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Old 10-28-2005, 12:06 PM   #1
FrogMan
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Join Date: Jan 2003
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Real life Kenpo: FrogMan's quest for the Black Belt

As some of you who've interacted with me on AIM know, I've been practicing Kenpo Karate for a little while now. Now that I can of see a test for my brown belt lurking around the corner, I thought this might be cool to have a real life diary of the road still to travel to get to that coveted black belt.

I mean, when I started practicing, it was mostly to learn if my then 5 year old son was doing it right and because I needed some low impact sports/activity to move a bit and not become completely sedentary. My son's teacher then told me that an adult taking two classes a week could get to his black belt in 3 years. Now, more than 2 and a half year later, after taking little breaks here and there with the birth of our second son, and after starting at one class a week for almost the first year, I see this black belt dangling in front of my face, about I don't know, a year maybe a year and a half in the future, and I'm getting hyped up about that year that is to come.

I don't know how organized it will be, or what exactly I will be posting in here, but I got some ideas, like detailing some of the stuff we are learning, maybe even teach some of the basic self-defense techniques move by move, something that could even help me understand them better...

Anyway, that's the idea, if you have questions or ideas, post them.

I'll be back soon with some background on who I am, what are the basics behind my style of kenpo, that type of stuff.

Until then, take care.

FM
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Old 10-28-2005, 12:23 PM   #2
KevinNU7
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It would be great if you could find a website with picutres of a person doing a certain move and then posts the pictures here so that we would ahve a better idea of what move you are doing when you are talking about it.
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Old 10-28-2005, 12:28 PM   #3
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinNU7
It would be great if you could find a website with picutres of a person doing a certain move and then posts the pictures here so that we would ahve a better idea of what move you are doing when you are talking about it.

That's a great idea, I'll see what I can find for basic moves. I'll try to be as graphical as possible when explaining something though, we'll see how it goes.
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Old 10-28-2005, 12:39 PM   #4
WSUCougar
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Let me get this out of the way so everyone else can rest easy:

"SWEEP THE LEG!!!"

Carry on.
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Old 10-28-2005, 12:47 PM   #5
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WSUCougar
Let me get this out of the way so everyone else can rest easy:

"SWEEP THE LEG!!!"

Carry on.

I have honestly no clue what this refers to

But oh well, thanks for reading so far

FM
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Old 10-28-2005, 01:24 PM   #6
WSUCougar
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In the movie "The Karate Kid," the bad guys from Cobra Kai keep losing to Daniel-san, but he's got an injured leg. So the REALLY bad guy sensai orders the next Cobra Kai opponent to "sweep the leg" of Daniel-san, thus taking him out of the competition, however unfairly.

But Daniel-san perseveres, and wins in spite of it all.
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Old 10-28-2005, 01:28 PM   #7
FrogMan
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I thought it was a Karate Kid reference but was not too sure. Last time I saw it, well everytime I've seen it, it was dubbed in French, so the English version didn't ring a bell to me at all...

FM
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Old 10-28-2005, 02:43 PM   #8
finketr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WSUCougar
Let me get this out of the way so everyone else can rest easy:

"SWEEP THE LEG!!!"

Carry on.

"Get him a body bag!"
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Old 10-28-2005, 04:49 PM   #9
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"We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak."

You didn't think I would miss a movie quote thread, did you?
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Old 11-11-2005, 09:06 AM   #10
FrogMan
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**walks into thread**
**looks left, then right**
**long sigh... the movie afficionados seem to have left, for now...***



Okay, trying to bring this back on topic and well, where do I start from?

Okay, my son Andrew started practicing kenpo karate in January of 2002, when he was 2 months shy of 5 years old. Man, how time flies... I don't really remember why we got him to start karate, other than we wanted him to do a sport in the Winter and we'd booked him to a skating class in the previous Fall and he didn't like it. We'd also tried to get him to do karate in Fall of 2002, but he didn't care about it back then. I guess being 3 months older helped him make his mind to it, but when January of 2003 came around, we asked him and he agreed to give it a shot.

We had signed him up on a once a week schedule, in a 45 minutes class designed for the 4-6 years old, so kind of light, with a bit more playing than actually learning rough and tough self-defense techniques and such.

I will eventually get to my start in kenpo (through Andrew's continuation if that makes sense), believe me, but first I'll talk about our school, or group of schools and our style of kenpo. We practice a style called Nick Cerio's Kenpo out of a school part of a group called "Les Studios Unis d'auto-défense". Translation would be "United Studios of self-defense" or something like that. It's a pretty big group of school based mostly in the Quebec City area. You can visit their website at www.studiosunis.com. Our school is in Lévis, a city on the south shore of the St-Lawrence River, basically right accross the river from the Château Frontenac, if that helps you.

Nick Cerio's Kenpo, as you would expect, was developed by a gentleman named Nick Cerio, a bostoner who studied 14 martial arts. I don't know much about him, other than the fact that he died in 1998. You can read more about him on this page

http://www.studiosunis.com/en/sec_art/art_inf.asp

The basics behind the Nick Cerio's Kenpo style can be summarized in the two pages of this article (click the thumbnails to see the pages):


I'm not big on the mystical part of martial arts and that may be a turn off for many people. I mean, I like mostly the self-defense part of it not really the fighting or the big showboating, although I can now appreciate the efforts put into a well done stunt/fight choreography. This may be why I like this style of kenpo karate as it is indeed based on part jiu-jitsu that could be easily adapted to covering your ass in the streets...

This is the patch of our school...


You have to wear it on your gi, where the left breast pocket would be, as soon as you have passed one belt, the yellow one.

This is the Nick Cerio's Kenpo patch...


You have to wear it on your gi, on the left shoulder, after you have passed your blue belt.

Our belt progression goes this way:
white belt
yellow belt
yellow belt w/orange stripe *only for kids in initiation*
orange belt
purple belt
blue belt
blue bet w/green stripe
green belt
green belt w/brown stripe
brown belt
brown belt w/black stripe
black belt first degree (and so on after that)

There may be a second black stripe on the brown belt right before getting to the black belt, but I'm still unsure. I guess I'll discover as I go.

Now back to why I started practicing karate. As I said, Andrew started in January of 2002 and while parents are not allowed to stay and watch classes all the time, which is a good thing in my opinion, class was open once a month. It allowed me to see a little bit of what he was doing and learning, but dang, he was learning stuff, and I could never have told him if what he was doing was right or wrong, not after watching him 45 minutes every four weeks. Honestly, I had very little clue. Two things then happened. First, I hurt my knee while playing football in the Summer of 2002, my second season ever as a football player and let's be honest, that injury told me it would be my last season too The couple weeks in crutches were no fun, especially when you are a houseowner and you've not given the lawn mowing to a contractor... From the time I hurt my knee, I had just about stopped any physical activity, just about. Second thing that happened was my Andrew participating in his first karate competition in February of 2003. It was a blast seeing him do his first kata in competition, then see him win his first tournament, but I felt kinda stupid, watching him do his kata and not having much of a clue as to if he was doing it right or not.

Put event one and event two together and you have the reason why I started practicing karate. After my injury, I felt my knee was still a bit weak and I wanted some physical activity that would allow me to pace myself. I could have gone back to playing hockey, or soccer, but I knew that if I started doing these, I'd be skating/running as hard as I could and wasn't confident enough that the knew would follow. Doing karate, I felt like I could go at my own pace and if the knee didn't feel good one day, simply go slower then. As my current teacher describes it: "karate is an individual sport that we practice in group". Then, by practicing, I had hopes that I would be able to catch up with Andrew, and maybe practice with him, maybe help him better his katas and such.

So, I finally decided to sign up for a class in April of 2003, first simply going once a week, then twice a week in the Fall, then I stopped for almot 6-7 months when Matty was born in January 2004, and then back once then twice a month, up to now. I was once told by Andrew's teacher that an adult practicing seriously twice a week, not taking breaks in the Summer (which I did, well kind of, going to once a week instead of twice), should be able to get to his black belt in 3 years. It will be 3 years since I've started in next April and I'd assess that I'll be about a year off, which isn't so bad since I've taken many months at once a week and I stopped for about 6-7 months in the middle.

This is where we start. Sorry it was such a long post, I just thought some background was needed to the story...

FM
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Old 11-11-2005, 11:53 AM   #11
FrogMan
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As I said in the opening post, I've been hearing about a possible test for my brown belt lately, this means I currently have a brown stripe on my green belt. Tests for belts under the brown one are fairly common, I'd say they have tests about once a months, for various belt levels, but the tests for the brown belt (or the black stripe on the brown belt) only come once every six months and the last one was in June, iirc. This means that if I want to test for my brown belt, it's now (or soon) or in six months. The tests for the black belts are at about the same intervals or maybe closer together, but they are done in another school of our group, in Quebec City. The fact that every school in the Quebec area go to one place for black belt test explains why these are sometimes more frequent.

As an aside, my son now has a green stripe on his blue belt. I'm not too sure how close he is to getting his green belt, but I believe he knows everything he needs to know to get his green belt, he just needs some time to get better at it and have it come more fluidly.

This leads me to what is needed to pass a belt. There are a few basic requirements, along with time in between belt tests. The requirements are split twofold: katas (or forms) and self-defense techniques. The self-defense techniques can further be split in four categories: defending against a man-to-man attack, attacks with a club, attacks with a knife, and finally attacks with a gun. You learn only man-to-man techniques until the you have earned your blue belt, at which point you start learning club techniques. Knife and gun techniques only come when you have your brown belt, i.e. when you're getting ready to test for your black belt.

I forgot my list of requirements (belt by belt) at home, but I can tell you that to test for my brown belt, I need to know 24 man-to-man techniques and 15 club techniques. While we learn all the techniques from the perspective of a right handed attacker, the brown belt is also when you have to know the man-to-man techniques from either side. The club techniques don't have to be known from a left handed attacker perspective yet, but this will come.

As for katas, I know three basic blocking forms that are sort of smallish katas, and six main katas.

I'll eventually get to explain, or give you info regarding the self-defense techniques and the katas, at least some names and basics behind them...

As for what's going on now, Andrew and I are taking three one hour class per week, two of them in separate groups (him with kids, me with adults) and one together. The first two hours are more traditional stuff, where we both learn self-defense techniques, both traditional and for me some more freestyle ones and we have one the two hours simultaneously on Saturday morning (in separate rooms) and we have different evenings in the weeks for the second hour. The third hour, the one where we're really attending together, is a bo staff class. It's more of an open style kind of class. Andrew wanted to practice a weapon after brushing with some of them in his karate day camp last Summer and since I've got us both signed up for a full 12 months, we are both allowed one free weekly hour of weapon training. I left Andrew the choice of a weapon and he chose the bo between bo, kama, and nunchakus, and since I had to drive Andrew to and from the bo class and I didn't really mind the bo, I decided to tag along for the class I say tag along, since I'm only one of two adults in this beginners class, in a sea of 8 to 12 year olds, a class given by a 19yo brash kid who's got tons of skills with a bo It's been fun though.

I'll expand on this at some point, but for now my focus is really on the brown belt requirements. Had a really good class yesterday evening, where we practiced our katas first, then all of the 24+15 techniques with both the right and the left versions for the man-to-man techniques. They flowed quite well, at least for the first 12 man-to-man techniques and I was happy about that. The last 12 will need refining for the left side, but they are not as strict for the left side of them as they are for the left side of the first twelve, as long as you can do them reasonably well. With time, they will expect some more speed and movement fluidity.

At the end of the class, our teacher usually goes from person to person, or from one group of 2-3 persons to another, groups that were practicing together, and he talks to everyone about what they practiced and little things they either need to work on or keep on doing right. When he got to me, he told me to keep on practicing, that he didn't have a known date for the brown belt test, but that it was coming. It was really the first time he'd explicitly talked to me about the brown belt test. Before that, I simply knew it would be coming without really knowing if I'd be included on it. Just so you know, your teacher decides when you are ready to test for a new belt. You should never ask to be on a test, you simply show by your actions and the quality of your work that you are ready.

FM
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Old 11-11-2005, 10:24 PM   #12
JeffNights
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Bah, theres still time to switch to HapKiDo.
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Old 11-11-2005, 11:01 PM   #13
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffNights
Bah, theres still time to switch to HapKiDo.

had to google the term as I'd never heard of it before, at least not in the area around here. Seems interesting, at least to me as it seems based on the self-defense part, although I've never seen martial arts as "one is better than the other". The one I practice is the one I'm trying to be good at, at least for now...

Thanks for reading.

FM
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Old 12-19-2005, 09:32 AM   #14
FrogMan
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well, over a month since my last post and quite frankly I don't know when I'll post next (well I know I'll report about one thing but keep reading...). I still got ideas as to what I'd like to report in here and the black belt could still be a long way but for now, I just don't really know how to get it started...

Anyway, the news for now is that my brown belt test is coming, and fast. This Thursday night, December 22nd, is the big night. Ayup, I'll be all sore for Christmas

All sore cause I fully expect this to be a challenging experience. The test will start at 8 and from what I've been told should be 2 and a half hours long. May not sound like much, but two and a half hours, when there are only 4 of you in one room and the instructors have you doing all kinds of drills (read situps, pushups, jumping jacks, stop and go runs, etc) interspersed with all the technical stuff you have to show (selfdefense techniques, both man-to-man and against a club, katas), well, it should make for an "entertaining" night.

Technically, I feel ready. I know my stuff and I feel good doing it, so this should go weel, until fatigue kicks in. Getting tired is what I'm worried about. I mean, knowing your stuff in a one hour class, when you only got your workday in you is one thing. Then knowing your stuff when you're about 2 hours into a physically tough test, is a whole other thing. I just gotta hope that the instincts will kick in.
Funny thing, the school traditionally closes for two weeks for the Holidays. I expected them to close on Friday evening (meaning no classes on Saturday morning, the 24th) but heh, they announced that they will close the school only on Saturday at 1:15pm, so this means we have class on Saturday morning, two days after the test. From past experience, the second day after a test is usually when my lower body parts want to fall off, should make for an "interesting" class

I had missed a couple of classes earlier in the month but it made for two more intensive weeks the last two weeks, going three times a week. Tonight wil be my last practice before the test.

Bo classes ended last week and will start again in mid-January. I was getting better toward the end, so much so that our teacher asked me if I was thinking of entering the competition organized by our school that is scheduled for February 12. I wasn't too sure at first, but the bo is growing on me and I may enter it.

Regarding bos, I've ordered two bos online as Christmas gift for me and Andrew. He's not expecting it at all, should make for a nice surprise for him If you wanna know, this is Andrew's bo (red/black crackle bo), and this is mine (white wood lotus bo). They have arrived but mine was warped (had a bend in it) out of the box. I called them and they are supposed to have sent me another one, which I'm still waiting for. Funny thing, mine is called "ultra light" white wood lotus bo and it is indeed very light. Should be fun to practice with in January

Well, this is it for now, wish me luck. I'll report on how the test went whenever I'm able to type after Thursday night.

FM
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:23 AM   #15
KevinNU7
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Good Luck Thursday!
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:34 AM   #16
Radii
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Good luck on your test! 2 1/2 hours is crazy if you're out there most of the time, you must be in incredible shape, based on what I've seen in the Tae Kwan Do tests when I go watch my son. Mostly there are kids there but some adults too, and they really struggle with some of their stuff.
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:36 AM   #17
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinNU7
Good Luck Thursday!

thanks Kevin

FM
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:45 AM   #18
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Radii
Good luck on your test! 2 1/2 hours is crazy if you're out there most of the time, you must be in incredible shape, based on what I've seen in the Tae Kwan Do tests when I go watch my son. Mostly there are kids there but some adults too, and they really struggle with some of their stuff.

thanks for the luck

I wouldn't say I'm in incredible shape but in much better shape than when I start, or even than the shape I was only last September. All my tests so far (7 in all already) have always been in the 1 to 1 1/2 hour range, some of them tougher physically and some of them tougher technically. This one should be a tough one all around. Some of the past tests were taken with people passing way different grades, and sometimes even in groups of up to 12 at the same time. When that happens, they take say 4 and have them do their forms and the others are maybe facing the wall, but still you get to rest. Now, there will be only 4 of us in that test and I anticipate that we'll either go alone in front of the instructors, or two by two. That part is tough on your nerves, but I'm sure they won't necessarily let us rest too much in between parts of the test. There was one test where we were 8 testing. They checked us in groups of 4 but while one group of 4 was waiting, they had them do some various cardio stuff (run in place, sequences of 25 pushups/situps/frog leaps/popcorn jumps). That wasn't really a long test, but that was one of the toughest I've had to do yet.

Back to my shape, I weigh about 201-202 in the morning now when I used to weigh around 210. Not only that, but I feel much better in the sense that I feel my body tighter than it used to be. I'm able to do more of what they ask in classes and I'm hoping this will be good enough for now. They have this good attitude that they ask you to do as much as you can, fully knowing that not all adults in their classes are supermen/women. They know how much you can push yourself in a class and they expect you to push a bit further in the test. Should be fun, as crazy as this sounds

FM
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:46 AM   #19
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Wow! I get tired just reading about your test! Best of luck to you!
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:49 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ibnsgirl
Wow! I get tired just reading about your test! Best of luck to you!

LOL! thanks

FM
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Old 12-20-2005, 07:11 PM   #21
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well, Monday was supposed to be my last class/practice and while it was my last formal class, I decided to tag along in an adult beginner's class tonight while my son was taking a class of his own.

Even though I simply practiced on my own, I'm happy I decided to do that one last hour of practice. Let me say that I wasn't completely happy about yesterday's class. Many of the self-defense techniques we have to know are somewhat "choreographed" in a sense that they have names and you by that name, you know what kind of attack will come and what to do against it. It's not only freestyle self-defense. We have learned to do some freestyle selfdefense, with improvised moves, but this will be learned much more in between the brown and the black belt. Because of that, if you screw up your attack, you kind of screw up the rythm of the person who's supposed to perform the self-defense technique. Now, I'm a perfectionist and I hate screwing up, so I try to know everything there is to know about every technique, asking lots of questions and always trying to better myself. There's this one guy who will be on the test on Thursday who doesn't seem ready. And what happens when you're not really ready? You screw up here and there. I don't care if he screws up when doing his kata, because I'll be doing mine and I won't look at him, but when it attacks me with a left punch when I fully expect a right one, it's screws me up. First for that technique, then I need to be more concentrated on the next one because I sorta expect him to screw up again... Like yesterday, our teacher called a technique called "three swords", in which you have to get free from a headlock. I was the attacker and I moved to try and grab him around the neck in a headlock and he presented me both his wrists, fully wanting me to grab him by the wrist for another technique called "haka dori"... oh well, I know I'll have to deal with that during the test. I simply hope I won't screw up to much because of that and that it won't throw me off. If I can only recover from his screw ups, I'm sure the instructors will see who made the mistake and who improvised to make up for it and I'll come up on top...

I know the technique names sound out of the blue for now, but I've found a few sites to explain the main strikes, stances, blocks (with pictures) and this is what I'll try to do first, then I'll present the techniques from the ground up...

FM
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Old 12-21-2005, 02:07 PM   #22
Bee
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The only advice I can give you is to remember...


"Wax on, Wax off"
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Old 12-21-2005, 02:08 PM   #23
FrogMan
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too cold for any kind of was at this moment. I'll remember it for next Summer though

FM
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Old 12-22-2005, 12:38 AM   #24
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Good luck, Frogger.
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Old 12-22-2005, 07:10 AM   #25
FrogMan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daedalus
Good luck, Frogger.

thanks daed

Test is at 6 tonight and I'm leaving work an hour early today, at 3:15 instead of the usual 4:15 so I can eat a little something and not simply come out flat about an hour into the test. The test was originally supposed to be at 8 but they asked us if 6 was good/better. I personally like 6 better, mostly because had it been at 8, I would have had to log in two more hours in the day and would have come in the test a bit more tired, at least mentally. You know that them two hours between 6 and 8 (well 5 and 7 really) would have been dealing with the kiddos and home thing. Now, my wife is off work today so she'll pick up the kids from school/daycare and I should be all set. And before you ask, no she didn't ask for her day off for me Work is simply slow and they sent her home two days early...

I didn't practice at all yesterday, at least not physically. I did some mental visualisation, as I'll do throughout the day. This may not be my most productive day of the year...

FM
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Old 12-23-2005, 09:28 AM   #26
FrogMan
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Well my friends, I ACED IT!!!

Seriously, I have not posted about it last night not so much because I was exhausted but because I felt so good that I decided to wrap the last few presents still not wrapped up. The test went indeed really well, maybe more so because it was more technical than physical, at least less physical than I "feared" if I can say that. Yeah, there were some times where they tested our will and endurance, like doing kicks out of the horse stance (more on that in a moment), but mostly it was really more about "do you know your stuff or not?"...

As I said before, there were four of us testing, with two instructors checking us out. This is a ratio of 1 instructor for two persons, so nowhere to hide really. You either knew your stuff or you got caught. I felt that for everything that we were doing individually, I was fully in control. In the first half hour, we were going through what we call kc's which are simply little parts of katas, like a one step and punch (there are 20 different ones to know about) and the instructors were pointing out mistakes and they'd gone through all the other three at least once, some of them twice without even singling me out for a mistake. I felt in a zone. Sure enough, one of the two instructors did mention it out loud, something like "hey guys, Steve here is the only one who's been perfect so far"... As you'd expect, it wasn't long before I made one tiny mistake and they pounced on it... hehe, I didn't let it affect me and stayed in my zone though...


Later for self-defense techniques, as luck would have it, I got paired with the guy I was talking about, the one kinda prone to screwups. That part was a bit tougher although I stayed focused and I feel I was able to limit the screwups to a minimum. He hurt himself more than he hurt me, looking confused on some techniques. I'm sure I had proven to the instructors that I knew my stuff beforehand as we'd done the techniques "in the air" meaning without an attacker. They did the 24 techniques in the order that they appear on our regular cheat sheet, but then they mixed them up and started calling for them faster and I kept knocking them down one by one. I was kind proud of that part too...

My forms/katas went really well. Some little things to correct here or there, but nothing they said would make me not pass the test. The iunstructors were nice enough to tell us the stuff to improve as we tested. I felt good doing them, very much in control and with some good power in them.

Finally, there were a couple little twists, unique to the brown belt test. First the test of the candles, in which they set 10 candles on a table and first ask you to pick one and extinguish it with a punch right over it, without knocking it over. I went first and blew it out perfectly. The trick was all in the snap of your wrist causing the whirlwind over the flame of the candle. Then, one by one, they told us to start at one end of the table and try to extinguish as many as possible with only one punch each. I blew out 4 of the 10, many being very close. I gotta say that the fear of knocking over a candle, which feat was to be penalized by 50 pushups, heh, kinda of kept me from coming very close to them. I'd be more aggressive if I'd do it again today though...

Finally, after two hours (I realized it had been two hours only after coming out of the test since there were no clocks in the room), they asked us to go kneel down facing the back wall, without taking off our belt. I didn't really know if it was over or not as they simply let us meditate there. They asked us to turn around and told us to take off our belt then and that the test was over. The highest ranked of the two instructors (a 4th dan black belt) asked us one by one to come to him where he asked us each: "Do you want to receive your belt the same I received mine?" Now, this is a tricky question if you know what I mean. What will he do to me??? Once I said yes, he asked me to take off the top part of my gi and I had set it to my right, facing him, he slap me on twice on each shoulder, left-right-left-right, with the belt folded in a length of about say 16 inches... kinda cool little ritual

They then talked to us about the road to the black belt. We've been told that there's a requisite 18 months to go before testing for the black belt, that our current rank is called "brown belt, 3rd kyu" as we are three steps away from the black belt. My belt is now brown with one black stripe on it . Next possible test should happen in almost a year from now and is called "brown belt, 2nd kyu" i.e. the same brown belt to which they add a second blakc stripe and the "1st kyu" is take about a month before going to test for the black belt and is also known as the pretest to the black belt and you get a third black stripe to your brown belt then.

There's not much more techical stuff to learn from now to the black belt. We're talking two traditional katas and one bo kata with 12 new self-defense techniques. What they said we really need to incorporate in our practicing is the improvised selfdefense as there's a good 45 minutes of that in the black belt test. Stuff where you get attacked from different angles and you simply have to find a way out of it. There's also a good portion of the test that is the horse stance. I mentionned this earlier. The horse stance isn't a very pratical position and I'm not sure I would stand that way in a fight, although I can see its use especially when applying one final blow to the ribs on an attacker who's been thrown to the ground. Here are two picture representing the horse stance:



Here's how the weight is split and how the feet are in that stance.


So basically you are sitting on your legs with feet about double shoulder width and they ask you to go lower, lower, a bit lower again... It's a favorite position for instructors as it a very tough stance to hold. Now think about "crouching" to that position and they ask you to do kicks with poses in between each of them... yeah, very pleasant Later, we did maybe 3 to 5 minutes of simply staying in the position. The first minute, while going slowly, isn't so bad. It's after that that it gets tougher... They are talking about 10, 12, or 15 minutes non stop at the black belt level. This means I better practice at home a bit more, but I got over a year before we get to that point

As I said, it was more technical that physical so I'm not as sore today as I've been in some tests of the past. As I said, I didn't feel the need to simply go lie down once at home, got the presents wrapped instead Maybe it's also due to the fact that I'm in better shape, at least muscularly, than I was in the past. I went with more frequency to the dojo the last two weeks and that can not have hurt me. If I had to do it again, I'd do it the same, make sure that the month prior to the test is a more condensed training month...

I have a class on Saturday then the school's closed for two weeks, we should pick it up from there... Thanks for reading...

FM
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Old 12-23-2005, 10:07 AM   #27
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Old 12-23-2005, 12:34 PM   #28
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Old 12-24-2005, 12:09 PM   #29
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Congratulations!!!

I have much despisal of the horse stance. It serves limited purpose as itself goes, as far as I can tell, the main purpose is a good starting position to get into fighting position. It's the reason I had to quit doing martial arts as I cannot do it with my knees. After about 30 seconds my knees gets a rubbery/dull feeling and is mostly non-functional for the next few hours.
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Old 12-26-2005, 12:10 PM   #30
terpkristin
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EW, KIMAH STANCE!!!!

Man that was a painful stance to sit in.

Glad to hear the test went so well, looking forward to the updates on you in those TOURNAMENTS!!!

/tk
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Old 04-20-2006, 12:08 PM   #31
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I had just about given up the idea of doing this real life dynasty until yesterday, after seeing the kind of talks that got started by my thread on my hatred of the horse stance.

At first, right after getting my brown belt, I was full of good intentions about reporting in here but I never followed through. Now I'm thinking, well this could be the place where I'm accountable for my horse stance training, and it hit me even more today as I was doing my horse stance session. I'd set my timer to 2:45, my personal best set yesterday, and got sorta cocky, doing punches after when the timer hit 2:00. Either my mind got sidetracked or something but as the timer hit 1:05, I felt weakness in the legs and decided I'd had enough. Then my conscience came into play and I told myself "you weakass lazy bum, get back in your stance and finish it!" And I did. Not really proud of giving up, even if only for about 5 seconds. So I went to get my usual lunchtime coffee at the cafeteria downstairs and when I was back, set the timer to 1:15 but with the idea of doing the last minute one a very low stance, think pretty much 90 degrees, and I did it. Now my legs burn as hell but at least I feel like I redeemed myself. To whom? Nobody in particular, I'm just happy with myself.

Now what about this thread? Well, for the couple of months or so, I've been practicing karate in general about 6 hours a week splti this way:
Mondays, 7 to 8: one hour of traditional class
Wednesdays, 6:30 to 7: coaching my son with his bo (little practice for me, but good for seeing how to improve our technique)
Wednesdays, 7 to 8: while my son switches to a traditional class in a regular school gymnasium, free bo practice for me. I often mix in some of my traditional stuff like katas and self defense techniques
Fridays, 7 to 8: while my son attends a traditional class at our dojo, free bo practice for me, kinda relax as there's not much room, but still any time spent with a bo in my hand is good and helps me relax
Fridays, 8 to 8:30: half hour private bo class for my son in which I have much more room to practice with my bo freely. I usually work up a good sweat in that half hour and often listen to what our bo teacher is telling Andrew, as most of the stuff he tells him is stuff that I can apply to better my own technique.
Saturdays, 11:15 to 12:15: traditional class for both my son and I, in separate rooms at our dojo
Saturdays, 14:15 to 15:15: group bo class, funny thing is I'm the only adult to take these classes, but that usually means I get to practice my kata and the teacher comes by every once in a while to correct stuff as needed and then gives me exercices to work on.

As you can see, we got some karate about every couple of days. This is kind of a special schedule as usually, my son would only take a couple of traditional classes a week (Wed, Sat) but having him double up on Fridays is us kind of taking classes in advance with soccer season coming up and I know for a fact that he will miss some during that time, and the fact that he'll be in karate camp during the day for three weeks around from June 26 to July 14 and after doing 2.5 hours of karate a day, I'm not sure he'll enjoy doing some extra in the evening. For now, he's almost asking for more. The bo as kind of awaken up his desire to learn it and I'm very happy for that. In fact, as I said in the horse stance thread, he's getting ready to test for his green belt on Saturday.

This is about it for now, could come back later on today to had some more about what's coming up in our karate life, or what specifically we've (I) been up to lately.

FM
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Old 04-21-2006, 12:29 PM   #32
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okay, just did my lunchtime horse stance session and today was much, much better than yesterday. After yesterday's "breakdown", I decided to kick myself a bit and I set 3:00 on the timer, with the idea that I was gonna do it, and I DID!!! Went to get coffee and did another full minute of a perfect 90 degrees stance. Really happy with it.

As for where we are now, well here's our status. We are both getting ready for a big competition that will be next Saturday, April 29th in Quebec City. It's called the Quebec Open and it's said to be the biggest competition in Canada and one of the biggest karate competition in North America with something like 1500 competitors.

My evolution as to if I was gonna enter it went from really not sure to a maybe in bo kata to a "hell yeah" in bo kata with a very uncertain maybe on traditional kata up until this past Tuesday. Up to that point, I was feeling a bit insecure with my latest kata, called Cat 2 but I sorta know that's the one I need to present since many brown belts (I'll be competing in the underbelt 30-39 advance category, which consists of only brown belts, age 30-39) will be presenting Cat 3 which is a longer and tougher kata but one that you learn as you get much closer to the black belt. Then on Tuesday, I made a decision to give myself a swift kick in the butt and try to get more comfortable with the kata and I will present it. This means I will enter in both weapon and traditional katas.

As for Andrew, when I was contemplating about even entering the competition, he wasn't even thinking about it. Then when I started thinking about it and asked him if he wanted to, he kind of wavered. Then came a smallish competition on April 9, in which he showed how much he'd improved in the last month or so and he told me he really wanted to do the Quebec Open. Decision was made easily, he will do weapon and traditional katas as well as fighting, entering in the boys intermediate 8-9 category. This means he will compete against boys age 8-9 of purple, blue, or green belts. He tests for his green belt this coming Saturday.

As for our most recent training session, it was this past Wednesday. The way it works is this way. There are two hours of class on Wednesday, given in the gymnasium of his school (the regular one, the one he goes at every day). The first hour, from 6 to 7 is for lower belts and the second hour is his usual hour of class, from 7 to 8 for higher belt. What I started doing a couple months ago was ask his teacher if I could come in with him in his usual hour of class and while he'd have class, I'd "steal" a corner of the big gymnasium and would practice with my bo. He told me he had no problem with it. That helped me improve a lot, up to a point where Andrew kind of told me, half whining, that he'd like to be allowed to bring his bo too. I thought about it and came up with the idea of asking his teacher if we could come half an hour early and in that thirty minute, Andrew would practice his bo under my supervision only to switch to his regular class and do an hour of traditional afterward. He told me he saw no problem with it and even told me he thought it was a great idea. Since that day, Andrew has improved steadily every week.

Well, we had one of these 30+60 session this past Wednesday. I had Andrew work on his stances with his bo kata. He did improve them quite a bit and I was happy to see him even let out a "woah" after he'd finished a move with which he'd had problems for a little while, as if he really felt the bo move under his control and not the bo controlling his move. You can download a video of his kata here if you wanna follow what I'll say next. The move happens in what we call the "baseball swings" around the 55th second. See, his bo is a bit heavy per usual standards, especially for a kid his age. As a comparison, my bo which is 6' long is much lighter than his which is 4 1/2 feet long. Because of that, when he takes a big swing like these "baseball swings", he tends to be led by the bo, instead of him leading the dance, so to speak. But yesterday, he took good control of it and even I went like wow kid, that was nice

In my hour of practice, I did mostly fun stuff with the bo, working on my roll around the hand/throw and pass behind the back. Andrew and I have the same kata so you can see this maneuver right before he sets himself for the baseball swings. I also did sections of my kata repeatedly and the whole kata at full speed a few times.

That took about 40 minutes of the hour, the rest was spent on working on Cat 2, and also doing some of my first katas like Circle of the Tiger (demonstrated in this video by Andrew) and Statue of the Crane since I was getting a feeling that I was getting out of touch with these two, having not practiced them a lot in the last month or so. These 20 minutes were greatly beneficial to me in getting a better feel for Cat 2. It still needs work and I'll do a bit more on my traditional class on Saturday morning, but as I said, I'm feeling better about it.

At one point, I'll list all the katas that we know and will try to get some movies when we can film outside this Summer since most katas just don't work well inside the house I also plan on talking about all the self defense techniques that we have names for (there are 36 of them) and would also like to maybe make little clips about them... Hopefully, you'll keep reading...

FM
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Old 04-21-2006, 03:43 PM   #33
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Still with you, FM!
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Old 04-21-2006, 03:51 PM   #34
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I have tremendous admiration for what you are doing, FM. I studied some TKD when I was a pre-teen/early teenager, but haven't done any martial arts in many years. I keep trying to muster up the committment to study some martial art again. Good luck with your continued training.
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Old 04-21-2006, 08:57 PM   #35
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Still with you, FM!

thanks ibnsgirl, your support is appreciated

FM
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Old 04-21-2006, 08:59 PM   #36
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I have tremendous admiration for what you are doing, FM. I studied some TKD when I was a pre-teen/early teenager, but haven't done any martial arts in many years. I keep trying to muster up the committment to study some martial art again. Good luck with your continued training.

Thanks doc, appreciate the support.

I can only encourage you to try one out, not sure if it's TKD that's the best for you but to try one martial art out, especially since you've already tasted one before and especially now, that you don't have a little one to take care of I said I'm not sure TKD is best for you simply based on TroyF's description of their training, I know I would probably not like it

FM
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Old 04-21-2006, 09:07 PM   #37
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well, we're officially signed up for the Quebec Open.

We had an hour and a half of training booked for tonight but I wanted to complete the registration to the Open and well, it was kinda slow at the desk and I only got to practice about 20 minutes into Andrwe's hour of traditional class that goes from 7 ot 8. He usuallly would have had half an hour of private bo class afterward but they forgot to call us to let us know that his teacher could't give class tonight. That didn't matter much, as I can coach Andrew with his kata, and I sorta know where he has to practice and he needs more practice than actually learning new stuff. So we did that for 25 minutes and then went to practice his self defense techniques for his green belt test of tomorrow. Turned out we did a solid 45 minutes after he'd done a one hour class of karate.

Tomorrow will be a bit crazy too. We have class from 11:15 to 12:15 and since Andrew's test is at 1:15pm, we won't even come back home to eat. We'll bring sandwiches and eat over there for him to be there on time for the test. This also means that I'll have some time to kill in the lunch hour, then some more time to kill while he'll be testing, since our usual bo class only starts at 2:15. I guess I'll do a review of most of my katas and self defense techniques. I'm guessing that his test should last 75 to 90 minutes, so once he's done, he'll come over to the bo class and will swing the bo for the remaining of the hour of bo class. All in all, he'll probably do something like 3 hours of karate tomorrow and I'll probably do about the same, if not more. We should sleep pretty well tomorrow night

FM
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Old 04-21-2006, 09:19 PM   #38
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Originally Posted by FrogMan
Thanks doc, appreciate the support.

I can only encourage you to try one out, not sure if it's TKD that's the best for you but to try one martial art out, especially since you've already tasted one before and especially now, that you don't have a little one to take care of I said I'm not sure TKD is best for you simply based on TroyF's description of their training, I know I would probably not like it

FM


I'm pretty sure it is not for me either. I used to be MUCH more agile. My body type is much different now, and I am not nearly agile enough. However, I might try some type soon. Regardless, I'll continue to read about your exploits
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Old 04-22-2006, 07:47 AM   #39
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I'm pretty sure it is not for me either. I used to be MUCH more agile. My body type is much different now, and I am not nearly agile enough. However, I might try some type soon. Regardless, I'll continue to read about your exploits

hehe, didn't want to imply too much but seeing how you're a hair over 30, with a demanding job and all, I figured that TKD might be a rough match.

It's so true that our body type does change with time. I used to weigh 160 lbs when I was 20, this gradually went up, and up, and up some more. As I said in the horse stance thread, I was weighing in at about 205 to 208 just last Fall, after doing once a week of karate over Summer. Since taking on the twice (and much more recently) a week schedule, I've dropped that weight to around 193 and I'm feeling much, much better.

I'm sure you can find a style that will allow you to go at your own rythm, a rythm in which you'll have fun while getting in better shape, and learning a martial art.

Thanks for reading!

FM
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Old 04-23-2006, 03:41 PM   #40
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well, Saturday turned out to be quite a day indeed. First off, Andrew passed his green belt. Congrats kiddo!

However, when I asked our sensei about how he fared, she told me he had great highs but also very low lows. Seems to be a concentration thing, as she said that when he was hot, he was really hot, strong, precise in his strikes and katas, but at other points, he seemed to tune out and be among the worst in the group, putting no power in his punches, relaxing his horse stance, etc. I would tend to agree with her, even without seeing the test, as he tends to do that on other times, in school too. This is something he will have to work and I talked to him about it. He just turned 9, but he seems to understand what I'm telling him, what we're expecting of him. I'm not super stressing the issue with him, as I think this is something that will fall into place with him maturing some more. The surprising thing is that our sensei talked about how he will have time to grow and mature in the next 2 1/2 years that supposedly separe him from a black belt test. Yeah, she said they usually count one year between green and brown and 1 1/2 between brown and black (same as I was told), so theoretically, Andrew could test for his black belt at the swell age of 11 1/2 or 12 years, wow...

As for our day, well it was a long day and I'm feeling it today

My class, from 11:15 to 12:15, included a tough aerobic part, tougher than any we've had in a number of weeks. Here's the sequence we went through:
15 legs lift (kinda high kicks) per leg
50 jumping jacks
15 popcorn jumps "special version"(explanation below)
20 squats jumping forward
some minutes of jumping on your tiptoes, doing a square, that sorta thing
15 lunges per leg (max extention)
100 crunches

For explanations, a popcorn jump is basically a frog leap followed to drop tot he floor for a pushup. That's one. His modified version is instead of simply doing a pushup, you drop to the floor, extend your arms in a cross, come back up doing a push up.

Squats jumping forward are basically squats, but instead of doing them standing on one place, you jump forward, do your squat, then jump back. Two tiny jump in place, then jump forward do a squat and repeat. Kinda tougher on the cardio that way.

The "jumping on tiptoes" thing was basically that, jump up and down, then forward and back, then side to side (as if we'd be skiiing), then doing a "square" (forward, left, back, right). This is giving some ache in the calves this morning.

The lunges are your basic lunges, but he stresses that we have to extend to the maximum. These are giving me ache in the hammies today.

Anyway, simply that "warmup" part of the class took something like 15-20 minutes.

We then split the class (12-14 people) in to with two mats on the floor and worked on our front rolls. Standard front rolls are a useful way to break a fall. Way we did it was we had one person at the end of the mat and a line of person at the other end of it. First person in front of the line went forward and did a simple forward roll, ending it at the end of the mat. Once there, she was facing the one person there who was going to attack her with a club. We practice each of the 15 club self defense techniques that we know, always doing a forward roll before being attacked. That meant a whole lot of rolling and still some more aerobic activities. That took the rest of the class...

Andrew and I then had lunch and relaxed until his test started at 1:15. I then went to practice the traditional kata I will present at the Quebec Open. I spent some 25 minutes doing just that, and I feel much better with it. Something dawned on me though, I don't know where the formal kiais are. Kiais are the screams your often hear a karateka do when he does a kata. In traditional forms, there are known, or expected kiais. Thing, I'm very familiar with my form (or kata) known as Cat 2, but I've never had to present it in either a test or a competition, so I have no clue when I should kiai. No clue isn't right, I have an idea where a kiai would feel "right" as we use them mostly when a big strike is done, but sometimes they can be a bit more subtle. I'll have to ask my teacher on Monday. Incidentally, Monday is my last supervised class before the competition. We received notice that the dojo will even be closed next Saturday as most instructors will either be competing or officiating at the Open.

Around the end of my practicing, an instructor brought some kids to do their tests right next to where I was practicing and when he got to the horse stance section, I decided to do a horse stance session. I started a bit before he gave the start call to the kids but dropped to my knees before he told them to stop (maybe lasting 2.5 minutes or so). I was so pissed at myself that I went to the locker room, got my watch and timed myself to 2 minutes of extra horse stance. Got through it but was shaking like hell at the end...

I had a bo class at 2:15 too but it turned out to be a very smooth class, since it was the last of our 12 week session. We mostly did cool stuff like working on spinning the bo two or three different ways. Didn't amount to much but was a nice distraction.

FM
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Old 04-24-2006, 11:52 AM   #41
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I feared my daily horse stance session today. I kid you not, I was afraid of doing it, didn't want to do it, or at least felt like slacking, like it would be a good idea to only put 2 minutes on the timer. I'm still aching from Saturday's class, my calves especially are killing me. My hammies are also quite tense.

But again, my conscience came into play and I told myself I had to at least put the dang 3 minutes on the timer and I did. I might have held in very slighlty higher stance but I made it up by doing the last 30 seconds in a perfect 90 degree stance. And you know what, it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.

Again, went for coffee and set the timer for 60 seconds for a full 60 of 90 degree stance. But wow, the 60 beeped and I tell ya, I think I could have gone another 30 seconds. Yeah, it burned, but I'm sure I could have lasted much longer. Feels good now...

Got class tonight at 7. Looking forward to it and asking the instructor about them kiais in Cat 2. I got maybe two figured out but I need some enlightment...

FM
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Old 04-24-2006, 09:41 PM   #42
FrogMan
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada
It was a back to basics kind of class tonight. See, we have techniques, not really self-defense techniques but kind of groups of moves that once put together, are used to form our katas. I'm struggling to find a word here but the way they call them in classes sounds like KC, could be keisei or something similar. If you know what I'm talking about, feel free to step in.

Anyway, there are 20 different KCs. A KC can be comprised of any number of moves, usually at least three like a block/a step forward/a strike, but sometimes up to 6 or 7, and you learn different ones as you go along. They are needed to pass your belts and as I said, they are then used in different katas. For example, to earn your yellow belt, the first one after the white one, you need to know the 1st one, which you will use when you'll learn the yellow belt kata called Pinan 1. Then to earn your next belt, the orange one, you need to know KCs #2, #3, and #4, which you will then use, put together in the orange belt kata that is called Pinan 2 and so on...

I know all 20 of them although I only use 13 of them in the 7 katas that I know. My latest kata, Cat 2 that I will present at the Quebec Open, only has two of them in it and I think Cat 3 has the last 7 of them. Cat 3 is a longer kata and usually the one you need to present when you're an advance underbelt if you want to win. Both times I competed, the person who won in traditional kata in my division (30-39, advanced underbelt) presented Cat 3. I know I don't stand much of a chance with Cat 2, even more that it's not even perfect yet, or at least, let's say I've seen people do it better than I do it, but my main event at the Open will be my bo kata. The traditional kata was kind of a bonus entry for me as I decided to take my chance and see where I stand in the crowd with that one kata, in hope of having Cat 3 ready in a year from now, in order to really shoot for the sky next year with both a bo kata and a traditional one, in what could possibly be my last underbelt competition.

Anyways, we spent a good 30 minutes working on these KCs with the goal being that this Summer we'll be doing them every week in the hope that all 20 could be done under 5 minutes. At least, that's our instructor's goal for us this Summer. Speaking of instructor, the instructor for the weeknight's class of Monday and Wednesday is not the same that "tortured" us last Saturday. He is a bit less intense in the aerobic portion of the class. I like going to his class too, as sometimes he gives us different insight as to how to approach certain aspects of some katas or self-defense techniques.

As for the res of the class, we worked on katas. Did Circle of the Tiger, then Statue of the Crane, Cat 1, and he left us with 10 minutes of work on the one kata we felt we needed to work on the most, by ourselves. I worked on Cat 2, for the Quebec Open. Prior to the class, I had talked to him about when to kiai and wow did he kind of surprise me. Cat 1 was a kata that only had three very specific kiais and even then, I only learned the third one after my second competition, so both times in competition, I only did it with two kiais. Kiais aren't always necessary when you practice, but a well done one in competition can impress the judges and give you points. I was kinda surprised as I said because he told me that Cat 2 has something like 6 or 7 kiais I think this kind of play into my strength as I kiai with strength and power, from deep within. I'll work on it on Wednesday, trying not to forget one.

We finished the class with him picking three person to do their kata in front of everybody, even giving them the choice of what kata they wanted to do. He picked two 1st kyu brown belt, both due to test for their black early in June and that was understandable, and another black belt to present the kata she should be presenting at the Open. I almost wanted to beg to present my bo kata but refrained from doing so, not wanting to showboat.

FM
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Old 04-24-2006, 10:41 PM   #43
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Almost forgot that the school had received the sparring gear I had ordered for Andrew so I got to gave them to him. We used to borrow some since he was doing only one or two competition a year but with us setting ourselves to do the whole tour next season (6 competitions in all), I thought it was worth it for me to gear him up...

To those who wouldn't know, sparring gears consists of kicks, punches and sometimes helmets, although they always supply helmets in competition, so I only bought him the kicks and punches. This is not the brand of his, but they look similar.

Punches:


Kicks:


I already had a set for me, but as a large for adults, they were a bit too big for him. I don't spar much, but they are needed when you pass your brown belt and other belts afterward (i.e. the black one in particular). He had no clue I had ordered them and you should have seen his face when I pulled them out of my bags after he was done with his homework tonight. He put them on immediately and they fit very nicely

FM
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Old 04-25-2006, 11:50 AM   #44
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well, I didn't fear it today, not gonna say I was looking forward to actually doing the stance so much as I was looking forward to challenging myself with it. And to challenge myself, I set the timer at 3:15, with the full intention of doing the last 30 seconds in a perfect 90 degree stance. Well, not only did I do, not falthering once, ending with a perfect 90 degree stance for the last 30 seconds, but I felt all right, kind of at peace while doing it. I felt like I could have gone another 15, maybe 30 seconds. The time "record" isn't so important, it's really how I felt while in the stance.

Again, went for coffee and set the timer for session of only perfect 90 degree stance. Again, I decided to challenge myself and I put 75 seconds on the timer. I usually watch the time tick by, as it sort of takes my mind off the hurting in my legs, but this time, I decided to do the last 30 seconds with my eyes closed while counting down the time. I got to 28 when the little bell went off, and again, felt pretty good about myself. I usually sort of panicked when doing the closed eye thing, kind of worrying for nothing about when the damn bell would go off. If I can control that, I'm sure I'll be able to improve my time dramatically...

If you're wondering about the sound of the bell, personally the most beautiful sound I can hear on my lunch break , you can hear it by visiting this page and setting a time like 5 seconds then clicking on "start". I love that little bell

FM
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Old 04-26-2006, 11:54 AM   #45
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well, I felt good beforehand and decided I would challenge myself a bit more so I set the timer to 3:30 and wow, those last 30 seconds were killers. I was shaking more than yesterday, that's for sure but I lasted strong and finished the time until the bell. Gotta take it positively, shaking and hurting only means my muscles are getting their workout

Again, I went for coffee and thought about doing my 90 degree session. Thought about lowering time but vowed not to go any lower than any previous best, so I set 75 seconds on the timer and lasted it, again shaking quite a bit.

Funny thing, as I was doing the horse stance in my reclused cubicle, my closest coworker got to his cubicle and look at me with a little smile. He know I practice karate and I've told him about the horse stance but it still felt weird getting caught "in the act"

Second to last practice before the Quebec Open tonight. After coaching Andrew for a half-hour, I'll try to work on bo kata at full speed, then I'll work some more on Cat 2.

FM
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Old 04-26-2006, 11:57 AM   #46
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oh, and forgot to mention, I also started a martial arts related blog called Taming the horse stance. Some stuff will simply be crosspsosted from here to there and vice versa, but some stuff, mostly commenting about other martial arts blogs, will be posted only on the blog.

You're welcome to pay a visit and comment over there...

FM
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Old 04-26-2006, 07:53 PM   #47
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It was a good practice tonight, for both me and Andrew. In the first half hour, we kept going over his bo kata, always working on stances and making sure he's keeping them as he has a tendency of coming out of them as he makes strikes with his bo. The best part of his bo practice came at the end of his traditional class, as strange as this could sound. His instructor had them practicing in groups of two or three and he was calling them over as the class was going on. I heard him call Andrew's name and say "go get your bo, you'll show me your kata", which Andrew did.

He then called me over as he wanted both me and Andrew to hear his comments and they were mainly good. He said that he thought that Andrew has a good kata, with good strikes and movements, but he lack some in the "selling" department. I immediately got what he meant and that is that Andrew is doing the moves but not really selling them, as in doing them as if he were in a fight with his bo. He now knows the kata, maybe 1000% better than he knew it in the first competition in February (which incidentally was judged by his instructor) and he's still learning on his stances. He's also improved his kiais a whole lote lately, but now he needs to sell it, to make it appear real and aggressive. He's sort of learned to do that with his traditional kata, Circle of the Tiger, because they've explained to him what every moves mean and where the supposed attacker would be and what he would be trying to do to him. Now, he'll need to grow with the bo and see attackers and not only fancy moves and spins and such. Yeah, we have spins and figure of eight in the kata, but the strikes need to mean something.

I came out of that talk with something for me though, as I bought an idea of his instructor about where I could add a kiai, a very strong and powerful one.

As for me, it was a good practice, a sweaty one. Spent the first 30-35 minutes doing my bo kata full speed, then switched to my traditional kata, Cat 2. I felt much, much better with my traditional kata toward the end, with better flow and timing to it. Don't know what what that will give, but I'm definitely feeling much better with it and that's a good thing...

FM
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Old 04-27-2006, 11:57 AM   #48
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well, got back from lunch a bit later than usual, maybe 5 or 7 minutes later, so I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to sneak in the 3:30 + 1:00 so I decided to go with only one 3:30, but do the last 60 seconds at a perfect 90 degree stance. Damn, 3 minutes and 30 seconds is long sometimes... My legs started shaking with 2 minutes to go and I felt like coming back up but I didn't. Then with about 1:10 left, I felt like not doing the 90 degree section but I lowered it all with exactly 1 minute to go and held it there until the bell rang. Sure happy I did it

With the big competition coming up this Saturday, I won't do horse stance tomorrow, instead giving my legs a chance to rest. I've found that Cat 2, in addition to having many kiais, also has more kicks than our usual katas. I count 5 of them, off the top of my head, all snapped kicks, i.e. pretty swift kicks that you bring back before putting your feet forward to advance, and I'd want to be able to snap them with speed and precision. Maybe 3 minutes of horse stance wouldn't make a difference, but hey, it's as good a reason as any other At least, it's karate related.

FM
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Old 04-28-2006, 12:03 PM   #49
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as I said yesterday, no horse stance session today although I wanted to point out a post made on my blog regarding the upcoming Quebec Open. It's called With the Quebec Open coming up... and includes three imbedded videos. One of them is the infamous bo drop of my first competition, the other is one I've never shown in the open, my first traditional kata, and the third one is one you have probably seen, my bo kata that gave me a first place in my last competition.

FM
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Old 04-30-2006, 09:59 PM   #50
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too tired to make a second, different post in here, so I'll repost it from the blog...

what a great, fun day it was


Yep, indeed it was. I went to bed on Friday quite nervous, as I'd been the previous two times I'd entered in a competition. I knew my bo kata was ready to be presented, but the Quebec Open was something else, what could go wrong? While the Friday night practice had ended well, it had not gone well for all of it, giving me doubts. Then, there was the nervousness because of the sheer size of the competition. I mean 1500 competitors, that's something. I started thinking, actually overthinking things. Like how early should we show up so I could practice a bit, you know get in the mood, get the feel of my bo. At least, the day had started well, as I weighed myself to a shocking 191.5 lbs right after breakfast. I used to weigh around 206-208 around last September and the lowest I'd seen that scale show me was 193.5 *before* breakfast. I felt as light as a feather.

We ended up arriving at the PEPS of Université Laval at around 8:05 or so for a start of competition set to 9am. Started out nice as I kept coming accross people from my school. My main instructor first, on the way to the locker room. He told me how he was going to be judging the 13-14 underbelt ring and such, with his son and daughter scoring with him (his son is a black belt too btw). It was really nice, seeing all these people I knew, some of them black belts from my school, there to either compete or to referee or simply to watch the competition and hear them wish us well, to me and my son.

The setup was huge, seriously, 34 rings set in an indoor kind of tiny stadium with a huge stage in the middle of things. First weird thing. My ring was set behind the temporary bleachers erected on one side of that stage for the Saturday night show, and my son's rign was on the other side. This meant there would be no way for me to sneak a peek at how he was doing. Anyway, my son and I warmed up and I had him do both his forms for me, I did mine too and went my way.

I a weird way, I was kind of sad to see that only three people were entered in my 30-39 advanced underbelt class in weapons forms. I kind of wanted to show the world that I was good with it, hehe. Anyways, one thing kind of bothered me at first, and it was the size of the ring. Dang it was small!!! The head referee of our ring even joked about it and told us somethig along the lines of "don't worry about other people, strike one real good, the other will understand the meaning", it made me chuckle. Anyway, I went first of the three and surprisingly, I didn't feel as nervous as I was in the previous two competition. Then it all went very weird. I fell in a "zone". I actually remembers very little of either one of my katas (the bo one of the traditional one). I remember one moment in fact, simply the moment where I roll it over my right hand and throw it in the air and catch it back with my left hand, it was as if time stood still for a tiny moment and I told myself something like "catch it and nobody can beat you" then it it my hand right on the sweet spot and I kept going. It went really well, so well that I brought back first place!!! Sorry, no videos for you, as our second cameraman (usually my dad) couldn't come to the competition and my wife was with my son.

The womens weapons were second and it's a woman from my school that won it, that was pretty cool. She'd also won it on the day where I'd dropped my bo earlier this season. I had kind of hoped to be competing against her, but men and women were separated. Still, it was pretty cool that two people from Lévis won it in weapons.

Taditional forms were next. If you remember, my bo kata was really the main reason why I even entered the Quebec Open, but I'd decided kind of late to also enter with a traditional form. I was to present a form called Cat Two for the first time, having presented Cat One in my first two competitions. Other than me not being absolutely happy with this form, there was also another reason why I didn't feel like I stood much of a chance. There one other "Cat" form in our style called Cat Three and it is required to test for the black belt. In both of my previous competition, the top two spots had been taken by people presenting Cat Three. It's a longer form, more intricate and with more various strikes. Yet, I felt that Cat Two played within my strengths with a few kicks and many kiais. I tend to have strong, usually impressive kiais. About 5 or 6 had gone before my name was called. I watched kind of peacefully, kind of believeing that I almost had a shot at doing something nice. One or two guys presenting Cat Three were less than impressive in my eyes and one guy from another style was shaky in some stances. I did mine and again, kind of went in a zone. I remember very little of the form per se, other than seeing the scores and thinking "darn, it's not looking so bad". I came in third place out of maybe 9 competitors and this is much better than anything I thought I could do as a fairly low brown belt (still got a full year before thinking about testing for the black). 1st and 2nd place were taken by people from another style and the other 3rd (they give 1st, 2nd, then two 3rd places) was a guy presenting Cat Three. That felt kind of sweet and encouraging.

Meanwhile, my wife came to see me between my two forms, telling me that Andrew had done his bo kata and while he did it as well as he could, the other kids in the 8-9 intermediate underbelt class were simply machines next to him (in a nice way). That was kind of expected. I mean, he just turned nine and has been working the bo only since last fall. Some of them have probably started as early as when they were 6 and they've been working on some intricate forms all the while. Anyway, he still managed to finish 5th with his bo form. He then finished 3rd with his traditional form and that was really nice. It used to be a rough one for him but he's really nailing it now. Finally, he lost his first fight in kumite but they gave complimentary 5th place to all first round losers, giving him a total of two medals and one plaque.


While I have no videos for you, I do have a picture, there you go (click it to see a bigger one)...


The day was not even over after Andrew's lost fight. We were coming back for the big Saturday night show and oh boy what a show! Seriously, it was quite a show that started a 7pm and ended past 11pm and that included finals of forms, with and without weapons, for the grand champions black belt categories and many good fights. Was pretty impressive seeing some of them kick during fights, wow. Some of the forms were a bit too much like glorified gymastics tricks, but I guess it'S part of the game. We left at 11, Andrew completely exhausted, sleeping in the car on the way home.

Before I finish, I would like to congratulate Clint Leung of Martial Arts Bulletin on winning his forms and coming in second for his weapons in the 40-49 black belt class. I invite you all to go read his blog where he's got a nice entry about the Open and how well it ran. I agree with him, it was impressively ran...

All in all, we had a great day. A day in which my son and I both grew and that is making us want to work harder to be back next year.

FM
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