Hey everyone, First off I'd like to thank all of you again for taking the time to check out my blog. I've gotten a lot of feedback, which is great. I appreciate everyone's thoughts and ideas. I've taken them into consideration and they gave me a bunch of new ideas to go in depth with my topic. So I hope you enjoy.
My goal to earning my brown belt in September is going well. I've been taking time to learn some new techniques. The brown belt techniques are complex, and there are also no basics to learn anymore, so that's kind of neat. But we've been mostly practicing for our competition.
Our competition is coming up in May. I'm really excited about it, Mr. Myrtle and I have been talking about the competition. I told him I was disappointed about the last tournament that was in February because the judges didn't play fair. And it sucks to say but that happens often. But Mr. Myrtle told me not to worry because what we have at our dojo is something that people notice easy.
When it comes to competitions, we're very professional. We all want to take Grand Champion home so we put everything we've learned into play. Performing your form in front of 3 black belts is a little nerve racking. I've been doing tournaments since I 7, and I still get nervous when performing. During your form, it is really important to keep your hand chambered to your side, make sure you have the correct movement/stances, and to make sure that you're being very clear that you know what you're doing, also make sure you kiai.
Everyone knows what Kiaing is, the funny sounds that the karate dudes make. But its very important to kiai because if you got hit hard in the solar plexus, you need to let your air out so you're not winded. When someone gets winded in a fight they call time and make you kiai three or four times, while the other person turns around and takes a knee. Sparring is never nerve racking for me, I like to get in the ring and fight...but that might just be me. Everyone fights everyone, like I've said before if they're in your division that means you're fighting.
Sparring is probably my favorite thing to do because it really shows you that if you can beat this person that you don't even know, you can probably win again if someone tries pulling something on the streets. But your confidence has to come into play, you have to get your head in the game and focus on how to dodge and counter, how to be the first one to hit not to get hit. I'm just so ready to perform my form and spar.
I know I'm not even close to getting my brown belt, but I'm gonna be working as hard as I can to get it. Which means going back over my old material and learning new things at the same time, and also making it better than it was the last time I took a belt test. But, I have to go teach a class now so, I guess I'm getting closer to my goal faster than I think.
