Postity post-post- a blurb of things to come

Well this week has been quite...interesting. We've been working on the idori and ushirodori techniques and I just about have them. Some still slip me at times, but I'm getting better. My senseis are enjoying beating the piss out of me. Every time I uke for izori, I feel like it's the calm before death. Oh...the bruises.

The kids were really horrid this week. One purple people eater gave the command "do 150 jumping jacks" during warmups, to which I replied rather loudly, "I'll do as I high as you can count in Japanese." Predictably, he farted out at about 30. Little brat. Then he says, "Do as many push-ups as you can." This kids can't do a push-up, let alone 50 which was where I knew he'd go up to. Barely bending your elbows is NOT a push-up. Grr... That's as much as I wanna rant about them for a while. It's bad chi for me, and I put their fate in the hands of intellectual Darwinism and karma. Sweet, sweet karmic kicks in the ass.

So today, a sensei that hasn't been around in a while showed up and we again had to review izori from the beginning. He didn't pick up too fast either. He seemed really confused on the why technqieus are different by way of kneeling or standing. Then karate came around. Thank God I missed yet another abysmal warmup session with Owl. This sensei took over and I groaned when I found out he was going over green belt techniques. Not so bad, until you consider green in a kid's book is adult equivalent to yellow or orange. Bah....so after going through those half-asleep and serving as the sensei's language dictionary, sword sensei steals me away for review of adult requirements *lightbulb goes on, symbolizing a novel idea*. Damn did I need that. Because of hip problems and mono, my kicks have gone to put. And I still can't jab worth a shit. Some things never change. But hey, at the end of class, Owl got his first stripe on his brown belt, and I got my stripe on my purple belt. Yay! A girl about college age joined iai today. We'll see how long she stays.

So now, that's where things stand. Coming up is going to be the summer from HELL! June 9th is my doppleganger's junior sho-dan test for karate. June 10th is the little senseis' iai shodan and junior ni-dan for karate *still rolling eyes*. After that, there's another in line to test for junior shodan- I call him Eraserhead. And this September my waiting period for iai expires and I may test for ni-dan. Bork to all of that. Just...bork. So seeing as how the ranks are rapidly changing, I thought I'd once again post everyone's rank.

Karate

• Brownies: Doppleganger, Eraserhead, kid I will call Freckles 'til a better name surfaces, Owl, Lazy girl, Wheezy kid. Number of blackbelt tests in 2007: 3. Number in 2008: 4.
• Purple People Eaters: Verizon Guy, me, four interchangable brats.


• Greenies: More interchangable brats that include Frankenstein, a pair of fuzzy head twins,and two blonde brats.


• Oranges: Punky and her friend, some other brat.


• Yellow: some adults, one kid.


• White: three kids of same family, that kid who likes the Wavemaster.

tally: (excluding bratty black belts and other senseis) roughly 30.

Iai

• Ikkyu- Little senseis.
• Ni-kyu- Prince Valiant (by act of God only)
• San-kyu- the two adults...let's give them names now...Sneezy and Doc.
• Yon-kyu- Goth Kid, Professional Mom and her son.

tally: (excluding myself and senseis) 8

Aiki

WHO FREAKIN' KNOWS???? I used to be yellow (hachi-kyu) patch but the patches ended up being an abysmal failure and so did the 10-rank system. So we went back to 5 but the stuff is all different and we have yet to be re-evaluated. I do NOT want to have to pay for this. According to the book, new stuff begins at ni-kyu, which is where Verizon Guy and I should be. But to my understanding, they want us to test at san-kyu which are the exact same requirements as for our yellow patch! What the Hell?

So sleepy and out of shape.

I feel doughy...again. I am struggling to return to the condition I was before I got mono. My poor midsection is all puffy again. Alas, I'm a marshmallow.

I feel so tired after Saturday's class. I met up with Verizon Guy, who for a change did not have to work the weekend, and we got the wonderful benefits of a double-block of aiki. Aiki sensei must have missed me, because he beat the crap out of me. We worked on all of our stuff for our next rank and it was good, I guess. I'm still sore as hell.

Thank god sword sensei didn't make the trip to the clinic. He took over class, and much to their shagrin made them do 27 movements. He told Owl to slow the hell down (hee hee). Those kids were so miserable, it was great. Unfortunately, he didn't do much for sword class. He talked...and talked....and talked....you get the point. We did work #5 and 6 kumitachi for a little bit, but mostly we just sat around. Bah.

Tomorrow will be the real test to see how I feel. Right now, the bed feels good...mm, squishy... Zzzz...

The Evil Stepsister

Why is it no kid has discipline anymore? I returned to class on Wednesday and to my shagrin, I was assigned to teach...again. How many brown belts are there? And why can't they teach? Oh, yeah- because they're brats. But I digress.

I taught an ensemble of white, yellow and orange belts who were, of course, all over the place in skill level. So, I ran them through combinations; rear to front stance, horse stance to front stance. Basic stuff, bork. After about fifteen minutes, everyone was tired and wanted a drink. It's funny when you release them for a drink...they vacate like bats. The sad thing is stamina seems to be better in the white belts than the orange. One in particular I'll call Punky Brewster kept rolling her eyes at me like I was being the evil stepsister. Sorry I can't let you eat chocolate all class. And another kid whom I assigned to help the white belts go over a kata she had for a long time forgot the kata and instead they sat around. Bork.

I still had better luck with them than my teachers had with the others. Stupid brown belts still don't know their kata which they've had for months. It's not like they are seven either, they're 10-15 roughly. It's like asking them to practice for five minutes on their own is too much to ask.
My dopplegagger is starting sai kata. I an envious, nyo. It's not in her requirements for junior sho-dan, so I assume she is doing it for competition. She missed the last one, so now she is trying out this on a bigger competition- where she'll probably get squashed by the likes of that professional jackass kid. Sigh.

Let's see what else I missed- one of the brownies got his first stripe, a kid got his orange belt, other than, nothing. The mother of the little senseis was prompt to brag about how the older one has started up yet another sport *roll eyes*. And then, there is the matter of class tomorrow. And guess who has to teach it? Yup, me. Aiki sensei may or may not be around, Verizon Guy will be working the weekend, most of the teachers and sword kids are going to the iai clinic at our sister dojo. I am starting to hate karate.

Mono-rific martial madness

I have to miss almost all the month of May because I have mono and gastroenteritis. Thank god I can eat again, because that was a real rough patch for a while. I am now battling with fatigue and exams, but other than that, I have no choice but to chill for a bit. I wonder what I'll miss while I'm gone. It's been about three months since the last string of promotions so I am highly anticipating one or all of the purple people eaters getting their stripe before me *grumble*. Phooey.

Bork! Where to go from here...

I don't know how to feel after the tournament. I've taken a couple of days to think about it, but I'm still frustrated and confused to the point where I'm seriously thinking about giving it up. Anyways, I guess I should explain why. The tournament was very long, and very draining. I rode up to the aiki clinic the day before with head sensei, sword sensei, and aiki sensei, and spent three hours listening to sword sensei talk about everything from trade shows to fish. When I go to the clinic, head honcho sensei did his usual teaching way too much in a two hour period. I was paired with goth kid, who just kept talking.

So then, the day of the tournament. My first event (1 hour into it) is all- kyu weapons division (18-34). I think I knew I was screwed when I saw there were red belts in our division and a kid with beautiful arnis sticks (they weren't tacky, either- nice dark-colored wood, unlike my pinewood arnis sticks). There was a girl from our system and my rank doing sai which pissed me off. We don't start doing sai kata until brown belt stripe. I should have brought my bokken and did anything except the only bo kata I knew. Needless to say, I was rather non-competitive. There were 20 people in our division- way more than normal, and of course I drew first. So now I'm really screwed. I got every score from a 7.5 down to a 6.2. This one judge gave low 6's to everyone who wasn't from his school, who he gave high 7's. I wasn't happy, I felt embarrased, and all I wanted to do was leave, but there were 19 other people to sit through. The other kids from our system did ichi-bo kata as well, except they did it with a couple extra moves in it and didn't do complete strikes. Me and this other kid were the only ones who didn't have cheezy tapered bos (if you're an adult, I'm sorry- use a full-sized bo). The sai girl wasn't all that good. A white belt did a nunchaku kata, forgot half of it, got stuck for five minutes, and still got low to mid 7's. As I suspected, the kid with the arnis was awesome and he easily won, getting high 7's. If all this wasn't enough, the competition was stopped twice for announcements. The only division time clocked in at just under an hour! Did I mention I really had to pee?

So, after that I bummed around for another 2 hours until my next event, the kata green-purple division (18-34). Now here was some really odd placements. I was glad to be rid of the brown belt, but there were still those two red belts from a tae kown do school that were obviously way more experienced than the rest of us. And there were this guys who were 34 (questionably) who were griping about being in with us. There was also a guy with a midnight blue colored belt (?)- I dunno what division he was supposed to be in. So here we are- I wasn't first this time, thank god, and here is another girl my rank from our system doing a kata she shouldn't have known yet. The guy who ended up winning was from my old school and did a decent version of heian godan (ironic, since I did that last year and got 4th). I thought I did really well, but it got low to mid 7s and didn't place. Furthermore, one of my old instructos walks by and says to someone "You can definitely see who comes from what school by how bad the stances are," as he glances towards me. What am I supposed to make of that?

Right after is the women's green-to-purple kumite division. This was one of the few glimmer of good things to happen all day. I went first again and drew the same girl I'd barely lost to last year- she went to my old school and had a big cheering section (karate is like a clique there). I knew I had to be aggressive so I threw a lot of kicks right out of the gate. We went 3-2 after a long fight, I finally won. Next was a short green belt who wasn't that hard to beat and I think I scored 3-1 against her. The semi-final match with the tae kwon do red belt was harder than hell. She was really tall and had a little more meat on her than me, but I tried to stay level-headed about it. She wasn't all that good and if I was better it would have been easy but I kept walking into her punches, effectively scoring on myself. Then, she hit me in the head, and the ref stopped the fight. He asked if I was okay, and I was down 2-1 and managed to come back strong. I tied her, and then, I couldn't put her away even though I knew I could! I must have scored at least 4 times but it wasn't conclusive enough. Then I walked in on a punch again and lost. Bummer. So right after I draw a short purple belt for third place. She was easy to put away, and I scored 3-0 on her. So, after all that I actually walked away with something. Bork.

So by then, I was tired as hell. Overall, our school really didn't do all that great. Wheezy kid (who has a baby brother who looks exactly like him-frightening!) got a couple of 4ths and Owl got a 1st and 3rd or something like that. The little senseis got nothing for the first time ever. They got their ass kicked all day by some professional kid who was about 17 and a foot taller than everyone else in the division. He won everything- kata, weapons, self defense, etc. When it came time for kumite, he kicked the shit out of everyone. Then, he drew a kid who was pathetically small compared to him. The crowd was like "Oh god" and for good reason as this jackass was a dirty fighter. The referee gave him a warning and he reacted by "going easy" on this kid by hitting a karate kid style crane stance and letting the poor kid shuffle into his impending doom. The crowd actually booed. It was the longest closing of distance ever. Then just as this little kid gets close, the pro tries to take his block off, misses, and the little kid kicks him in the head. Everybody cheered. Ah, there is a god. So the ref gave a warning to the little kid for a head shot and took a point away from the pro for unsportsmanlike conduct. So the next go, the pro is pissed off and drilled the poor kid to the floor. So much for light contact. So the pro got disqualified and the little kid won. It's only too bad he didn't win on skill.

Given all these feelings I had going into class monday, I was already on edge. Then, Prince Valiant decides to flex his 6" muscles. What a brat. Nobody respects him for the reason he puts down people and is lazy himself. He bitched about us not having good stances (keep in mind, this is an 11 year old) and gave my doppleganger 5 pushups with a cocky smile on his face. I wanted to hit him! And because all the adult blackbelts were late, the little senseis were running the show and all hell broke loose. And everyone is surprised at this? Something is going to blow here, and I'm afraid it's going to be me. I'm so angry at the situation. Why should I waste my money on this?