Right and Left

There used to be a saying, that Karate trained our right hand and right foot far more than the left side.
This is especially true for me who practice Kata more often.

A 'simple' Ura-Mawashi-Geri can be executed with my right leg. But when I kick with my left leg, the kick is just moving in a wrong direction. Instead of hitting in, it is just brushing up and down against the target.

I remember in a forum that i visit last time, one (or some?) people said that, they purposely practice the Kata the other way round, so that they can practice their left side as well.

Today's 一言：Left side practice?

New Experience

A boring Saturday afternoon.
Competition this year is over, that doesn't mean that there will be no competition next year. Competition is not the only reason I train, to begin with.

Put on my Gi and went to SRC. Started do all the Kata, over and over again.
This time round, putting energy into the Kata, without much care of the stance and form. Trying to drain out all my energy, trying to tire out myself.
Trying to get more power from the Kata that i practiced...

There is this group of people, they called themselves to be mixture of everything. They train for real fighting situation. The coach/instructor was a friendly guy. He asked whether am i interested in joining them.
Glad to~

It is a whole new different experience. The way of evading, the way of punching. Although i tried to do completely in their way, but my instinct in Karate still remains. From time to time, my stance, footwork, punches still have alot of shadows of Karate.
Also learnt a new technique, in grabbing the oponents neck. and how to throw him off balance and kick him with the knee. It was fun.
The training (as far as i see, from today) consist of three parts. First part is physical training + basic training. Physical training as in all the push ups, sit ups, run, etc etc. Basic will be shadow boxing, punching punching bags, etc. Second part is reaction training. One person will be attacking, and the other person will do all the evading and blocking. And last part, the real sparring.
Although I believe that there will be more in the training, but these are all i see for this time.

And I like what the coach/instructor says:
You don't train with the mentality: if you hit me, i will return you three times heavier. You will just burden yourself with unneccessary hatred.
It is ok to hit your partner. If he got hit, he will learn. If he didn't get hit, it means he has learnt and continue practicing, becoming better and better.

Today's 一言：Making friend's through martial art is possible :)

Kata

(have not been posting for sometime~ haha... too tired...)

Kata, is so much more interesting when done together.
All of us need to do heian shodan together today. Me and Ivan was like 'competing' each other, see who can do it sharper, louder sound witn each execution of the technique. The mentality of wanting to do better than the others, push myself to do it with full force, which makes me tired, but satisfying.

I think i will start to learn Chantaraya Kusanku, instead of suparinpei.
Why? I have no idea as well. Intuition, i guess. This will be the kata that I will be using to beat Jeremy next year. haha....
But a lot of training is needed for this kata.

Today's 一言:Competing helps in exceling.

Tournament

This year Karate competition, most of our seniors are not around, so I 'automatically' became one of the senior. And because of that, i participated in one extra category.

Never expect there would be so many participant in Kata this year. I prepared only 2, but in the end i need 4. Two days before tournament, only started practicing them. The first two round oponent are not good, so i save up quite a lot of energy. Didn't need to do my Kata with full force, as i know i will need as much energy as i can gather in the third round. Third round (semi-final), Jeremy, my opponent. I know I must do my best for it, if i want to win against him. But doing something that i have only practice for 2 times before the competition, haha... perhaps is just impossible. Although he haven't been practicing for a long time, but at least he have been practicing for the last two week before competition. Although i have been practicing for a long time, but I have only practice Kankusho before the competition for only three or four times. I lost. But it was anticipated. But I lost happily. Just hope that next year I will be able to do better. Need to prepare the third Kata now, a super long kata in Shitoryu, to compete against his Unsu. lolz.

This is the first time in a Kumite fight, i can 'KO' a person. (well, KO just means lead with 8 points and the match will immediately end, no matter how much time is left). Feel so nice~ That was my first round in below 70kg category. Second round, i fought with my Junior. I must agree that he is fighting really well today. Perhaps it is because he was tired, else he could have won me. Third round, i fought with Jeremy (again?). Really, it was a very fun fight. Towards the end, both of us are tired. We know there is only a little time left. He was leading by 5 points and i know i won't be able to win so any points in this short period of time, given the fact that i am only able to do 1 point attack against him. My kick was not scoring me anypoint, i need to look at the video and analyze why. On top of that, i am very tired. I was thinking, 'you want to continue or you want to stop fighting... lets just bounce until the time ends.' And I think he was very tired too. Bounced for another 5 seconds, the match ends.
Silver... not bad~

In open category, my first match was suppose to be against this guy called Dennis. I was looking forward to fight against him. Last year i fought him (and i won~ :P) This year apparently he is so much better than last year. I was really looking forward for this fight with him. But too bad, he said he was sick, and walk over. :(Second round fought against Hendra, from my school as well. At the first half of the match, I was still charging in. But after about 1 minutes or 1 minute plus, he was leading the game. I was plain too tired, so I thought may be will just relax a bit lah. He also need energy to fight the next oponent, and i can have a good rest. So, i got a bronze~

Me and Jeremy was talking earlier both saying that we are not participating in the team kumite. But in the end, my team got an injury, so i need to go and fight... and Jeremy also somehow being forced by his team mate to participate...In the final round, i was expecting to fight his Jeremy's team mate, Terrence... and was so prepared to receive heavy blows (Well, in a sense, Terrence is 'famous' for giving heavy punch and kick...) Was thinking through my mind, how will I need to fight... this and that.... in the end... Ha? me fighting Jeremy again???Well, things are just never predictable. Lost to him (again... :P)
And, got a silver.

Hey! I got 2 silver and 2 bronze this year!
Wahaha....

Control

How well can you control your punch, your kicks?
How well can you contorl your movement?
How well can you control your mind?

One junior was telling me that he felt that he hurt his leg because of kicking.
Is it common? Is it unavoidable? He asked.

I think it is common, but it is avoidable.
When we kick, we should not be just thinking of kicking out. Especially when we are kicking air, we shouldn't just kick by just simply throwing our leg out as fast as we can, as powerful as we can. We should control it, control your kick so that it is not continuously thrusting forward still when it is fully straighten. Ideally, it should come to a stop when it is fully straighten, so there won't be any 'extra' forces that is still bringing it forward, causing the knee to experience a tension and hurting the knee.

Today's 一言: Take control