Brain Man

Here's a seires of vidoes that really captivated me.

The tournament

I liked this tournament much better than the last one. Probably, I enjoyed better because it was smaller and I participated in it. I did alright. In my kata division, two green belts, a blue belt, and a purple belts. I went first and preformed Saifa because I worked on and improved it the night before. I beat a lady and won third place. My Sensei said that judges like to score conservative for the first person. For some reason, I went first in all three of my divisions.

My sparring is a different story. I don’t have sparring gear yet. Therefore, I had to borrow some from the dojo. I’m NOT going to do that ever again because they didn’t have feet pads that fit. I had to put on these things that were way too small. My feet wanted to burst out of them and be free. When I was looking for gear, they called of me first and so they had to wait for me to put the gear on. Thankfully, the head judge helped me put on my gear on because I was having trouble with it especially those feet pads.

My point sparring match was terrible. All of my training went out of the window. I reverted back to attacking with both hands instead of doing combos. I didn’t help that I didn’t know that it was a point sparring match until after the match. I know that we were tied at the end of it because of the helpers said next point wins. So, I wasn’t doing that horrible and could have gone forward. However, I lost to a white belt and was a runner up. After the match, Nyles came up to me and said don’t use two hands to attack, use combos.

My continuous match was much better. I sparred with a blue belt that was pretty good. The second half during the match actually started using my head. I know that one point I came in threw some stuff and backed out without her punching my vital areas. During the match, I did get a warning for contact. Of course she beat me; however; she beat a purple belt too. Therefore, I won third place too. After the match, Cory said that I lost because I needed more control.

A little nervous

I’m going to participate in my first tournament tomorrow. I went to a tournament before; however, I didn’t participate. I was going to do kata but I totally missed my division. Tomorrow, I’m going to do kata, point sparring, and continuous sparring. I’m nervous about sparring because I haven’t done it with the full gear yet and I’m not good. I hope that my sparring gear comes in today for the tournament tomorrow. If it doesn’t, I have to borrow from somebody. What am I going to do for a mouth guard because I can’t borrow that? I asked Sensei if I could be in the beginners sparring because I don’t spar. However, he said no and that I had to be in the intermediate.

I was planning on not participating because the last tournament got boring. It wasn’t worth 35 dollars just to do a single kata. It didn’t help that I had four or five hours of sleep that night. I hate being that tired because I’m so sensitive and emotional. This time, it will be better because it’s going to be here in Spokane. It only cost me 25 dollars and my school is hosting it. Plus, many members of my dojo are participating.

I’m going to do Seiyunchin for my kata. I like it the best because it’s the longest and it doesn’t have any kicks. However, I hardly practice it and I only know the basic jist of it. I don’t know all the details that I know for the Gekisai kata and for Saifa. At the end of class last night, everyone did their kata tournament style two at a time. The girl next to me did a Gekisai kata while I did Seiyunchin. Therefore, all the dojo watched my kata because Seiyunchin is a lot longer than a Gekisai kata. I was a little nervous before I went up. However, there wasn’t that mental block that I had when throwing the disk. I did pretty well; however, I forgot a kiai.

I like my kiai the best out of the girls. Nicole, who’s a black belt, sounds like a little yapping dog when she kiais. The kiai of other girls sound way do deep for them. In this dojo, we kiai Eee I Eee instead of EHHH! I mostly do EHHH when kiai out of habit. I don’t know if EHHH or Eee I Eee is better for a kiai.

Self-defence

This is going to be short because I need to go to bed. Today, we did self-defense in our street clothes today. I paired up with Nyles a 1st kyu who’s about the same size as me. When we first paired up, Sensei wasn’t sure about me pairing up with him; but he said that I could hit hard. First, we worked on kicking at the knee with a sidekick. Then, we worked on elbows. While training, he said that he’s sorry for the person if he or she attacks me. That was the coolest complement. Maybe I can defend myself if someone attacks me. However, I need to have a quick mind and be committed because I don’t want them attacking back when I start. I felt the punches and kicks of my fellow karate mates with the body bag. I’ll tell you that if one of them actually hits me hard, that would hurt and stun me. If anyone attacks me, I would use palm heel, knee, and elbow strikes. My palm heel strike is much harder than a regular punch. My elbow strike is one of my most powerful strikes too. I don’t think that I would use any kicks because they would be useless. I would kick them and bounce off because I’m off balance. That wouldn’t be good. The only kick that I would use is to the back of the knee when I get around to their back.

When we were done working with the bags, we got into groups of threes to work on defending another person from an attacker. I was hoping I was going to stay with my group because of Nyles and Andrew; however, Sensei switched me to another group that had a green belt and a white belt. We first worked on our posture when telling a person that we didn’t want any trouble. Then if he attacked, I would grab him in the throat, punch him in the head, knee him a couple times, and elbow him to the base of the skull. While I did this with the green belt whose male, I accidentally kneed him in the groin. He didn’t go down or anything like that, he just stood there with is hands on his knees waiting for the pain to subside. Good thing it wasn’t full power because he would have dropped like a sack of potatoes.

After class, I found out that my nerves are retarded because some of the pressure points in the arm don’t work on me. There’s a spot where one rubs across a tendon. Sensei rubbed there so I can feel it; however, it hurt a little but now enough to where I would jump and squirm. Then, Sensei Jen tried another pressure point just behind the elbow; however, I didn’t feel anything what so ever.

Kickboxing and The Conversation

Hi. I realized that kickboxing is going to be really basic with the kicking and punching. Why am I taking this class? I thought it was going to be interesting and fun. It may get better but I don’t know. Why do we have wraps because I know some of the students weren’t properly taught how to wrap their hands? We’re not going to punch with them either. It’s an OK workout but, I’m afraid it will get repetitive.

I finally saw Sensei walking out of the gym on the outside. I don’t think he saw me. He was wearing his gi and his light grey vest. I was going to a route that would pass him; however, I avoided it and took another route instead. Then, I talked to an acquaintance about karate in the locker room because she was taking it. I told her that I already took that class for two quarters and that Sensei went bad on me. I told her that she was learning Goju-Ryu and the kata she’s going to learn. She said that she didn’t know that she was going to come back to the first week because Sensei is very gruff and roar. That’s very typical. Now, he was nicer today. I told her that Sensei always nicer at SCC than in the dojo. Then, she asked me what a dojo was. I told her that it’s a place were one learns and practices karate. Then, she asked me that the card that he gave her was to his dojo. I said yes. She thought it was to his restaurant. This is a typical conversation I have with starting students; but, this was more in depth.

My Purse

Last night we had a Ladies Night, which means that we were taught basic self-defense with purses and keys. If a man grabs me on my arm, I can smack him in the face with my purse and stop down on his foot. However, I never carry a purse except when I go to church. Probably, I would break something if I hit a man with full force with my purse because it contains my scriptures. I always carry my backpack around for school so this lesson didn’t really apply to me.

I would have written more; however, I finally found out how to download music from Magnatune.com. Now, it’s time to go to bed.

Punching with wraps

This morning was my first kick boxing class. It’s going to be a watered down class because it’s more for fitness and it’s only for 45 min.

First, why do we have to wear wraps? The internet says that it’s to protect your tendons and bones in your hands. However, why did we wear them today because we didn’t hit anything with them? The girls who came back say that it feels weird to not punch without the wraps because they becomes like gloves to them. With me, I think that they are alright, but they are unnecessary. I wouldn’t want to hit anything with them because I can’t properly make a fist and I can’t see where my first two knuckles are.

After class, I wanted to practice on the stand up punching bags; however, my instructor stopped me because of liability reasons. First, she said that I cannot punch the bag without wraps or even punching mitts. I don’t agree with that. Even though I have limited experience with punching bags, I know that I can punch it with my bear hand. I have can’t go all out because I don’t want to hurt them. The point is that I have control. Maybe, many people get injured on the bags because they don’t have any control and don’t know what their limits are. Second, she said that I couldn’t even kick it because she hasn’t taught me yet. On Tuesday, I told her that I’m in karate and I’ve been in it for over a year. Maybe she forgot. I don’t think that will help because of the stupid liability issues.

All I want is for kickboxing to overlap with karate. I want this to help me with sparing because I need to work on throwing punches from a fighting stance and a guard. I need help with combos too. In class today, we learned to wrap our hands which I got lost with her instruction. I learned better when I was on the internet. Then, we learned to do the jab and cross with music. Then, we worked on pivoting and slipping a little. After that, we did some stretching. Then, we tested our selves on how many push ups and sit ups we can do. I did 50 sit ups and 25 girl push ups. I received a very good rating. I was quite well pleased because I did better than my partner and I didn’t expect that rating.

My Old Sensei

I’m taking kickboxing this quarter. I found out that I have a good chance of seeing my old Sensei because karate was moved to 8:30 to 9:30. That’s OK because I’m very happy with my new dojo. If we spoke to each other before I joined my new dojo, I don't know what would have happened. Probably, I would have been sucked into his dojo again. I missed my old dojo greatly because of the training and hardcoreness. Every time, I would have to remind myself of how badly they treated me. Now if I did one class in his dojo, I think that I'll run away because I like my new dojo too much. I would hate to stand there for a half hour stiff as a board watching the black belts do kata. It would have been so much more productive if the lower belts were allowed to work on other things because one can only learn so much just by watching. On the other hand, I'm glad that I watched because I learned what all the kata looks like.

I talked to my Sensei about him. Sensei said that Chinen doesn't like to correct his students. He demonstrates how bad they are and that exaggerates how good he is because only he is doing the technique correctly. Therefore, we grovel and worship at his feet because he’s a good Sensei and we’re bad students. Sensei Chinen didn’t explain anything. He didn’t explain how a technique in a kata would apply in a real world situation. After nine months of training, I still didn’t know how to protect myself even though he said that he taught self defense. Sensei Chinen didn’t explain and teach me all the fine details of Saifa. He just expected me to copy his movements and don’t ask any questions. That’s not a good way to learn because one learns more if he or she can ask questions.

I wonder if Sensei Chinen is going to say anything to me when he sees me. If he does, I would like to tell him that he taught me Gekisai Dai Ichi and Gekisai Dai Ni all wrong. LOL. I know he didn’t teach wrong because it’s his own style; however, he says that’s how his teachers before him taught them. I don’t believe him because even his own students say that he changes kata over time.