A happy little swordperson :)

I got ikkyu today. I'm very happy. The day didn't start out so well. I came into class with about 3 hours of sleep. Big T was running the vaccum cleaner, raising the temperature about 10 degrees in an already tiny space with no windows. We spent the whole class beating each other senseless. Head sensei showed us a nifty move where the uke punches, and the torii spins under the punch and backs up with an elbow into the uke's floating ribs.Ouch. Head sensei did it to Big T and sidelined him for about 5 minutes. So after that class, the little tikes came rolling in and raised the temperature some more. I was sweating like crazy. I finally got some badly needed instruction with my green belt requirements. *sigh* Lots of work on that is needed, that's for sure. So then that class was done, and we had sword kids come in.We had more people show up today than the past 3 months. I was sweating like mad. Head sensei called me over at the beginning of class and told me to get my book (and the grinning begins :) ). So I showed my ikkyu stuff, and though I really didn't do as well as I would have liked, I still did okay. I got taught a new kata which I really like. Head sensei said it was his favorite kata. :)So anyways I got ikkyu. I I attribute my flying up the ranks to all the (practically) individual attention I've been getting. It's helped to piggy-back with senseis when they got bored and need someone to "play" with. I now have four certificates of rank for iai, some I bought a poster frame and framed them. They look nice. *Happy Josie Dance*

kiai on the last motion, please

My work has hit a new low. I found my sister is now going to join me at work, so now my martial arts is my only thing that isn't trampled upon by my family. It's a bad thing, I have found, to let it define me, because every bad training day seems to sink me for days. I haven't been working iai ans much as I should. I've been really going through the motions. Lastsaturday I went to an iai clinic at a sister dojo. I never felt so stupid. I felt like I was getting outclassed by these beginner tikes. I cut too- not well, either. the 9 year old cut better. Yay, another prodigy- black belt by ten, quit by 12. Anyways, I've been trying to keep it in perspective. My sensei told me that the teacher at the sister dojo really teaches much differently than I'm used to. If I can, I'll see if I can get a video clip of my cutting my sensei took- though, he didn't get the good cuts. On monday, it was just me and Nerdverd. I guess this contributes to my slacking too- the fact that nobody comes to class regularly. Even if I could be ranked at this point, there is nobody to work with at my current rank now, so what's the point. We did #3 kumitachi almost all class, and probably by next class Nerdverd will forget it. I wish I wasn't the only one who took training seriously. Karate seems to prove even more of a challenge keeping focus. I want to ring the necks of those little ewok children everyday. Why does it take 10 mintues to get a drink? 15 minutes to change? I guess I've gotten old, or maybe it's the fact I don't feel special anymore.

So much uke, so little time

A lot has happened since my last post. I went to the tournament. I didn't do self-defense because I ran out of time finding ukes, so I just did sparring and kata. I did my kata 2nd in the group, got 7.2's across the board. I ended up finishing 4th out of ten, and got a nice shiny yellow ribbon. Going so early and doing it a little fast were the only things I would change. The kid who won did it with the kata I am just learning now for green belt. And the 2nd and 3rd placers were Alfred kids who did heian ni-dan. Now, heian ni-dan is kinda my arch nemesis of katas. Because I learned it first at Alfred, I had to learn it a different way when I started karate at my current school. I like the way I do that kata now, as supposed to the Alfred way. The main difference is at the beginning steps and end blocks. The beginning of the alfred kata has a crossover step between the hammerfist block and reverse punch- it's just weird. I have trouble doing the kata because I tend to mash the two versions together, otherwise I might have done that kata instead. But I chose heian go-dan because I was more confident in that. Next year, I'll probably jump into the green to purple division and get slaughtered by guys doing brown belt level kata, so I plan to take my kata I'm learning now or another higher ranked one (ro hai dai, maybe) and plug away at it so I am at the very least competitive. Anyways, I did sparring and being that there were ten of us I thought they'd mash us all in together but they separated us by gender. So there were three of us. First match was a good one. I fought an orange from Alfred, and being they concentrate way more on sparring, I knew she'd be good. I barely lost. I might have won another time, so I'm not too concerned with that. It was a long match, and I had to fight right after that (great exercise for an asthmatic). So being winded, I got my ass kicked by a white belt and that was the end of that. I don't know much I could have done differently. I managed to score one really good point on the orange belt with a roundhouse kick (kicks aren't my forte) so I'm proud of that, but I wish I could have done better. Again, I plan on getting my ass kicked next year by soon-to-be brown belts. I find that the older I get, the less competitors there are to deal with. I guess it's hard to stay in karate as you get older. So, that was the tournament. Today, I had my aiki test, and yay I passed! *happy Josie dance* It's a very nice blue. It's not the bright smurf blue belt my friend and a karate sensei have, it's a blue-grey. I'm pretty happy with it, I feel like I earned it. I did a lot of improv on my test, which was fun. I'm glad I'm not as clueless as I used to be. Now, if I could just learn that karate kata...