evergrey

Haha, yeah, the old sensei had it right. Tell them, tell them, tell them, and if they don't get it... show them. I was shown some things yesterday by one of the senseis at my school. I learned that I can fly, haha! For brief amounts of time... I think he's determined to break me of the habit of charging in.

OSU folks, Today I went to my first all-styles sparring event! I had so much fun, though I think the mat was a lot cleaner at the end of the day after those three guys wiped it with me, hahaha! Of course the white belt ended up sparring with three senseis... I sure didn't "win" but in a way I did, because I learned so much! A lot of it was "what I shouldn't do," but sometimes failure can be the best teacher. I've lost about 30 pounds since I started Kyokushin. 20 since I started training at this dojo. I still have *mumblemumble* pounds to lose, but I think I'm on a pretty good track for that! Here, I'll show you a highlight, just for fun! "I did not expect that," said Shorin Ryu sensei guy. Really nice fellow, by the way! http://www.niceboots.org/~evergrey/Kyokushin/1210/highkick.jpg That, and an uraken to the face (which I pulled, 'cos I am nice and I didn't want an uraken to the face myself) after smacking down both of his hands, were probably my crowning moments. The other two people I sparred with were both a part of my style, but I'm hoping to get a chance to spar with some more people of different styles later. Maybe the Wing Chun guy. So, tell me- do you spar with people outside of you school? Do you spar with people outside of your style? Do you feel that it helps to round out your skills? Or is it just a fun distraction? I believe it is a great thing to do, because then you can test your style, and work with people and tactics that you may not be familiar with, which can make your way of thinking more flexible. It can also show you where the holes are in your style (all styles have holes and gaps, none are perfect) and what really works. Tell me about your experiences with sparring other styles. How did it go?

I think that I can have faith in my perceptions, to a degree, but that I do not truly KNOW anything. I can only hope that sometimes what I believe I have learned is right. I hope that I will always be open to learning more, to learning new things, and to recognize that every person in the world I meet has something that they can teach me. I also really hope that when you come out to California, I can somehow drag you to the dojo and talk you into taking part in one of the classes! OSU!

I wore a coat over my gi on the way to the dojo and back, haha!

Haha, well me, I'd say just get used to them changing, and ignore it! And if they keep trying to draw so much attention to how female you re, smack 'em around harder during sparring until they take you seriously as a karateka. But that's just my personality, and you know better than I what your comfort levels and boundaries are...

Doesn't bother me if men change in front of me, though they usually don't. *shrugs* We're all in a martial art together, we're family in a way.

Haha, yeah... we have the one locker room, and a ton of people who won't change when anyone else is in there, mostly male... so I just don't bring my street clothes along. I tend to spar after class, until the last person with a key kicks us all out! It would probably be a good idea for me to pack a shirt of some kind, however.

In through the nose, out through the mouth, and hwen you breathe out, project from your gut, not your throat! As you throw a strike, breathe out so that it finishes on the full extension of your strike. Breathe in as you back and prepare to extend the next strike. At least, that's what I'm told. I don't tend to breathe much at all in the middle of a kata, which isn't going to go so well for me long term, haha!

"Yeah yeah patience, how long does that take?" -Ed Gruberman, Boot To The Head sketch. Growth and transformation are a continuing process. And it is different for each person. No one can tell you how long, or how much, kata will change you. For me, it is a moving meditation that centers my mind, body, and spirit. It took a while to get there, and I'm not really sure how long. Now, however, it is a comfort. You'll get there.

There's a fair amount of debate as to whether or not it is ever appropriate to go anyplace other than a dojo in your gi. Sometimes, however, I find myself having to stop someplace to get a bit of cash for crossing the bridge, or to eat on time, since I'm on an eating plan with a strict schedule. On Wednesday night, which was the night I was awarded the second stripe on my belt, Sensei and I had to stop at a 7-11 in Pinole so that we could get some bridge fare for him to cross the bridge with. Luckily I had about 8 bucks in my bank account that I'd forgotten about, hah. And luckily, 7-11 gives $5 cash back. I grabbed myself a no-carb monster and headed to the counter. There were some people up there that I am guessing wandered up from El Sobrante. I am not sure if they were on drugs, or just, pardon my saying, really ghetto. The guy shouted to the woman from across the store, "HEY, THIS IS LOW FAT! I DON'T WANT LOW FAT," and wandered away from his stuff to go pick something else up. I shuffled my feet for a moment. The cashier canceled out the other person's sale and rang up my monster. As I was getting my cash back, the man came up behind me. Fortunately, he kept himself at a distance, and Sensei was with me. I really don't care for people I don't know coming up behind me. "So, have you learned how to kick a lot of behind* yet?" "Just a little bit of behind*." "Hah, well normally I'd get mad cos you cut in line, but I'm afraid you'll get all karate kid on me and kick my behind!" "Hm," I replied, and looked at him, "you want to know the best way to win a fight?" "Oh yeah, how's that?" "Don't get in the fight." I started to gather up my stuff. "Oh see, now you listening too much to the verbage!" I smiled a little and said, "Yeah... from people who can kick my behind*!" He laughed, and moved out of my way. So tell me- what's the best fight you AVOIDED getting in? We hear a lot about how people got in this or that fight, but how about de-escalating a confrontation?

Hi there! I, too, can't recommend gear- we don't really use any normally in Kyokushin anyway. But my gi was made by Tiger Claw, and I love it! So here's a vote for that.

OSU Bob, thank you so much! I always value your input. I am glad that you enjoyed the read. I am also blessed to have Sensei Dunn, whose student I am and will I hope always be! He was my sensei before we started going to his Sensei (now Shina)'s dojo. And he is still my sensei. :} I feel very lucky, very blessed, and I plan to always work hard to deserve the time and effort they have all put into me! I focused a lot more on meeting my fellow students with a clear mind and joyful heart today. I think I ended up making a new friend, yay! There is a lot of healing I have to do. It's a journey, it's a path. It won't happen all at once. But it gives me hope. And I hope that someday I can pay it forward as well. I hope that you can meet my awesome instructors too! OSU!

I think the experiences. Anyone can be a thug. It takes a special kind of character and experience to become a warrior.

Well, if you're out on the street... does the after technique include calling 911? Or putting the person in an arm-bar and putting them under citizen's arrest? Because we all know better than to start a fight here, right? ;}

So there I was, sparring. I was having a really bad day. I was having a really bad month, to be honest with you. I was getting frustrated! I was probably growling without even being aware of it. And who came over, but Shihan. A 7th dan in Kyokushin, an instructor for over 30 years, and able to bench press 600 pounds, Shihan is a formidable man. He has trained many, many people in his time, most of them military, or family of military. He's dealt with people like me before. He also doesn't spar much any more. Used to. Used to fight full contact. Undefeated, that's what people say. A few months before, I'd foolishly asked him to spar after class. The dojo got really quiet. The shodans who had been hanging out and chatting suddenly found Important Stuff To Do Elsewhere. "Evey," he said, calmly, smiling in a terrifying fashion, "the reason why you are still vertical is because you don't know what you've just done. I am much higher rank than you, and I am the head of this school. By asking me to fight, you are issuing a challenge for ownership of this dojo. I know that's not what you meant, and it would be stupid of me to punish you for something you don't know. So I won't. But don't do that. And I don't spar because there is no point in breaking my own students." I stammered an apology and accepted his answer, though I was pretty sad about it. It didn't used to be this way- my sensei used to ask him to spar, when he was Shihan's student over 20 years ago. I wanted to experience that myself. I think that Shihan knew. So there he was, in that class, and he knew I was on the edge. Things were going badly in my life, and I tried to leave it all at the door of the dojo, but sometimes the stress can still trickle in, when you aren't always in control of your own head. Sometimes it's just a little too easy to check out. So he told me, "I don't want you fighting my students when you're like this." And then he could have had me drill my punches, watching myself in the mirror. Or doing push-ups. Or hitting the bag. Or practicing my kata somewhere out of the way. There are a lot of things he could have done. But instead he had me bow to my partner, and then he had me bow to him. He put his guard up. "Hajime." Now, I had never seen anyone strike at Shihan. Not even at him, let alone actually touch him. But it was clear that he wanted me to. I looked up at him, into his eyes. He was so calm. Completely at peace. At that moment, I knew that he already knew I couldn't beat him. Okay, there's always a chance. Lightning can strike, sharks can bite, meteors can strike the earth and the sun might explode. But it was pretty improbable. In fact, looking at him, it seemed like it was impossible to touch him. So he knew. And I knew. He said, "so how are you going to hit me?" "Uh, I don't know, I think I should probably watch out for that hand..." I tried to slide to his side, and of course he easily pivoted to meet me. So I charged in. Struck at him. Figured I'd give it a good try at any rate, give it my all. I don't even remember if he blocked. I know he let me hit him some. "That's not really working out for you is it?" I'd thrown all my strength into it. But I was tense. My body was working against itself. I was trying to muscle through it, but my muscles were fighting each other, even. "You're striking with anger, Evey. That's never going to work. You won't get anywhere with that." He was still so calm, a little smile on his face. I kept throwing myself at him, and there was no effect. See, anger is an old friend of mine. Anger has kept me alive so many times. So many times when I was supposed to die, I kept fighting. And fighting. People like me are always at war. Even when we're in normal life, we're still fighting. I'd convinced myself that I needed that anger to survive. That I would be dead without it. That's how it worked in the past, right? So I threw myself at him, I threw my anger at him, and he just... absorbed it. And told me this or that thing I should do. Relax. Relax, Evey, relax. Don't muscle through it, pop it. Throw your fist like it isn't even attached to you, but throw it with your whole body. Relax. RELAX! And he said, "strike me anywhere. Any strike. Try whatever you want! You won't hurt me." He wasn't even blocking at this point. So I decided to go for a shin strike to the floating ribs. That would HAVE to make him at least BLINK, right? Sure, I had been healing from a knee injury, and I hadn't really kicked much for a couple of months, but that was okay, right? I'd just really put my all into it! I chambered, I powered up, I swung my leg! *bamph* Hm. That.. that was a bit low. That felt kind of soft, actually. Oh... OH NO!!! I had kicked my shihan right in the behind. The ball of my foot had struck his posterior. I re-chambered, put my foot down. Looked up at Shihan. His expression was... complex. I think there was a bit of disbelief there. Some amusement, that I'd actually kicked him in the rump, and at the dawning horror on my face. An edge of danger, because there I was, this white belt, and I'd kicked him in the behind! Perhaps there was a bit of annoyance. And a bit of entertainment at my audacity. All this flashed across his face in a split second, and then his face was calm and cool and compassionate again, though maybe his eyes burned a little brighter, and his smile became a bit toothier. "Okay, but see, don't kick me in the behind, because then I'll have to do the same to you," he said, and then suddenly his leg was a blur. *POCK!* It was very controlled. Very precise. The amount of power he used was entirely by his choice. I felt the impact, and suddenly I was aware of every single nerve ending in that side of my rump. My body yelled at me "you were THIS CLOSE to getting dropped, I'll have you know!" Shihan was standing there again, calm and cool, guard hand up and open, slight smile. Then he had me try to strike him again. I didn't try any more kicks. After a bit, he said "okay, pick a spot to hit me. Where are you going to hit, and how?" "Uhhhh, sternum? Reverse punch?" "All right, try it, but don't put any force behind it." So I did. His gi was really soft. His body, not so much. "Now try sliding in a bit. Really chamber. Just add a tiny bit of force, but keep it loose and relaxed." So I struck him again. "Now do that again, but pop it. Just a bit of force, don't try to push it too much." So I struck him again. "There, now Evey... you're actually hitting me a little harder than you were when you were trying to throw everything into it. You've relaxed a bit, and you're not striking with anger any more." Not long after that, class ended. Shihan called me over after a bit, and picked up a water bottle that was mostly full. "Evey, this water bottle is you. Do you understand?" "OSU, Shihan. My cup is full, and it's full of anger. I can't learn anything when my cup is full, so I need to let that anger out, and let it go." "That's right. It doesn't matter how much we try to teach you if you are so full of anger... you won't be able to learn." I asked him for a hug, and he told me that he doesn't hug people in the dojo. So I went home, and I realized that Shihan had in fact been very compassionate with me. He'd given me something a lot more kind and comforting than a hug. He'd taken all that anger I threw at him, all that energy, and transformed it to something calming. He took control, and that let me relax for one, because I knew he was stronger than I was, and I knew I could relax. He had my back. He could handle whatever came at me as well as I could. No, better. And he could handle ME. He took all that energy, and he gave back peace. Calmness. Comfort. When I missed and kicked him in the posterior, he could have gotten angry. He could have shamed me. He could have held it over my head. He could have done nothing, and left me feeling guilty about it. Instead, he gently made us "even," and then he moved on. It was the most compassionate thing he could have done. That day, he could have chewed me out, he could have thrown me out of the dojo and told me I was just too shell shocked to be safe there. He could have decided I was too much of a bother to teach, or that I was a liability. Instead, he did me a great honor. I've been thinking a lot about the things that he said. You know, with PTSD, they talk a lot about the trauma, about the flashbacks and the fight or flight... they talk about depression and anxiety. Troubled home life. Trouble adjusting. But they don't really tell you how to stop the war in your head. Maybe nobody knows. I realized something though. Something about anger, something about compassion. The anger is something I use on myself. The compassion is something I deny myself. I am at war with myself, and I treat myself like the enemy. I interfere with myself. And I hurt myself. I've spent a lot of time thinking that my anger is, in the worst of times, my only ally. But I think that much more often, my anger has been harming me. I think that I will ask him if he knows how to let anger go. Because I've realized... I don't know how. I have a lot to be grateful for. There's a reason why he is a shihan. He and my sensei have taught me so much. Kyokushin, it's said, is a very practical, hard style. Many people believe that there is no internal side to the art. But I believe it is as much about one's heart and spirit as it is one's striking technique. He gave me a lot of gifts that day. And one of them, well, I can say I've joined what is probably a very short list of people who have kicked his behind! ;}

Congrats!

Hah, pressure and mental dominance- that is one thing that I have learned- from working with horses! You really have to learn ring generalship when dealing with a thousand pound animal that can be unpredictable. I've used the same techniques that I learned from my horsemanship mentor on sparring partners. It doesn't work on any of the black belts in my dojo, but last night it worked way too well on one brown belt and one green belt. Of course, when they figure out how easy it is to stop me from doing that, I'm toast! ;} I had to learn controlling my space long before I learned any striking or blocking basics, because I started my martial arts training with horses... though that sneaky aikidoka didn't TELL me that was what he was teaching me! I didn't really figure it out until I started training formally in Kyokushin. Problem is... I am still weak on my basics. That will take a while to really get down. Advantage is... I am not very predictable, because I don't even know what I'm going to do usually! As for KISS- Sensei tells me most of the full contact tournaments he won, he won with reverse-lunge punches, hah! OSU

Haha, Bob, I have not seen that yet with my instructors, but everyone misses and everyone gets hit at some point! The quality of the character of the instructor is then revealed, eh? I did have a buddy of mine who does Wing Chun decide to demonstrate sticky hands to me. He asked me to try to hit him. Now I know to ask, when someone says that, if they really want me to TRY to hit them, or if they want me to PRETEND to try to hit them, and go slow. When this friend of mine asked, I did what I normally do with my sensei- I really tried to hit him! He had not been practicing for some time, and he just wasn't fast enough. To my great embarrassment, I struck him in the chest and knocked him back! He hit the office chair behind him, and started to topple over it, his head going straight for the desk that the chair was sitting in front of. Luckily as soon as I saw him start to fall, I shot forward and grabbed at his wrist. Lucky for us both, I somehow managed to catch it. "OMG, are you okay?" I asked him. "Uh Yeah well we were going pretty hard and fast there. I haven't practiced in a while!" "Oh, I'm just a white belt and I got really lucky! I don't have any control yet, that's all!" It's better if everyone can save a little face. That rarely hurts anyone, and can lead to friendship instead of enmity. That situation also illustrates that one must always PRACTICE! Fancy moves or basics, if you never use them, you will lose them. If you never spar, you're eventually going to lose a lot of that edge, and when you come back to it, you're likely to be in for a nasty surprise when you discover that you can't do it like you used to! Practice, practice, practice, but if you cannot for a long period of time, then you just have to get back in the saddle and work yourself up to your previous skill level again... factoring in the challenges of age, and changing your tactics accordingly, of course.

Nice work! I talked to my Shihan today... he said I did well with my kata, and that usually people do worse at grading, not better, because they get really nervous, but I was the other way around. I said, "But I was shaking like crazy out there!" "I know, I saw, but you didn't let it interfere with your kata." <3 I still don't know if I passed, haha! But I think that's a good sign, eh?

When my Sensei did full contact fighting, sometimes he did stare at the person's ankles. He felt that he could see when they were about to make a move, including a punch, because there is still a bit of a shift in weight. He usually won, so there must be something to it. However, I can see how one could get faked out this way- he did it in part because he was almost blind as a bat and only saw blurs anyway, but also because he was short and he tended to charge in with his head down, guard up high, kind of like a boxer. That doesn't work at all for me though, haha! In my dojo, we are supposed to continuously have eye contact with our opponent. I try to use that to my benefit, by telegraphing moves I'm not actually going to make with my eyes. I'll look at one spot on a person's body as obviously as I can, and then strike someplace else. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But looking to the side of a person still seems to work better for me than eyes or the triangle. I'm so new, however, that I haven't really found my way yet.

OSU Bob, And look at what you overcame, how far you've come! Very few people in the world can really say they have accomplished so much in the martial arts as you have. So the lesson is, if you fall, you can still pick yourself up and brush yourself off. Even if it feels like the end of the world at the time, things change. We can all adapt, improvise, overcome! So hold your head high! So many people would have given up forever, taken that humiliation and let it shape them. Become the humiliation, instead of the potential warrior that was inside of them. Bravery is not a case of not feeling afraid. Fear is a kind of wisdom. Without any fear, we can do some truly stupid things indeed! Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway. Sometimes it takes a little time to overcome that fear and do it. Sometimes it's a lot of work. Sometimes one has to mature a bit more- after all, you were only 7 years old! But you did overcome it. You overcame it, and in turn you became a teacher, a guide, a mentor, for many people, including I bet scared young children who were a lot like you were. You touched so many lives... and continue to touch them! And finally, you have the courage and strength of character to tell the world the story that you just did. That is very, very brave. Brave enough that I think it sure makes up for running out of the dojo with wet gi pants as a little kid! OSU!

I'd never been to a formal Kyokushin grading before, so of course I acted like some feral animal that wandered into the feast-hall, haha! Okay, not so bad as that, but I had no idea that when the highest ranking person goes from normal cross-legged sitting to seiza, everyone was supposed to follow suit! I forgot to bow into the ring for my kata. I was shaking fit to fall into a million pieces. I knew immediately that not eating before grading was the right idea, because otherwise I would have thrown it all up! My kata was so not my best. I was too nervous. Too tense. But I remembered my horsemanship mentor, that 4th dan in aikido, telling me to not fear failure, to accept that I will fail and learn from it, and to also not cling to failure, but continue to live in the moment, leaving the failure behind you, instead planning for the future. Makes sense, because otherwise if you are riding and you stick with the failure behind you, you'll fall right off the horse with it! So I kect going, acting like I did nothing wrong. Shihan sighed loudly at the end of it. I heard another judge say "well, at least that's over with." Feeling crushed and defeated, I sat and watched the ranking. Knee injury was screaming at me, and I was trying to not make waves by sitting differently. Hah. I watched all the kids kumite matches, and then it was time for the adults. Once again it was my turn first, and who did they call up bit that buff black belt, over a foot taller than I am, and 17 years old to my 30. fit to my rather fat. Male, and I a woman. The black belt who had straight up punched me in the head the last time, in a friendly sparring match in a style that doesn't allow head punches. So yeah, I sure remembered him. The fight itself was kind of saw. He controlled my lead arm so effectively... he moved faster than I did. My blocks meant nothing to him, Not sure my punches and kicks meant much more to him either. I got slaughtered, for sure. He just punched my head, over and over. And I felt so lost because it's Kuokushin training which doesn't involve head shots. But there he is, wailing away at my noggin. I started to figured out that getting way inside the guard of this dude and uppercuts might have an effect when the whistle blowed. I made a frustrated marge simpson kinda growl as I walked away from him. And then I really really DID feel crushed. Because I hadn't won that fight, no way! And then I went to the car with sensei and burst into tears. He looked at me and said "why are you crying...when you passed?" It took a day for me to realize that the kumite wasn't to see how well I'd beat him. It was to see my technique and how mu spirit holds up in the ace of impossible odds. Do I have enough of a fighting spirit? Sensei wiped the tears from my face and told me that sometimes the point of it all is that sometimes, you fail. And you can choose to get up and keep trying. He said, "Kohai, do you really think that anyone there expecter you, a white belt, to beat a black belt? I mean, seriously? You did think that!" and then he laughed some more. We'll see if I passed or not on Tuesday. I might rank up after all.

OSU, Well, it's always easy to look to the past with rose-colored glasses. Nostalgia and the fact that we humans are constantly editing our own memories can really lend itself to this phenomenon. However, I do think that we now live in the days of instant gratification. An age where people have an attitude of entitlement, and they are prone to throwing tantrums when they don't get just what they want, because what they are FAMILIAR with is being handed things. Humans fear the unknown more than anything else. And, why learn how to play the guitar when you can play guitar hero? Why read a book to learn about a subject in-depth when you can just look it up on Wikipedia? Why learn about the town you live in when you can just fire up the GPS? Some of these advancements are good, but we also have to look at what we are losing in the process. I do think that overall people are less willing to work hard. Working hard is no longer normal for a lot of people. Our concept, as a society, of working hard, has shifted quite a bit. Unless we're really forced into it, we're not going to do it. But there are also still people who crave it. And there always will be. Try to inspire all students, yes! But take note of the ones who give 110%. They are the ones who will stick around. And they are the ones who will realize that up to black belt is just prep school, and the real work begins at shodan! That's... what I've been told anyway. ;} But yeah, my sensei has a kid. His kid is spoiled. Pretty much is able to get whatever he wants, even if it causes a hardship for his parent. He throws a fit when he doesn't get what he wants, easily, and right away. He is now attending compulsory Kyokushin classes... at age 11, in the adult class. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hopefully it's not too late to save him.

Hi everyone! So, I would love to hear stories about the first time you formally went up for rank. How did you feel? How did it go? Did it turn out the way you expected it to? I'll share my story in a bit. :} OSU!

OSU! I have some depth perception issues. My eyes tend to fight for dominance, and sometimes seem to have difficulty processing. I have noticed that while sparring, I often get caught up because I'm trying to figure out just where the other person's fists are, as my eyes keep going back and forth between right and left. Last night I was sparring with Ashigeru, and I decided to try something. I locked my eyes about 6 inches to the side of him. I watched him in my peripheral vision instead. I quickly found that my ability to block fast enough improved, and my ability to strike accurately improved as well! I think that when I stare directly at sometime, my brain also takes more time analyzing details. With peripheral vision, however, I register the movement faster, and my reaction time is adjusted upwards accordingly. Even though I am not staring directly at the person, and am unable to see the subtleties of their expression, I am much more able to anticipate what they are about to do. Also, I think that I am not telegraphing what I am about to do quite as much. I think I'll play around with this in class, next time we do kumite. Does this work better for anyone else? Why or why not? OSU!