So I have been taking Batta to classes, and being that we both missed two so far, we thought it would be a great idea to go to the karate clinic. Boy, was I mistaken. I suppose if one good thing is to come out of it, it's that I know I stil have some work before black belt...for sure.
The last time I went to Karate Clinic, I was still a white belt and didn't own a black gi. This apparently gave the right for some woman to berate me up and down. This fate was unfortunately, 4 years later, shared by Batta. It has become aggravating how some of the blackbelts in our system think they have the right to step all over anyone who isn't their student. I understand that our school- be it full of kids and tiny and overcrowded- seems to carry a certain distain by other schools in our system, most likely due to the fact we are the furthest east and we don't concentrate on competing. Excuse me all to Hell. It's not like a lowly brown belt can do anything to change the school's situation (even if I wanted to), but whatever.
There were a few stations- aiki, self-defense, iai, sparring, and kata. Aiki was ...eh, okay. Apparently, I have a problem with "flow". Self-defense was the worst. Not only was I made to feel like an idiot, one of the blackbelts made a back-handed compliment about how fast I was being ranked. The only good thing about it was I got to make aquaintance with a blonde who bore a striking resemblance to the bad guy in Karate Kid. Iai, thank goodnesss, was right after and was a total gimme. I felt better after seeing the older guy in our group continually hold the bokken upside down. Sparring was deathly. I got my ass kicked, primarily because I never spar and these guys always spar. *sigh* Then it was kata. *sigh* again. We were doing taikyoko shodan as a group and failing miserably. I was so glad time ran out before having to show my kata. The one guy who did empi was awesome. I'm glad I didn't have to follow it up I didn't care too much for kata because they were only interested in showing us how to compete, which I don't like.
So Batta and I went to class on monday to show what we had learned. Goth Kid also went, but I think he was on a medication low because he recalled nothing. I deliberately isolated the adults so we could work on self-defense. Batta was thankful I didn't do 27 movements again as he is sick of it. I laugh. History repeats itself. Batta and I both agreed that if any regular drunk was going to knock one out , it'd be with a haymaker (cue the clueless looks). "You know, guys- a roundhouse punch?" "Ohh!!" This sparked a conversation with Batta about barfights in Newark. "Did you really get into a barfight?" one of the little senseis asks. "Yes, lots of them." Batta answers. He inspires fear and that makes me strangely happy. We also sparred with goshinkens, which Batta loved. Silly Batta. He was so proud of the bruise head sensei left on his face.
