, I landed on my butt because he swept kicked me and I was kicking him with my other foot. Maybe that’s how he hurt my foot."

"Ever since Tuesday, the top of my right foot has been tender and swollen. Yesterday, it turned really black, blue, and purple near my toes and ankle. Rhea says that it’s still swollen, but I can’t tell. On Thursday, I had it wrapped to keep the swelling down. It didn’t help that I had a big split under one of my toes from athlete’s foot. From sparring, I aqurired the biggest blood blister on my left big toe that I have ever saw. So, my feet hurt for a few days. Anyways, sparring was fun.”