Last night saw our return to the art’s, this time in our new Dojang.

For the last week students and instructors have been beavering away at, what was once, ‘Body & Soul’ gym in Redruth. The building had lain dormant for the last 9 months or so and was in a hell of a state. Holes in walls, no electricity, no water, broken stuff everywhere. It’s by no means finished but it is at least now habitable.

After a first mad rush to get the mats finished and a foolhardy attempt to clean mirrors with less-than-clean cloths we began our first class in our new home. The first thing that struck me was that we were no longer on the ground floor, it felt a little weird. The next thing was that we were now on a high-street. The sound of 15-odd students ki-hap’ing in unison reverberated through the street like an express train, there were a few wide-eyed faces looking up . . . The next thing that struck me was the heat. It was a beautiful day, hot with no wind. Needless to say the room with the low ceiling soon turned into a sauna. Within minutes i was drenched. When we came to perform a hyung (Kata)  i honestly thought for a minute i might pass-out. I returned to the back of the class feeling very wobbly!

Still, all things considered it was a good first lesson in our new home. I have a feeling the club is going to get very busy . . .

I’m still not sure why they are called ‘British’. We had Dutch, Danish and German clubs there ?

So last weekend was the EMTF British National competitions. Although i’m not really a big competitor any more i do still attend the British (and European when possible) competitions every year. It’s as much about the social aspect as competing. It’s a great way to get to know people from the other clubs and meet the chaps from the EMTF.

This time was my turn to drive. Unfortunately we got stuck in traffic twice on the way up (We decided on the M5/M42/M6/M1 route to Bedford as opposed to M5/M4/M25) which means the journey in total took 8 hours (including a couple of stops). Food that night was courtesy of the harvester next door to the hotel. A pint and burger taste so much better after a long slog on the road. Up bright and early the next day we soon realised that it was another hour on the road to get to the sports centre. More driving . . . The hall itself was a decent size. Enough for ten rings plus spectators. Although there wasn’t a dedicated warm-up space for competitors which was a bit of a shame. The other shame was the smell. The hall was next to a stable (agricultural college) so there was a constant smell of manure and urine for the entire day, not too pleasant really. Still, being a black-belt (god i hate that phrase) mean’t i was kept busy for the day. i firstly had the Pleasure of helping Master Uberlander from Germany run a ring for Hyungs (kata). It was also nice to note that our score were almost identical all the way along so i must be ‘seeing’ the same things as him. Later i helped Master Preston run a ring for sparring.  The day started in backwards fashion with the gup-grades first. There were a lot of gups from our club competing and nearly all (if not all ?) of them won something, whether for hyungs or sparring. Then we sat through the masters forms . Some great displays. Then lastly we got to the dan-grades forms. This was me.

I had decided beforehand to only enter two categories; Traditional (Japanese) and Chil-Sung (Korean). I normally enter chang-bong (staff) too but i didn’t really fancy it this time around despite it being one of my best categories. I was trying to do the weekend on a budget. I also was not bothered about winning anything. Normally people only compete with forms they feel very good at so as to have the best chance of winning something. This time around i fancied doing something different, a risky prospect indeed. For my traditional form i choose Jin-To. This particular form is great to perform but technically quite hard. It involves having to balance on a single leg with arms outstretched then snap the hips around 90-degrees and throw a (good !) front-kick. Not once but three times. Of course the risk is of loosing your balance or fluffing the kicks which is so easy to do. Especially on the soft competition mats (wooden floors are much easier for keeping balance on). The form started well enough for me until i got to the first balance point. As i pulled into the correct posture i though ‘Christ this floor is wobbling !’ Of course it was my legs, not the floor. This mean’t i couldn’t hold the positions for as long as i would have liked to. I also almost made a mistake towards the end. I managed to stop myself in time but i knew the judges would see the stall. With no fewer than 14 people in our category (unheard of) i knew it was not good enough. Still i took a risk and i enjoyed the performance, trophy or not.

Our second category of Chil-Sung was called immediately after. Once again there was a lot of us, 10 i think ? This mean’t once again we had our work cut out. The judges then announced that we would be performing one at a time (you usually go in pairs). Now i was crapping myself ! For this category i again took a risk with one of the Yuk-Ro (Joon jul) forms. Most clubs don’t know these forms so i was worried that the judges wouldn’t either. The form itself is quite complicated so required complete concentration from start to finish. To my surprise the master running the ring did indeed know the form so i was allowed to compete with it. Big sigh of relief . . . Having made a mistake in the first performance i was determined to do this one well. I love the form and wanted to do it justice.  The form passed in a bit of a blur but i had the feeling i had done reasonably well.  When the placings were called i had managed to scrape third place ! The master also called me over at the end and said a personal well done, this was just as good as getting the trophy.

Although in the past i have picked up golds and silvers this trophy was definitely my hardest won one yet. No i didn’t win any of my categories but i took a risk instead of playing it safe. It felt good. I’m very happy with my overall performance considering.

The competition didn’t wrap up until 7PM and by the time we all got to the restaurant that night it was 10:30PM before we sat down to eat. Most of had eaten literally nothing all day (I had three wine-gums i found in my car). We were all on our last legs. But MAN did that pint and Chinese buffet taste good ! After eating all notions of clubbing went out the window. We were all totally knackered. We stocked up on a few goodies from behind the bar and headed back to the hotel. I had planned to sit down and enjoy a quite cup of sake with a couple of the chaps. The next thing i know there’s 23 people in our room !

Looking forward to getting back to training now. Competitions always leave me feeling enthused and proud. Regardless of how i have personally done.

One of the questions i get asked time and time again at competitions is ‘why don’t you fight ?’. I normally shrug it off with a nonchalant answer. However i’ll go into a little more depth for you.

I remember watching films such as ‘the karate kid’ when i was a nipper. I always loved the final action sequence when they were in the competition. I remember watching it and thinking ‘wouldn’t it be cool if i got to do that some day’. If my mother ever came into the room she would be sure to say; ‘you should try that, i rekon you’d be good at it’. I think she meant martial arts in general, as opposed to competition fighting. Well, it turns out i did. I did try it and i did like it! Hence why i’m still here and have a rather natty dark-blue belt to show for it. I remember the excitement of sparring as a junior grade. The butterflys before it was your turn to go into the ring. The adrenelin when you finally get there (and the lethargy when the whistle goes!).

It was, however, more than the excitment of ‘fighting’. It was every bit about proving that i was as good as anybody else in the room (even when i wasn’t). As a junior student making my way through the ranks i felt it important to show that i was nobody’s push-over. I wanted people to dread fighting me. I wanted them to know that they would have a hell of a fight on their hands. I pride myself on the fact that i have never been dropped in a fight, to this day. Sure i’ve been knocked about but i’ll never show pain or emotion unless i can really help it. People have said i look almost bored when sparring. Good. Relaxation is VERY important . . .

As i progressed through the grades i realised that it was not about other people. It was about me. I suddenly found myself no longer feeling the need to prove myself. Perhaps somewhere along the way i proved it to the greatest critic of them all; myself. Don’t get me wrong here, i still enjoy sparring, always have. However i prefer it without the pressure of competition. I found myself getting increasingly frustrated at competition sparring, through either my own performance or through bad refereeing. There are, after all, other ways you can represent your club.

I’m also not saying for one minute here that i want people to follow my example. On the contrary, the club is always after good fighters. Personally i’ll never be a ‘good fighter’. I’m too old, and too big. The best fighters are either young (or have been studying martial arts from a young age) and built like racing snakes. Normally watching the ‘heavies’ at competitions is embarassing. Watching two overweight blokes kicking each other in the legs and ‘swinging for the fences’ is not for the feint-hearted. I guess us blokes just love a good scrap!

I’ll never be a serious competitor on the competion circuit, so now i go along for the fun and the involvement. But i know i can fight and i’ll have words with any man who says otherwise!

: )

We’re not talking about Berlin here either.

‘The Wall’ is encountered in all sports (and probably all walks of life). You’ll hear runners talk of ‘the wall’ when they hit their cardio peak. The sensation is one of an overwhelming desire to quit, take a breather. However if they want to succeed they cannot quit. They have to keep going. To push on past. Once they have gone through that painful stage, it becomes much easier. The body settles into it’s own natural rhythm.  From here until the end of the race it’s simply a matter of keeping that rhythm going, gritting of teeth and head down, legs pumping.

Most readers of this and/or martial arts practitioners in general have probably gone through a similar process on a number of occasions. Whether a white-belt just starting out or a black-belt reaching for the next level. You’ll probably ‘hit the wall’ in one of two ways; Firstly there is the pain wall. This is the same one as described above. It’s normally encountered during gradings or those lessons from hell. It’s a result of pushing your body hard, over a sustained period of time. Your chest heaves as it attempts to pull in oxygen, to feed muscles. Joints ache from the build-up of lactic acid. Sweat pours from your skin as the body attempts to cool itself.  

However the real battle during these times of physical stress is the one in the mind. In a way, this is the hardest battle of them all. Your subconscious mind will start to throw doubt at you; you need to stop, you can’t do this, you’re not fit/strong enough. Are all common thoughts that swirl through your head. It can be incredibly difficult to say; you’re wrong, i can do it! This is also sometimes referred to as ‘heart’. How much ‘heart’ does he/she have ? Those who are mentally strong will push their bodies past the point of apparent collapse, to find a new level. Once this level is reached it is surprising what you can achieve. You’ll find afterwards a surprising mix of emotions. You may laugh or you may cry. Sometimes both. You’ll also find that your memory of the previous event is very hazy. Through times of physical stress your body will start to shut down non-essential components. Memory being one of them.

Then there is the second kind of wall. This is not a momentary physical one like before, but rather stretched over a period of time. During this time the sportsman/student will feel as though their learning and development has ground to a halt. They’ll believe their technique is not improving, they are not getting fitter, everybody else is doing better. Everybody goes through it at some point, some more often than others. So why does this happen ? Why do we make fast gains when we first start a new physical venture only to slow as time goes on ? I don’t know the exact reason but i do have an opinion on the matter. Think back to when you first started training. Remember how exciting and mysterious it all was. You came to a lesson never knowing what to expect or what you were going to be learning this week. If you were anything like me you were dedicated, keen and enthusiastic. You always wanted to be the best. You wanted to constantly prove you were every bit as good as the rest of them, colour belts be damned.

Now ask yourself, do you still feel like that now ? Do you still really push yourself through the physical exercises ? Do you still really make that effort to get lower in your stretches ? Do you still turn up early with a clean pressed uniform, ready to train ? Do you still go home and research in books and watch videos to gain a better understanding of your art ? Be honest. Most of you probably don’t. I put myself in that category too. Why ? Because by nature, us humans are lazy. We are great at finding new ways to make our lives easier. It takes a certain mindset to continually strive to better ourselves. Put simply; when you stop trying, you stop progressing.

So next time you turn up for training try to remember what it was like when you first started. Find that same enthusiasm within yourself. For your sake.

I remember my first grading. Do you ?

July 2006 Grading