A Beginner's Point of View 666-667.5

Day 666:

No class today as I am injured.

Day 667:

No class today as I am injured.

Day 667.5 Tournament:

For the tournament, I arranged a carpool with 4 other guys. Even taking into account picking everyone, we arrived on time. This tournament was arranged a little different from the regular schedule I’m used to. They push all the final matches until a long string of matches at the end of the tournament. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. However, it means that shodan-nidan division is before lunch. That’s good.

In my first match, my opponent tried to taunt me before we stepped in by mocking my dojo symbol. In the match, I matched him swing for swing, messing up his attacks, then trying to strike the openings. After a long set of exchanges, I scored a men strike and then the time was up. In my second match, my opponent tried to do some questionable tactics. He would let me try to strike men but counter by grabbing my shinai under his arm and hold it to his body. I chose to let go with the right hand and hold it above my head to block. He eventually scored two men against me.

Lunch was a beef teriyaki and it was good.

Our team went right up against a formidable team of dans that outclassed us at every turn. I fought against someone who was either sandan or yandan. I actually scored a men strike against him but lost the match 2-1. I suppose I could have just ran out the clock but I really felt I was matching him and I tried to win.

The end time of the tournament was delayed for at least an hour from waiting until shinpan were available for fighting in final matches. Ugh. I hope we don’t do that for our tournament. After the tournament was over, we all went out to a steakhouse for a meal. Good thing as I was starving. The trip back went faster than going up. One of the guys wanted to talk about tournament fighting compared to the clean waza we did in the dojo.

The next day, my back was sore and my guts were suffering from a mild case of food poisoning. I think I’ll skip one practice next week to make sure I recover.