Loving the brown and black belt kata classes

When I was a brown belt (less than a year ago), I enjoyed Wednesday kata night at karate, but didn't enjoy it as much as I do now that I'm a black belt. Why? Simply because at brown belt level, the katas that we practiced in class were largely not usable in competition due to restrictions for kyu ranks (non-black belts), and thus my focus was highly on what I'm allowed to do for competition and what my black belt test will take me through.

Now that I'm a black belt and restrictions in competition largely don't exist for me (or at least are different restrictions), practicing those black belt kata like Jutte, Bassai Sho and Hangetsu actually MEANS something. I CARE whether I come back to my starting mark at the finish, I CARE whether I'm doing the right stances when it comes to stances that look similar to front stance but are different tension-wise. And I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming competitive season. For kata, anyway. Kumite is going to be quite another story, although I look forward to my learning improvements there too.

Last night the lowest ranked student was brown belt so we practiced Jutte and Hangetsu. Last Wednesday we had a purple belt in our ranks so we went through the 5 Heian katas and Tekki Shodan - which is fine, because at every level we are to improve the kata that we no longer have to worry about for testing sake... but I'm pretty sick of some of those kata from doing them 5,000 times each.

Jutte and Hangetsu are both kata that don't have jumps in them, which is a good thing to me because I have bad arches in my feet and jumping isn't the best thing for me on cold hard floors like most competitions have. I got a chance to see how close I come back to my mark in Jutte but we didn't go all the way through Hangetsu before class ended, so I don't know how close to my mark I am there.

After class, two of the regular training females descended on me in the changeroom and said they had a "proposition" for me. I responded something smart ass about not easily being propositioned by women initially ;) They asked me if I'd like to be in a team kata with them this year for the competition season leading up to Nationals in May '06. Excellent! Last year I didn't get into a solid team for this, and this year we're able to choose from a much larger variety of kata, so this is good from all angles!

This weekend there's a 3-day seminar, the three of us should get a chance to walk through some kata to figure out what we like and what works for us together, and I'll get a chance to chat with my Enbu partner for this upcoming competition season, Scott. This is another event I'm very much looking forward to getting into, the pre-choreographed attack and defense sequences.

For karate reasons, I'm glad fall is here. I'll be sad to see the snow fly in October and November, however.

Jill

Walkin' round the neighborhood

I have another hobby aside from Karate which I'm quite interested in and have been building a solid foundation for, for the past 5 years or so, and that's building my passive income portfolio. I've recently decided my investments are going to go into real estate in various ways, and since I'm nowhere near Florida where the prices are nutzo, I think I'm okay in terms of a bubble popping ;)

Tonight I put on my runners and went for a brisk 40 minute walk in my neighborhood. I headed over to a street where I had seen a "house for sale" sign pointing down the road when I was driving around earlier, and set out to find that house.

Well, it turns out that house was the opposite way that I wanted to go, both in my walk and in the physical neighborhoods I'm looking to purchase my real estate investments in (north of a certain street near my house, prices skyrocket), so I walked the way I wanted to walk and kept eyes out for other "For Sale" signs.

I only found ONE for sale house in the 200 or so I walked by, so I made sure to write down the information so I can follow up and see what the deal is. I also paid attention and looked for houses which needed "exterior improvements" - outdated color (one was salmon pink), or peeling paint, or unkept yards is what I was looking for. I wrote down five of those houses. Of course, for now I have no idea what to do with this information, but at least I have it and can ask the question.

The walk was a nice one, I saw a few folks from our neighborhood out exercising or walking their pets, and I made sure to make eye contact, smile and say hello to each one or each group that went by. Perhaps one day I'll be looking to buy their neighbor's house, after all.

Jill

Wednesday, kata class.

Last night's class was another excellent, physically draining workout. There were about 12-14 people in the class, and after Sempai took us through the regular warm-up, Sensei continued us through more strenuous warm-ups for a short while before starting on the katas he wanted to review with us.

The most junior student was a teenaged purple belt - 5th or 4th kyu - so I believe that's why Sensei took us through Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan before progressing to the black belt kata we normally practice (since the club is predominantly brown and black belts). After we went through all of those kata multiple times and at different intensities with Sensei using different students to demonstrate the key points in each of the kata, we finally did a black belt kata, Kanku Dai.

Of course, by that part of the class I had about 10% juice left in my batteries, and while they recharge at a fair rate during the many rests Sensei gives us, once the batteries have been drained a bunch, they drain a lot more quickly after a bit of recharge ;)

Because of the concert I'm going to tonight and the upcoming holiday weekend, there's no karate class until next Wednesday. So, I guess I'll be treadmillin' it until then!

Jill