The First Tournament

The closest I have to a picture from those days,

However in those days I sported a Fu Manchu mustache.

Thinking about older tournaments makes me remember my first one.

 

I was a White Belt, and had been training maybe 4 months. I had my first kumite belt my 2^nd night, getting my ass kicked by a young woman green belt 10 years younger than me. Strikes to my body which strung, her foot ending up in my mouth repeatedly. Literally as ass kicking.

 

But even though I was one of the most unskilled beginners that ever existed, I would not stop.

 

So I endured it, and unlike most beginners at that time, kept training.

 

Lewis Sensei had a team of extremely talented green belts at that time, they were fighting terrors. In class they worked me over repeatedly. And they worked a very wide range of techniques, including grounding movements.

 

I had started learning Side kicks and Front kicks off the floor my first night. But they regularly practiced using them in kumite, going to the ground as a strategy and then kicking from below.

 

So as untalented as I was, I was going to my first tournament. I was in Baltimore, a long ride away. The tournament was large, and the rules were decided on the day, as was often the case. The tournament director announced that as the kung fu competitors had been complaining that the groin techniques they regularily studied were not allowed, the rules were unfair. So he was going to allow controlled strikes to the groin that day.

 

What I noticed was none of the Kung Fu people used their groin striking skills during the tournament. On the other hand Sensei’s green belts all used the groin techniques. With great skill when pressed, they would drop to the floor and their kicks off the ground finding their way to their opponents groins.

 

I competed in White Belt kata. Didn’t do anything terribly wrong, nor terribly right either.

 

Then the White Belt sparring division was called.

 

As I was larger than most of the competitors I drew another larger guy. Turns out he was a student of Reese Rigby, one of my seniors. But I did not know that then.

 

When called I lined up to fight.

 

The fight began, I know I was not terribly effective. But we went back and forth for a while.

 

 

Then he unleashed a front kick, one which struck me squarely in the groin. I had been wearing groin protection, but it did not seem to help, a shooting pain was experienced. My eyes tear’d from the pain.

 

And to make matters worse he was awarded the point  and the fight.

 

For the day I certainly was not terribly effective.

 

I remember the car ride home with Sensei and all the other guy’s. Feeling very low, knowing how much I did not know.

 

Then returning next class to continue studying, and taking beatings from those greenbelts.

 

Quite a few years later I was visiting and training with Reese Rigby, after I had become a black belt.

 

I remember Reese telling me, “ Victor, I remember when you started, you were someone that I questioned why the Hell you would even try to learn karate. Well, you did, and I am proud for you.”

 

There is a moral to this story. It does not matter where you start, if you keep trying you can and will improve. Even learn a thing or two. I always keep that in mind with every student. I am sure I was more unskilled than any of them would be, and I believe they can learn and grow. I did.

 

That and of course don’t get kicked in the groin.

When knuckles were naked.

I recently was listening to a video on YouTube where they were describing the tournaments from the good, old days.

 

The ones before safety gear, and kumite on bare concrete floor.

 

Now most of that was well before my time, but it triggered a memory.

 

I was a new black belt, and I attended a tournament being held in Harrisburg PA. The facility for the tournament was just like that description. The floors were bare concrete. And yes safety gear was not permitted except for mouthpieces. They even checked by light back of the hand strikes that you were not wearing groin protectors.

 

It was an Isshinryu tournament and it was old school.

 

Now when I began there was no safety gear. Then it came out and Lewis Sensei had each of us get our own set, and we began learning how it would be used, differently from our bare knuckles.

 

I have heard there were tournaments in the past, which were blood baths. But I never saw that, Getting struck in the body did hurt, but for the most part there was control with the head shots. It was just what fighting was back then.

 

In fact for years as I taught the kids we did not use safety gear. Though when I hosted kids tournaments I did allow its use. But I felt it did work to our kids advantage. Striking their bodies with foam rubber did not make them shirk. And it was a safe time for the competitors.

Over the years I saw greater injuries from people wearing safety gear, than I ever saw when it wasn’t worn.

 

And that tournament in Harrisburg had controlled fighters. It was not a bloody day either.

 

An older memory when knuckles were bare, and you used control as you fought.

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Addendum:

Later on my surgeon's advice I did discontinue bare knuckle sparring because of the risk from disease transmission from potential cuts. He was also one of my senior students, and I don't know more than a Surgeon after all. But about that same time we began to de-emphasize tournaments and sparring in general, there were so many other things to do and there was never enough time.

Muay Thai Boran - Knee and Elbow Techniques

The Art of Conclusion

One of Karate’s “secrets” is the power that can be found in the smallest thing is often most important.

 

The Core  of Okinawan Karate is Kata.

 

And regardless of the kata in question there are 3 parts.

 

1. The Opening, where you begin.

2.The Middle, where stuff happens.

3. The End, conclusion of the exercise.

 

Regardless of the complexity, or the age of the form in question, these definitions are still there.

 

The Opening makes sense for you have to begin somewhere. Perfecting that movement is simple sense.

The Middle is where most of the stuff of one’s art resides. Techniques, application potentials, work to application movement realization.

The End is where you stop, or is it.

 

That is what I want to talk about.

 

Kata, practice or performance, there is little difference, does not stop when the kata does. Kata is not just something to complete and then go on to the next thing.

 

The perfect ending is as important as all the rest.

 

You end the exercise. You find perfect balance and composure to fit your moment. You become quiet, ready to stop where you are and even begin again.

Your composure becomes such that your awareness is heightened for whatever comes next!

 

You do not drop your hands, lose your center, sulk away to whatever comes next.

 

You become composed at closure, aware, alive, living to the fullness,

 

Or so it is to me.

 Tom Lewis, Sensei, concluding Seisan kata.