A tradition of the Windsor Higashi club is to have a Christmas night out (for the adults) on the day of the last Kata course of the year. This was held on the 16th. Several people chose to come to the party (on a boat that sailed up and down the Thames) but didn't bother with the kata course. Seeing as I was going to be in London anyway I thought I may as well join in and see what it was all about.
To be quite honest, I didn't think all that much of it. Admittedly, the conditions were not ideal as attendance was very high - over 60 people crammed into a training hall thats much smaller than the one I train in during the week. We literally had about 2 foot square in which to move, and for kata, thats a bad thing!
As a beginner, I am taught kata just as series of karate moves and generally I have to just follow along and copy other people. Its not until a bit higher grade that you start to receive a bit more attention. Kata isn't really just a series of fancy moves for the sake of it; it's a simulation of a combat situation in which you fight off several attackers at once. Knowledge of the combat behind the kata is called 'bunkai'. Occasionally in class, I'll see the higher grades demonstrate this. One person is surrounded by several others who are all being attackers and then each move of the kata is analysed in terms of this combat. Interesting stuff.
I thought that the kata course, being a "course" would be teaching us advanced stuff like this. I thought that the kata would be picked apart and taught in detail but no - we just practised the kata one move at a time just like we do in class. The higher grades got to do some practising of a few specific moves with a partner but for us low grades, we just practised the same kata over and over and over again. Frankly, I was bored to death.
If these courses were held locally then I'd probably still attend them but the trek to London took two hours including an hour long journey on the underground (and I have a bit of a phobia of tunnels so I really dislike the tube), and the ticket was a tenner. My time and money can be better used elsewhere, at least for another few grades.
Oh well.
On the subject of gradings though, after much bugging, Garry finally decided to hold a grading on the last training day before the Christmas break on the 20th. It was originally due to be held in November but some mixups with the venue led to continued delays and it was starting to look like I was going to have to wait until January.
I was really eager to grade because I've done all this early stuff before. I've been training for four months now so I was definately ready for it. The grading was a breeze, and for me, really rather short. For 8th Kyu all that is required are the basic punches (front and reverse), the four basic blocks and a front kick. That's it!
There were two 8th Kyu's going for their yellow belt and for their grading they did the same stuff as me, plus a roundhouse kick (mawashi gaeri) and the first kata, Pinan Nidan. I'm fairly confident I can also do this stuff well so I'll be wanting to grade again at the earliest opportunity.
I received a first class pass which I am very pleased with. I just hope I can continue that standard in the future. I might be impatient when it comes to gradings but deep down I would rather take my time and get a good pass each time than to rush through them and scrape by with a 3rd class pass.
I didn't have any nerves at all. In fact I got a real buzz out of it - I was disappointed that there weren't more people watching! I think some of thoe other people grading were nervous. But all was good, everybody passed in the end!
Now I gotta wait until January 10th before I can train again! That's three weeks, UGH!
Thursday, 21 December 2006
Friday, 17 November 2006
Don't Beat Yourself Up!
Some people just beat themselves up a lot. They are never happy with their performance and always think they should be doing better or working harder. In last nights karate class, I took this 'beating oneself up' thing a little too far and actually punched myself in the face!
You may well be wondering how on earth one can achieve that given the techniques available at white belt...
Well let me enlighten you! Pinan Shodan, towards the end of the kata when you are working your way towards the back of the hall. You've turned to do a soto uke, and then followed with a front kick and reverse punch with the left hand. You then take that left hand and do another soto uku with it. Your arm starts off in a horizontal position perpendicular to your body and to do a jodan soto uke all you need to do is rotate the forearm upwards, perpendicular to the body. I managed to rotate my arm backwards instead of upwards thus delivering a nice backfist to my right eye!
Unfortunately for me, I was kinda 'going for it' in this particular kata so I really spanked myself quite hard! It knocked me for six a bit and my eyes went all squiffy for a few minutes. The next morning I found a nice bruise just below my eyebrow :-)
It was a good class last night. Only three students turned up! So we got lots of personal attention from Garry and spent the entire session concentrating on Pinan Nidan and Shodan. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned - don't beat yourself up!
You may well be wondering how on earth one can achieve that given the techniques available at white belt...
Well let me enlighten you! Pinan Shodan, towards the end of the kata when you are working your way towards the back of the hall. You've turned to do a soto uke, and then followed with a front kick and reverse punch with the left hand. You then take that left hand and do another soto uku with it. Your arm starts off in a horizontal position perpendicular to your body and to do a jodan soto uke all you need to do is rotate the forearm upwards, perpendicular to the body. I managed to rotate my arm backwards instead of upwards thus delivering a nice backfist to my right eye!
Unfortunately for me, I was kinda 'going for it' in this particular kata so I really spanked myself quite hard! It knocked me for six a bit and my eyes went all squiffy for a few minutes. The next morning I found a nice bruise just below my eyebrow :-)
It was a good class last night. Only three students turned up! So we got lots of personal attention from Garry and spent the entire session concentrating on Pinan Nidan and Shodan. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned - don't beat yourself up!
Tuesday, 10 October 2006
October 2006 Competition Report
The Higashi Championships have been and gone now... I came fifth in my category (of about 13) which I thought was okay for my first one. Perhaps next time I'll get a trophy. The juniors from our club did extremely well getting six trophies between them including one first place.
The atmosphere of the event was not at all what I expected. I imagined that it would be fairly quiet and very serious but it but to the contrary, it was noisy and there was a lot going on at once with about six different areas in use. This took the pressue off a little because the only people watching you are pretty much the judges and competitors in your category; it's not like the entire arena is watching you. So I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I still suffered from nerves a little bit but I'm sure that everybody else did too. It's all part of the competition environment and learning to overcome them is part of the training.
Although my own performance lasted for perhaps just one minute, the competition went on for several hours and I had already missed most of the junior events. Watching the higher grades sparring in particular was quite fun though it made me glad to be female as the male sparring just looks downright vicious! There were lots of loud kiai's to be heard, as well as various other shouts, squeals and odd monkey noises from one competitor! It probably sounded worse than it really was. However the women weren't quite so vocal, or so mean looking so I may just have a go at the kumite next time.
The next competition is due to be held in April so I could be yellow belt by then which allows me to enter the kumite as well as the kata. All in all, a good day marred only by the parking ticket I found on my car when I left :-(
The atmosphere of the event was not at all what I expected. I imagined that it would be fairly quiet and very serious but it but to the contrary, it was noisy and there was a lot going on at once with about six different areas in use. This took the pressue off a little because the only people watching you are pretty much the judges and competitors in your category; it's not like the entire arena is watching you. So I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I still suffered from nerves a little bit but I'm sure that everybody else did too. It's all part of the competition environment and learning to overcome them is part of the training.
Although my own performance lasted for perhaps just one minute, the competition went on for several hours and I had already missed most of the junior events. Watching the higher grades sparring in particular was quite fun though it made me glad to be female as the male sparring just looks downright vicious! There were lots of loud kiai's to be heard, as well as various other shouts, squeals and odd monkey noises from one competitor! It probably sounded worse than it really was. However the women weren't quite so vocal, or so mean looking so I may just have a go at the kumite next time.
The next competition is due to be held in April so I could be yellow belt by then which allows me to enter the kumite as well as the kata. All in all, a good day marred only by the parking ticket I found on my car when I left :-(
Friday, 6 October 2006
October 2006 Competition Looming
I knew about the Karate competition that is being held on this coming Saturday even before I started Karate as it was posted on the calendar of my club's website. I looked at it and vaguely thought 'ooh' then didn't think much more of it after that. Over the last few weeks as the competition date has drawn closer our focus in class has been towards kata and sparring, especially for those competing.
On Monday night we were told to form groups and practice kata together so I opted to work on Pinan Shodan as I had only just managed to find my way around that one the week before so I wanted to get some practice in. Then Garry said that we'd each have to perform our kata in front of the class - eep! That was scary, and I was convinced that I had gone wrong but I hadn't. We did it facing the opposite way to the norm and it confused me as I thought that I ended up facing the wrong way. We were all scored with the scores being between 6 and 8. My score was 6.6 which I thought was pretty naff but not bad for these early weeks.
I was very surprised to get an email from Garry the next day asking if I would like to compete in the competition in one of the kata categories! I agreed though decided it would be best to stick to Pinan Nidan.
I wish I had known a few weeks earlier that I would be competing because I only actually realised last night just how bad my Pinan Nidan is! Often in class, we are told to just follow along and when you do that you don't usually observe all the intricacies of the stances, foot positioning etc. Plus, following somebody who is only a grade or two higher than you isn't necessarily a good thing as they may not know it properly either! Last night I was given some individual tuition from some high grades and found that there is one move in particular that I am doing wrong and I'm really struggling with it. The best I can do now is try to practice it in my living room over the next couple of evenings!
I'm not expecting to do particularly well in the competition. I will be the lowest grade in the category and most probably the least experienced. If I don't come last I'll be happy. Even if I do come last I'll have tried my best and when you think about having to do something in front of a group of strangers it really makes you want to do it well so its an incentive to do better if nothing else. Plus, the act of performing under stress in that way is great practice for gradings when nerves can get the better of you. My grading is not due until November so hopefully I'll be that much better equipped for it having competed.
Another reason I want to compete is because its just another aspect of the whole karate 'thing' that I can enjoy and I remember always being too scared to do it as a teenager. I would imagine that as the grades get higher, so do the standards of the competitors and to that end I'm sure its much better to start out with competitions from the earliest grade to get used to it. Deciding to start competing at black belt could be a scary prospect indeed!
On Monday night we were told to form groups and practice kata together so I opted to work on Pinan Shodan as I had only just managed to find my way around that one the week before so I wanted to get some practice in. Then Garry said that we'd each have to perform our kata in front of the class - eep! That was scary, and I was convinced that I had gone wrong but I hadn't. We did it facing the opposite way to the norm and it confused me as I thought that I ended up facing the wrong way. We were all scored with the scores being between 6 and 8. My score was 6.6 which I thought was pretty naff but not bad for these early weeks.
I was very surprised to get an email from Garry the next day asking if I would like to compete in the competition in one of the kata categories! I agreed though decided it would be best to stick to Pinan Nidan.
I wish I had known a few weeks earlier that I would be competing because I only actually realised last night just how bad my Pinan Nidan is! Often in class, we are told to just follow along and when you do that you don't usually observe all the intricacies of the stances, foot positioning etc. Plus, following somebody who is only a grade or two higher than you isn't necessarily a good thing as they may not know it properly either! Last night I was given some individual tuition from some high grades and found that there is one move in particular that I am doing wrong and I'm really struggling with it. The best I can do now is try to practice it in my living room over the next couple of evenings!
I'm not expecting to do particularly well in the competition. I will be the lowest grade in the category and most probably the least experienced. If I don't come last I'll be happy. Even if I do come last I'll have tried my best and when you think about having to do something in front of a group of strangers it really makes you want to do it well so its an incentive to do better if nothing else. Plus, the act of performing under stress in that way is great practice for gradings when nerves can get the better of you. My grading is not due until November so hopefully I'll be that much better equipped for it having competed.
Another reason I want to compete is because its just another aspect of the whole karate 'thing' that I can enjoy and I remember always being too scared to do it as a teenager. I would imagine that as the grades get higher, so do the standards of the competitors and to that end I'm sure its much better to start out with competitions from the earliest grade to get used to it. Deciding to start competing at black belt could be a scary prospect indeed!
Thursday, 28 September 2006
Looking Back at the First Six Weeks
After my very first session, I ached badly for five whole days, I had blisters on both feet and I could barely walk. I wasn't surprised by this and I hoped that recovery would ease with time. My particular Karate group holds classes Monday and Wednesday night so in order to be able to do both sessions, I would need to feel fairly recovered within two days so I decided to start off with just one session per week.
On the first week my quads were the worst, on the second week I had the most extraordinary aching in my lats! Must have been from all that punching I think. On the third week it was my calves... well, at least my training was varied!
The fourth week brought an opportunity to watch a grading. At first I was hoping to take part in it myself as I had had a look through the syllabus and recognised all of the techniques mentioned. That was a very naive (and somewhat cocky!) attitude and luckily Garry (the instructor) knew better and encouraged me to just watch the first one. The grading took place after a full-length session so of course all of the participants were already tired. There was a yellow belt, a green belt and two orange belts grading.
The grading started out with all participants having to perform some basic techniques suitable for the yellow belt. Eventually he was asked to sit down and the others continued and the techniques moved onto orange belt level. The two orange belts sat down and the green belt continued on his own. The rule is that the higher grade has to do everything that the lower grades do, plus additional material specific to their grade. Thus, the higher the grade, the more gruelling the overall grading.
Following basics were Kata and then Kumite. The Kumite was interesting and took a couple of forms. For some of it, a higher belt was asked to help out and throw some specific attacks at the participant who then had to defend against them. There was also some free sparring and the most fun to watch was when the green belt had to fight both orange belts at the same time!
The grading went on for at least 45 minutes and unfortunately for them, they dont get a decision for another week or so after the grading takes place.
That was last week and due to a mixup in grading dates I ended up going to both sessions unintentionally. Sometimes, you need something external to give you that 'push' to do something and this was one of those times for me. Until then I still didn't think I was ready for two sessions a week but after that grading I found that a couple of days later I didn't ache anymore, so I went along both times this week with last night being the last session and today I feel fine! I still got blisters on my toes but they don't hurt anymore and I feel as though I have pushed through the initial pain barrier of the first few weeks.
I feel like I've now implanted Karate firmly into my lifestyle. I have my licence to practice, I've got my weekly routine all worked around my two nights a week out and I feel like I've definately settled into the training itself. I've been introduced to two Kata's, I've practised lots of basics, tried out the first Kumite, and even done some free sparring!
The sparring gave me a bit of a kick up the backside to be honest... I was never particularly good at it before so I didn't expect to be now but I was really quite crap. I kept finding myself closing my eyes and wildly flapping my arms around like a proper girl! A couple of my opponents were quite nice and went easy on me, attacking quite slowly so that I had a chance to defend but two purple belts gave me a bit of a beating! One of them, a big, tall guy seemed most adept at smacking me around the head with a backfist, one of which made my eyes water and I had to step aside for a moment. Another purple belt was only a teenager but his attacks came with such force that my arms and wrists became very painful from blocking them. I now have a large bruise on both arms for my efforts!
At first I was rather annoyed at this. "I'm only a white belt, this is my first time, why are they giving me such a hard time?", I grumbled to myself? Then I had a thought... I often read that the way a person reacts to you is almost entirely dependent on your behaviour. This accounts for why some people always seem to get noticed, or get ignored etc. Could it be, that they were being hard on me because I was actually sparring better than a true beginner (who had *never* done this before)? There was another white belt in the class that night, and this was her second lesson ever. She partnered with me first for the sparring and she stood in front of me looking exasperated, and said "I don't know what to do!" I at least knew what I was supposed to do, even if I was no good at it. I gave it my sincerest effort and got thwacked several times as a result!
So I made myself feel better about it by concluding that I must have fooled them into thinking I was a higher grade in a white belt disguise :-) Oh, and I decided right away to buy some sparring mits with full forearm guards!
On the first week my quads were the worst, on the second week I had the most extraordinary aching in my lats! Must have been from all that punching I think. On the third week it was my calves... well, at least my training was varied!
The fourth week brought an opportunity to watch a grading. At first I was hoping to take part in it myself as I had had a look through the syllabus and recognised all of the techniques mentioned. That was a very naive (and somewhat cocky!) attitude and luckily Garry (the instructor) knew better and encouraged me to just watch the first one. The grading took place after a full-length session so of course all of the participants were already tired. There was a yellow belt, a green belt and two orange belts grading.
The grading started out with all participants having to perform some basic techniques suitable for the yellow belt. Eventually he was asked to sit down and the others continued and the techniques moved onto orange belt level. The two orange belts sat down and the green belt continued on his own. The rule is that the higher grade has to do everything that the lower grades do, plus additional material specific to their grade. Thus, the higher the grade, the more gruelling the overall grading.
Following basics were Kata and then Kumite. The Kumite was interesting and took a couple of forms. For some of it, a higher belt was asked to help out and throw some specific attacks at the participant who then had to defend against them. There was also some free sparring and the most fun to watch was when the green belt had to fight both orange belts at the same time!
The grading went on for at least 45 minutes and unfortunately for them, they dont get a decision for another week or so after the grading takes place.
That was last week and due to a mixup in grading dates I ended up going to both sessions unintentionally. Sometimes, you need something external to give you that 'push' to do something and this was one of those times for me. Until then I still didn't think I was ready for two sessions a week but after that grading I found that a couple of days later I didn't ache anymore, so I went along both times this week with last night being the last session and today I feel fine! I still got blisters on my toes but they don't hurt anymore and I feel as though I have pushed through the initial pain barrier of the first few weeks.
I feel like I've now implanted Karate firmly into my lifestyle. I have my licence to practice, I've got my weekly routine all worked around my two nights a week out and I feel like I've definately settled into the training itself. I've been introduced to two Kata's, I've practised lots of basics, tried out the first Kumite, and even done some free sparring!
The sparring gave me a bit of a kick up the backside to be honest... I was never particularly good at it before so I didn't expect to be now but I was really quite crap. I kept finding myself closing my eyes and wildly flapping my arms around like a proper girl! A couple of my opponents were quite nice and went easy on me, attacking quite slowly so that I had a chance to defend but two purple belts gave me a bit of a beating! One of them, a big, tall guy seemed most adept at smacking me around the head with a backfist, one of which made my eyes water and I had to step aside for a moment. Another purple belt was only a teenager but his attacks came with such force that my arms and wrists became very painful from blocking them. I now have a large bruise on both arms for my efforts!
At first I was rather annoyed at this. "I'm only a white belt, this is my first time, why are they giving me such a hard time?", I grumbled to myself? Then I had a thought... I often read that the way a person reacts to you is almost entirely dependent on your behaviour. This accounts for why some people always seem to get noticed, or get ignored etc. Could it be, that they were being hard on me because I was actually sparring better than a true beginner (who had *never* done this before)? There was another white belt in the class that night, and this was her second lesson ever. She partnered with me first for the sparring and she stood in front of me looking exasperated, and said "I don't know what to do!" I at least knew what I was supposed to do, even if I was no good at it. I gave it my sincerest effort and got thwacked several times as a result!
So I made myself feel better about it by concluding that I must have fooled them into thinking I was a higher grade in a white belt disguise :-) Oh, and I decided right away to buy some sparring mits with full forearm guards!
Sunday, 24 September 2006
Restarting Karate After 15 Years
My first contact with martial arts was Judo when I was about 14. As a child, I was extremely small for my age. I was very skinny and light weight and I found that at Judo, bigger kids would take advantage of that by dragging me down to the floor for easy points rather than use proper technique. I don't like scrappy, underhand stuff like that and I soon quit and found Karate instead.
That was very different as most of the time you practice techniques on your own and only occasionally use what you have learned against others in sparring. So my size was no longer a problem. I don't remember much of that early karate club and I had to stop going when we moved house.
A few years later my brother (who was a black belt or close to it) started going to a local club and urged me to join him which I did. I really enjoyed it but I didn't really stick to it very well. I found myself easily distracted by usual teenage stuff and once I started going to college and left home, I dropped out entirely. I reached orange belt if I recall.
That was when I was about 20 years old and since then I always thought about starting again but never got around to it. My fitness level decreased over the years and my weight increased. So I always figured that I'd need to get fitter before I could start up again. Well that was my excuse for 15 years anyway.
I had various other excuses too - an injury to a finger (which I eventually got fixed), and an ever-changing schedule whilst at University were my main ones. But in July of this year, three years after getting my finger fixed I graduated from University and no longer had any excuses. I started work a few days after graduation and right away I joined my local gym and started working out every lunchtime. In the back of my mind, I kept getting that niggling feeling that now really was the time to start Karate again.
At first I set myself a pre-requisite - to be able to run for 10 minutes on the treadmill. Of course, this was nothing but a delay tactic. I tried it out (running is not my strong point) and I managed all of about 2 minutes so I fugured it would be several months before I would be ready. But I had put the idea in motion and this got me interested so I had to take a look around. I wanted to practice in the style that I had done before, which is called Wado-Ryu and I found a friendly looking club in Windsor that looked promising.
This website got me all excited! I could see from the pictures that they had plenty of older members and they weren't just a bunch of black belt teenagers. They did lots of interesting events and then I checked their address - the club was on a road that I drove past on the way home from work! I just had to check it out so that night I found the hall where the club was held and it was only 10 minutes away from my house.
My this point, I *knew* I was going to start. Yes I was scared that I was too unfit and that I'd never get through an hour and a half of training without passing out but I just couldn't wait any longer. I phoned the instructor Garry and had a chat with him. Nice chap :-) He put all my fears to rest... The students varied wildly in age, ability and fitness level. Some would step to the side and take a short break for a sip of water. This was all I needed to know!
The following session I went along to watch and all the memories from 15 years earlier came flooding back. This was *exactly* what I was looking for. Everybody was friendly and loads of people came to talk to me during the break (yes, they even have a scheduled break mid-class!) and afterwards.
The very next session I dusted off my old Gi and went along. I had the time of my life! It was physically gruelling but I survived! I wonder now if I could have started this again years ago? Well it doesn't matter now as I've started and I'm loving it - it's absolutely the highlight of my week.
Moral of the story - if there's something you want to do and you've been putting it off because of some arbitrary excuse that you've made up for yourself, just go for it and give it a go, you might just enjoy it!
That was very different as most of the time you practice techniques on your own and only occasionally use what you have learned against others in sparring. So my size was no longer a problem. I don't remember much of that early karate club and I had to stop going when we moved house.
A few years later my brother (who was a black belt or close to it) started going to a local club and urged me to join him which I did. I really enjoyed it but I didn't really stick to it very well. I found myself easily distracted by usual teenage stuff and once I started going to college and left home, I dropped out entirely. I reached orange belt if I recall.
That was when I was about 20 years old and since then I always thought about starting again but never got around to it. My fitness level decreased over the years and my weight increased. So I always figured that I'd need to get fitter before I could start up again. Well that was my excuse for 15 years anyway.
I had various other excuses too - an injury to a finger (which I eventually got fixed), and an ever-changing schedule whilst at University were my main ones. But in July of this year, three years after getting my finger fixed I graduated from University and no longer had any excuses. I started work a few days after graduation and right away I joined my local gym and started working out every lunchtime. In the back of my mind, I kept getting that niggling feeling that now really was the time to start Karate again.
At first I set myself a pre-requisite - to be able to run for 10 minutes on the treadmill. Of course, this was nothing but a delay tactic. I tried it out (running is not my strong point) and I managed all of about 2 minutes so I fugured it would be several months before I would be ready. But I had put the idea in motion and this got me interested so I had to take a look around. I wanted to practice in the style that I had done before, which is called Wado-Ryu and I found a friendly looking club in Windsor that looked promising.
This website got me all excited! I could see from the pictures that they had plenty of older members and they weren't just a bunch of black belt teenagers. They did lots of interesting events and then I checked their address - the club was on a road that I drove past on the way home from work! I just had to check it out so that night I found the hall where the club was held and it was only 10 minutes away from my house.
My this point, I *knew* I was going to start. Yes I was scared that I was too unfit and that I'd never get through an hour and a half of training without passing out but I just couldn't wait any longer. I phoned the instructor Garry and had a chat with him. Nice chap :-) He put all my fears to rest... The students varied wildly in age, ability and fitness level. Some would step to the side and take a short break for a sip of water. This was all I needed to know!
The following session I went along to watch and all the memories from 15 years earlier came flooding back. This was *exactly* what I was looking for. Everybody was friendly and loads of people came to talk to me during the break (yes, they even have a scheduled break mid-class!) and afterwards.
The very next session I dusted off my old Gi and went along. I had the time of my life! It was physically gruelling but I survived! I wonder now if I could have started this again years ago? Well it doesn't matter now as I've started and I'm loving it - it's absolutely the highlight of my week.
Moral of the story - if there's something you want to do and you've been putting it off because of some arbitrary excuse that you've made up for yourself, just go for it and give it a go, you might just enjoy it!
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