[Freestyle/Sporting MA] From Ye-Olde Journal

[CyCloNe]

Nobody competes without having a string load of tales to tell. I myself have many which I will be sure to add once the forum takes off. In the meantime, lets have a few stories from you.

It doesnt matter if were talking sucess or defeat, whatever the story, as long as it is from personal experience and of course the truth, Im sure they will be interesting.

[CyCloNe]

Come on, Im sure someone out there other than me has a few 'competition' type stories to tell.

Dont make me go first :p

[Melanie]

Er....hehehe....ummm.....best I can do to get the ball rolling I'm afraid....

I had my first and so far only competition in Kata last September. I had been challenged by my Sensei at the time and felt that after nearly a year and a half of tuition I should put my best foot forward (if you'll pardon the pun). I spent the best part of two weeks before the comp, just training and training. However the day before I stopped and tried to take stock and felt marginally confident I wouldn't make a complete ass of myself. I remember Sensei picked me up that cold Sunday morning at 7:00am. My stomach hadn't stopped moving since I awoke at 6:00am and I certainly didn't feel hungry. Thankfully as I wasn't driving I spent the entire journey doing jerky movements of kata in the back seat and calling the timing in a whisper. I must have looked pretty stupid but my Sensei was sensitive enough to not mention anything. We arrived about 30 mins early and stopped at a cafe where I was practically forced fed by Sensei. It was the most revolting meal I had ever eaten but I couldn't refuse him, he's a lot bigger than me! We arrived and showed up to this table with the most senior person of our organisation sitting there a 7th Dan and he was greeting everyone. He looked at me and said "Competing today Melanie?" I just nodded and gulped and paid him my money and skulked into the dojo with the other victims, er...competitors. We warmed up as usual after changing and I did my best to distract myself from the inevitable. That 2 hours of warm up and basics went way too fast and finally we were asked to get a drink and then settle into groups of belts that were competing. I looked at my Sensei for the last time before getting into my group and he mouthed from the other side of the room "Believe in yourself, I do" and I started shaking about that moment :(

The room was split into two well defined halves and my Sensei was judging the Juniors and I and other Seniors were being judged (along with other Sensei) by the 7th Dan previously mentioned. I had been going through the two kata I had trained religiously (Heian Nidan and Heian Sandan) for weeks now and for some reason both beginning movements completely escaped me. I was number 7 in the first round so fortunately I didn't suffer being first. The first kata I called out was Heian Nidan. The bow took forever and I figured it was about time to start my kata. Suddenly it was all over. It was weird.... My Sensei over the otherside of the room was looking at me and smiling when I bowed again. He had watched me instead of calling the other person out to look at. I blanched but felt very happy. I sat down unsteadily and watched the few remaining competitors and figured I had done my best.

It didn't take long for them to decide who would go through to the next round and they stood up and called out 5 numbers, me being the middle number. My heart sank, I really didn't enjoy doing Sandan at this time. My fumikomi seemed to only work one out of every nine times. But somehow I managed to to say Sandan when my time came and bowed and begun. I remembered all my posturing and my Kiai, then Fumokomi came. I nearly laughed....after making such a hash of the fumikomi, I resolved myself to do the most convincing kiai I could muster at the end and I have to admit I think I made a couple of the students and some of the crowd jump when I did it. If nothing else, I hoped they realised I had spirit.

Then the second longest wait of my life, nearly an hour, watching all the other belts compete and then the judges making their decision. I stood as far away from the judges as I could. They announced the runners up, 1st and 2nd - my name wasn't mentioned. They called up the third place - my name wasn't mentioned. By this time I was so excited! The second place was mentioned and they called out my name! I was grinning from ear to ear and the 7th Dan presented me with my medal. I looked over to the side of the dojo and my Sensei was looking at me - his eyes kind of glazed....oh well, there's no pleasing some people I thought! Then he winked, that's the highest praise I had had off him so far that day. It did help he bought the drinks on the way home though.

Sorry CyCloNe...best I could do...but it's all true....

[CyCloNe]

No need to apologise Mel (I do hope Mel is ok), superb effort. Although the story may seem tiny and irrelevant to you, Im sure that some of the people who read it (including me) can relate to a similar situation and if nothing else, its nice to know your not alone :)

I will make a contribution here. As you will notice, the majority of my ramblings all relate back to when I was studying TKD.

We we running an open seminar to try and promote the art in our area. We had hired a local hall and had spent a couple of days prepping the matts etc.

The day came and I had been asked to spar in a "Spar with anyone" type role. This worried me a little as where I live is renowned for idiots (I guess I fit in nicely :p).

There were 3 competitors that wanted to try their hand at sparring, one young lady, a young lad and a middle aged bloke.

The young lady was superb, she had studied a little at another club but was wanting to start again, we sparred for a 3 minute round and the cheer she got when scoring with a sweet jump back kick was amazing. The young lad was simply there to have a laugh so we kinda made a bit of a joke about the bout, after all at about 12 years old he was only about 5'2" fighting me at 17 standing just over 6'4". We did the old holding his head whilst he swiped with his left and right cross gag and got an amazing response from the audience, for the first time they were seeing that although a lot of seriousness goes into our training, we are still just people and more importantly we are there for each other.

However, the third fight was a little different. I decided to take a water break and when I came back my coach came to me and told me it was probably best if I didnt take part in the next fight as it looked like the third competitor was out to make a point. Someone had recognised him as a local Karate student that appeared to be out just to prove one art against the other. This saddened me but put us in a strange situation. Did I fight and risk a bloodbath which would undoubtedly put our art in a dark light, or did we simply call the fight off and risk looking like we were unsure about our art or even to some, appear as cowards.

My coach left it up to me, I decided to fight.

In the minutes leading up to the bout, he warmed up with hugely powerful kicks and punches with his partner, almost knocking the stuffing out of the pads, this was gonna be messey and we knew that regardless of how we made out points about contact, because we were wearing the olympic style body armours, he would just go full pelt.

As we entered the ring, he decided it would be really cool to do a movie-esq step accross to me and eyeball me (almost like a scene from rocky lol).

He went back to his side of the ring, bouncing and shouting like a fool, I sensed this fight would be over very quickly so chose my moves carefully.

After the bowing the ref put us together, stood in the middle, dropped his hand and we were off.....

Knowing the guy was out to make a point was his weakness, the moment the hand dropped I threw a very quick reverse heel technique followed by a spinning back fist. In my defence, I was merely trying to do a little 'impressive' exhibition move.

Its a shame he did come charging in shouting with his fists flailing, truly a shame....

The reverse heel hit him in the face square on, and the spinning back fist connected just afterwards on the side of the headguard just about jaw height.

Out Cold!

As a mark of respect I knelt towards my corner still shaking from the adrenaline of contacting perfectly with techniques that were just supposed to impress (honest ;) )

The response from the crowd couldnt have been better, all they saw was a very angry man trying to make a point getting knocked out cold by someone doin a lil promotions work.

Lets just say that from that point forwards, our number of students swelled to all time highs.

That sums up my first ever KO, yes there were more to follow, but surely there are others out there with similar tales before I have to ramble on some more :)

[surgingshark]

As a mark of respect I knelt towards my corner still shaking from the adrenaline of contacting perfectly with techniques that were just supposed to impress (honest :) )

I believe you :) Some flashy-looking moves actually do work :D Good job on striking once the hand went down...that's what I constantly watch out for when facing an agressive opponent :D

[booj]

Indeed,

This is a brilliant tactic that can catch even the most experienced competitor unawares. Theres much advantage to be had from observing the rhythms of contests, and then using this in your strategy!!

[Ghost Frog]

I competed in a sport jutsu competition several years ago. Basically, you can use strikes (semi-contact), throws and grappling moves in this sort of competition, but you're not allowed to strike while throwing or grappling. Anyway, there weren't enough women, so they put us all in the same weight category. Not too bad for me, though, as I'm usually towards the middle range.

Anyway, my second fight was against this huge scottish girl who was warming up doing full power kicks against focus mitts while her instructor yelled stuff at her. She then came over to me while I was warming up and asked me if I'd seen 'Braveheart'. I think that she was trying to imply that she would be taking revenge for several hundred years of English oppression!! Just made me laugh to be honest. :D

One of her first moves was to grab both sides of my headguard and yank it as hard as she could in an attempt to throw me. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for her, I had a velcro strap-type headguard on and it just came straight off in her hands and she fell backwards.

I found out afterwards that she was only 15 and so should have been in the 'kids' section, but that they'd moved her to the adults so that she didn't flatten the other kids. :D :D

Oh yeah, and I lost!!

My next opponent was very short and for some reason had decided not to wear shinpads to fight in. Bad move!! She went in against the scottish girl and duly got lumps kicked out of her. I had to spend 15 minutes persuading her that I wasn't going to do the same so that she'd come out of the toilets for our fight!! Won that one, not surprisingly. :)