Sunday Karate Tournament – 4/20/08 – No medals for me but fun for all.
I entered this tournament, even though I shouldn’t of because of my ribs. Luckily, I didn’t hurt myself too much.
I entered both the kata and kihon events. I went up against that same group of people as always, which is good, since all of them are great people. After entering 14 tournaments over the last three and half years, you really start to build friendships with your competitors. Even though some of us win or loose, we all have respect for each other and no bad will when one or the wins.
I do these tournaments for fun and if I win, that’s great, if I don’t, no big deal. I used to get really mad when I would not win but now, I just do it support my club and since I am going to be there anyway to watch my son compete, I may as well do it.
For the first time, when I did my kata, I had a smile on my face during most of it. It was really funny, Sensei Cieplik has often told us to do our kata with a smile and this time, I did both of them with a smile. It wasn’t a constant smile but it was there during many of the moves. I didn’t win and I zoned out a few times but it was fun for me and I hope that I can keep the same feeling the next time I compete.
My son did better, he won a forth place medal in kata. He did Jion and even though he is a 4th Kyu and should be doing Tekki Shodan or Heian Godan, he had his mind set on Jion. I think he would have placed higher if he would have done Heian Godan but he was happy with his place and so was I and his mom.
Sadly, my wife was not able to compete because of some issues with her back but once she gets over those, I am sure she will be back to her winning self like before.
My wife, son and I also volunteered to help out with the tournament. We helped in the staging area and had to line up the competitors and take them to their rings when the time came. Their stagging area is run extremely well and without the hard work of Beth Rechenmacher, it would never be pulled off. I have a lot more respect for the people that make these tournaments possible and am glad that I was able to be a part of it. My wife and I also had the chance to help score one of the kumite matches. It was really interesting to see how it’s done.
Even though, I didn’t win any medals, I think I still won by learning some new stuff.
Friday Karate class – 4/18/08 – Lots of kihon and pushed in ribs.
I went to see my chiropractor, Doc Pusateri today and found out that I had a pushed in rib and my ribcage was torqued on my left side. He just put his finger on my side and knew from my yelp what was wrong. He was able to put the rib back in place and un-torque my ribcage in about five minutes and then he worked on my parts like always. The pain was almost totally gone by the time I walked out of his office. It was still there but only about 10 percent of what it was just a little while before.
I helped out with the two classes before mine like I do every week and wasn’t going to take my class since I didn’t want to hurt myself again. I couldn’t just sit and watch so I ended up doing kihon for about half the class but I took it easy because Sensei Noia said to. The combination moves did stress my ribs somewhat but not enough to cause any real pain like I felt in class last night. We did some kicking combinations too and those are starting to finally improve. I didn’t use any power on my moves and I did notice that my form improved a great deal. I am going to have to evaluate my power output and consider taking it down a notch to improve my technique.
We finished up class with kata and I did Jion. Again, it was a weak version of Jion, at least for me but I was able to complete the entire kata without too much pain.
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