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Post by tomobrien on Jul 11, 2013 2:15:19 GMT
What about your own personal greatest karate moment? Be it in competition, as a witness, on the street or just a random great moment on any given day in the dojo. This is not a 'bragging rights' topic but something special to each of us. Mine was 2&1/2 months ago. I took the gold medal in kumite @ the AAU state championships. Close seconds were 2010 & 2011 I won silver medals in the nationals (kumite, kata & kobudo).
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Post by kensei on Jul 11, 2013 19:57:44 GMT
My personal greatest moment was my first Shodan test over 20 years ago. I trained on and off for about 10 years and then our clubs left the ISKF. we were on our own and I thought I would never grade for a Shodan ever. Then we had our summer camp and it was business as usual.
Sensei asked me to grade and I was not sure I was ready, I had a month to get ready and I started running and getting in shape right away. The testing was HORRIBLE...I think he actually tried to kill me! We did four Kata, basics for half an hour and then Kumite with four people and some crazy 27'ish step sparring that was basically a partner attacking as many times as they could from one end of the room to the other as fast as they could....the round before mine a guy actually broke his nose....and then I faced the guy he was going with.....
The best moment came at dinner when the seniors all stood up and announced that of the seven of us four had passed to full shodan and the three had to work a bit harder. They were kids and retested in three months and passed...but I had gotten it the first time out and one of the seniors pointed me out as being the most ready for the shodan.
Years later I retested for a JKA level Shodan under Tanaka Sensei but the fact is that the testing that Dingman Sensei put us through was not only hard, but it made me feel like I earned it...and then some!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2013 11:58:30 GMT
Last week I took the opportunity to go to an Iain Abernethy Seminar in Telford. It was the first time I have ever trained with him or indeed outside of an association I belong to. As a follower of Iain's for some time be it online or from purchase of books and DVD I was not disappointed. Really good training on bunkai of H Yondan, empi and nijishiho. great atmosphere as well.
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Post by tomobrien on Jul 26, 2013 2:06:33 GMT
Wow! James, it looks like you really earned that Shodan! & Alan, it sounds likr you had a great session with Ian! Great stories men!
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Post by D.Ram on Jul 26, 2013 6:10:09 GMT
Frankly I'm too young (on the Karate path) to have many moments I can consider "greatest" - I believe so many more lie ahead! For now, I enjoy each class, each new kata, the absolute physical exhaustion...I am happy watching my own techniques improving; I love the sensation of better toned shoulder muscles simply because of punching so many times; it's great to feel the mawashi geri actually making sense in action instead of in theory; I like it that even as I bow out of the dojo at night, I'm already eager to attend the next session!
Cheers!
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Post by kensei on Jul 26, 2013 11:36:31 GMT
Wow! James, it looks like you really earned that Shodan! & Alan, it sounds likr you had a great session with Ian! Great stories men! Every other Dan test after that just seemed like a quick "yup you know your stuff" compaired to that test. while I can say that was the hardest test ever....I wont say it was my favorite ;D
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Post by tomobrien1 on Aug 23, 2013 1:36:50 GMT
Sometimes a random night @ the dojo can be a great moment! Another hot/humid nite @ The Ronin Martial Arts Club! DeAshi harai (advanced foot sweep), defense against hair grabs, kicks & more kicks, front snap kick (mei geri keage), front thrust kick (mei geri kekomi), on the shield, crescent & reverse cresent kicks & punching! Good work! Wring your gi out! Well, at least it felt great!
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Post by kensei on Aug 23, 2013 13:53:58 GMT
Funny, last night I had only six students, two black belts, a green belt and three white belts. Its VERY hot and HUMID here in Winterpeg and when that happens the students tend to avoid my classes...no idea why? We did simple things like front kicking and straight punch drills, Heian shodan, testing Katas (Heian Shodan, Yondan and Bassai Dai) and not much more, but the work we did was intense and the students were drenched at the end.
Great class and so very basic!
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Post by tomobrien1 on Aug 23, 2013 19:42:54 GMT
Great way to lose weight!
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Post by tomobrien1 on Aug 28, 2013 1:46:47 GMT
Hot & humid again @ The Ronin Martial Arts Club! Pummeling (swimming), lift your opponent up, double leg take-downs, rollin with chokes & arm bars (juji gatame), kata - taikyoku shodan & sandan, Heian shodan thru yondan, shisochin & drills outside on the lawn. Good work!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2014 8:56:11 GMT
My greatest moment was discovering Iain Abernethy and finally being able to understand Kata. Before that everything I had been taught in karate made little sense as it bore virtually no similarity whatsoever to the realities of civilian violence, and kata amounted to little more than dance class (Did they instructor really expect us to believe we were turning in 8 directions because we were fighting 8 different people, that we were jumping over katana, or that we were fighting sideways in rice fields?)
Instead I now see that Karate and kata is actually not only practical (when taught properly) but that it is in fact (when taught properly) the most effective form of civilian self-defence IMO.
Since discovering Iain I have gone on to discover others similar to him such as John Burke (who I am training with again next month) and other people of the same ilk.
In some ways I was annoyed that I had wasted years studying things which made little or no sense, that I had spent my time practicing Gedan Barai against kicks (Which in reality would achieve nothing more than shattering my forearm) and wasting time “blocking” attacks, and being taught utterly idiotic bunkai because my Instructor didn’t even have a basic understanding of the art they claimed to teach. Unable as they were to think that any movement was anything other than a block or a strike, because they did not understand that karate contains not only atemi but also joint locks, takedown, throws, chokes, ground work etc etc.
In other ways it was an epiphany, suddenly I was able to understand martial arts in terms of civilian violence. Since then I have applied the principal’s taught by Iain, John etc etc to apply my training to reality. Having left karate to train Japanese ju-Jitsu (as karate at the time bore no relation whatsoever to civilian violence) discovering Iain and people like him has been responsible for retuning me to an art with lots of atemi and other things that bare many similarities with karate.
Anything I now learn in the martial arts, which will usually have it’s roots in the battlefield, I am now able to adapt for the street when referring it back to (proper) karate.
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Post by daveb on Jul 19, 2014 16:28:34 GMT
At a seminar with Kenneth Funakoshi, the whole experience was great, and my friends and I had a real laugh throughout the weekend. I had made the room laugh when the black belts were asked to get a partner to ride on their back as they oizuki'd up the hall, and when everyone else had a child a took my 18 stone (18x14lbs for our American friends) self and jumped on my friend who was half my size. But the biggest laugh was at the end of the 2.5 days the last exercise saw me collapse on the floor in exhaustion. I opened my eyes just in time to see a small grinning Okinawan karate master flying feet first onto my stomach! I think he liked me.
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Post by ruestir on Jul 21, 2014 3:25:34 GMT
My greatest moment was passing shodan. I had failed the first time around and this time my attitude was just "this is my best karate, f**k em if it isn't good enough!" Elmar said he could tell I was going to pass from the beginning. I don't think the test was anything special to look at from an outsider's perspective, but my kata were all on point and my sparring partners could neither hit me or get out of the way of my attacks. I felt pretty damn invincible that day.
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Post by tomobrien1 on Jul 21, 2014 21:44:16 GMT
David - you know that's a sign of affection! Alex - we don't always get to feel invincible
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Post by ruestir on Jul 22, 2014 2:06:10 GMT
Tom, key words "that day".
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