There has been a lot of interesting events this month. On Wednesday April 18th I actually pulled a muscle before practice started. I was trying to do a jump kick to a chain that was hanging down from the ceiling. I did four attempts at hitting this chain, the first kick I was about 5 inches away. The second kick I was even closer at just about 2 inches away. The third kick was about the same height but I fell on my bum in the landing. So I thought that if I just stretched my leg a little bit further and jumped a little higher I could hit the chain, but sadly the extra stretch made me pull my adductor magnus muscle (found the muscles name on google). Although I pulled it I still practiced to the best of my ability, I don’t even think my sensei knew I pulled it that day, even though I went extremely light on that leg when we did stretches.

Another interesting thing that happened this month was during kumite, I sparred with a man that looked like he was in his mid 30’s. After about 3 minutes of fighting we really started getting into it, but then this man kicked my knee at full force. He kicked it hard enough to sprain his toes, and had to walk on his heels for the rest of practice. I felt kind of sorry for it, but when I apologised he just said “It’s my fault I kicked your knee.” It was funny because, if that would have happened to me I probably would have said the same thing.

During these days I also finally got to spar with my sensei. He let me spar with him because Im 16years old and 190lbs and everybody else there that day was about 10yrs old and 80lbs. Except for a 16 year old girl named Jessica, which I did spar with before going up against sensei. When I went up against sensei we both went at it pretty well. We both did a lot on feints, and I was surprised because I got more hits in than I thought I would, but he did land a good punch to my face that I leaned into when I went in for oi-tsuki. I also accidentally got some blood on his Gi because the skin on my knuckles broke that morning from knuckle push-ups (I do 80 knuckle push-ups and 300 sit-ups each day before school).

After our Kumite, sensei really got into it, and I could tell his adrenaline was pumped, which made me glad because that means I probably did decently against him. So after we fought he  then got 3 of the kids, and had them go against him, then he had another set of 3 kids do the same. And finally he had Me, Jessica and another one of the little ones go against him.

When I went up, I gave him a lot of blows since the others distracted him. I also went in for a take-down, but he kept a close eye on me most of the time so he countered and I was taken down instead. A tournament also happened this month, which I was not able to attend. I believe it happened in Ventura, CA. My sensei brought videos of the tournament to our practice and I was able to observe what it was like, watching it made me really want to compete in the next one.

Some major things I learned this month of practice is that I really need to work on my hips, I’m practicing Heian Nidan right now and I am struggling to get the right hip rotation in the reverse blocks. I also have trouble executing the side snap kick to knife hand block part of the kata, which I am getting control of slowly.

Lately, kihon has not really seemed like kihon to me anymore. After about 4 months of training I’m finally started to recognize the millions of mistakes and habits I have as I perform my katas and practice my kihon. It is not an easy thing to overcome.

For example, in my back stance my feet are not even, I feel like my back knee is not bent enough, although sensei has never corrected me on it so I could be doing that part right. In stepping forward to go into another stance my back heel is not always flat on the ground and although I am balanced when I do it, I am nowhere near the perfect balance that I am supposed to have. I also feel slow and weak in my punches, although I know that I am way better at punching than I was. I rarely even practice horse-stance so I’m guessing that when I do go to try it, I’ll look like a hippo trying to be graceful.

The list just goes on and on. I have a lot of practice to do before these mistakes start to leave me.

Overall this month has been filled with a lot of realisation for me, as I am starting to see that compared to what I want to be, I am a very sloppy karateka. But compared to what I used to be, I am skilled.