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.
5 comments:
I hope all went well at the tournament. :) Did you take any pictures?
No. I was thinking of bring my video camera, but I forgot.
Kiai is something that should happen naturally.
It is not really a 'shout' either, that is a very limited understanding of the term 'Kiai.'
A person can perform a Kata all the way through without shouting even once and still have good strong 'Kiai.'
If a person does shout and it is truly from the spirit, then it is not going to be at some predetermined point in the Kata, it is going to be because they are so involved, so focused to the point that the shout just happens.
Good Kiai training for Gojuka are Kata Sanchin, Tensho, and Hojo Undo, these are central to the development of good strong Kiai.
As for sparring, it is not as important as Kata.
Kata is where Karate is, not in tournament style free-sparring.
It is good to know free-sparring in order to suppliment your Karate training, but Karate itself is contained within Kata.
That is the heart, the soul, the Kiai of Karate.
I was going to wish you luck, but it sounds like you are already through it. I hope you tell us how you did.
A kiai is really a personal thing.. The sounds that I make when I kiai changes with the technique that I'm doing, and the effect that I want.. Once, when I was doing Heian Yondan Kata I startled myself when my kiai came out sounding like a fierce warrior scream of "DIE!" .. ha ha ha.. All of the other students of the dojo just stopped what they were doing, looked at me, and broke out laughing because the sound of that kiai was so intense, and violent... it fit the word perfectly. You'd think that I just did a finishing sword blow on my opponent instead of just a downwards Backfist.
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