homeikigai shop and ebooksmartial artsinterviewsaboutcontact
«
»

How I Got My Ass Beat

April 6, 2009 | Author: Matthew | Filed under: Martial Arts,karate,mindset,sparring

When I was around 16-17 years old I received my Shodan in Okinawa Kenpo. It was a great experience and had me riding pretty high. Around the same time, I was actively participating in tournaments. Unfortunately, my youth and ‘confidence’ stopped me from thinking twice about the inevitable shift I would have to make from brown belt divisions to black belt. It doesn’t matter, I figured, I’ll just do my thing.

The transition for kata, weapons, and even self defense demonstrations went fairly smoothly. In each of those, it was a matter of personal skill and showmanship. I lost some, I won some…no big deal. Unfortunately, the transition for kumite (sparring) wasn’t quite as gentle.

For tournament sparring at that time, the general rules for green/brown belt divisions stated that there was light contact allowed to the body and no head contact. Punches could be thrown toward the head, but actual contact would result in a warning/penalty point deduction. Needless to say I had grown pretty accustom to those rules.

The black belt divisions, on the other hand, tolerated moderate body contact and light head contact. A subtle but important shift. Furthermore, the rules were only vaguely enforced in the black belt division with a lot of flexibility on what was considered ‘light’ (as I would find out later).

As a fresh shodan, I arrived at one particular tournament raring to go. It was very exciting walking around in my black belt, feeling a whole different perspective as I was privy to judging and other privileges . Everything was going smoothly until my division was called up for sparring: adult black belt men (no weight or age differentiation).

I lined up next to a very serious looking individual. As I gazed up at his face, he cast a downward glare on me like so:

Feeling his intensity and aggression, I joked around: “hey, if I get paired up against you, don’t kill me ok? hahaha.”

He didn’t response – only glared.

I allowed my awkward laugh to trail off as the judges collected name slips and announced the match.

“Apsokardu (me) against Death Giant (I can’t remember his name)”

I swallowed hard and lined up across from him. We bowed, got into a ready stance, and waited. As soon as the center judge shouted “Hajime!” my opponent leapt forward and punched me full force in the throat.

Gasping, I staggered back as the judge stopped the round. The throat is not a legal point target, so no points were awarded. I shuffled back up to my line and acquired my fighting stance. At this point, my fragile confidence was beginning to crumble and I felt like one of the little kids fighting Kramer in Seinfeld:

The next round began and we threw a few techniques back and forth. Just as I was beginning to feel comfortable again my opponent launched in and struck me in the throat once again. The judge stopped the round and one of the side judges came over and massaged my neck to promote breathing and make sure my esophagus had not buckled.

We began again and I desparately threw out weak, high kicks to the head. One managed to graze his headgear and I received a point for it.

Since he was now losing 0-1, my opponent became visibly irritated. When the next round began he threw a punch so hard that it busted through my defenses and crashed straight into my nose. The blood slowly began to trickle.

After that I don’t remember too much, but I do know that the match quickly finished 3-1, him. The next two points must have come very easily.

After the match I hobbled away into the bathroom to find tissue for my nose. While washing myself off I quickly noticed that I could only take half breaths. No matter what I did I could not deeply inhale – this was my first and only real experience with hyperventilation.

While in the bathroom a spectator walked in and while washing his hands casually looked over at me and said “tough fight out there – you got pretty lucky with that high kick.” Trying to stabilize my voice and keep it from quivering I said “yea…that was lucky…”

Lessons Learned

While I wouldn’t wish this kind of experience on anyone, it did help me learn some very valuable lessons.

First – There are underhanded strategies for winning a tournament match. My opponent realized that if he incapacitated me by punching me right away in the throat, he would have a much easier time beating me. Furthermore, he must have known through his experience as a black belt combatant that the judges would not penalize him too quickly. Other strategies like this include punching someone after a round is over or leaning into a punch to draw a penalty point on your opponent.

Second – Tournament or no, martial arts are serious. In my youth I assumed that everyone ‘played’ martial arts the same way I did. I was wrong. This individual, although perhaps TOO aggressive, took his art seriously. It would have been wise for me to be just as serious.

Third – You have to learn to flip the switch. on and off. One thing that neither me nor my opponent knew how to do was turn our intensity on and off when appropriate. Focused on raw winning as his only goal, my opponent was willing to beat me and beat me until the match was over. On the other hand, my confidence quickly turned to fear when I was injured for real. This incident helped me turn a corner and develop a deadly seriousness to be used and controlled with extraordinary care.

Fourth – Even bad lessons can be good lessons. Whenever I find myself ‘playing’ a kata or karate in general, I have this experience to reflect upon. I ask myself – what happens the next time I come up against a big, mean, angry a-hole? What if it isn’t a tournament? It would be very easy for me to hold a grudge against the competitor I faced that day, but instead I want to use that energy to push me forward and make me better.

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Share This (Good Karma Guaranteed):
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • Technorati

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 and is filed under Martial Arts, karate, mindset, sparring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

xygoxen
  • KO
    Maybe next time you will keep your chin down and your hands up! Wearing a Black Belt around you doesn't mean you can Kick @$$. The ability to fight starts in your head... It would appear that your head was not in Black Belt Mode LOL!!!
  • Internationals Team Tournament, us against Bob Alagrias team. I'm paired off against a white belt, I'm ready to test for brown. Me, about 18, 5'6" 155lbs, good shape, training hard. Opponent 25+, 6'+, 225+, looks like a nose tackle for UCLA. "Hajime" Opponent charges I hit him wth a clean gyaku-zuki, he runs right over the top of me, don't know where he is going. 1 point, ME. "Hajime" Opponent charges, I leap to the side and score with a quick round kick to the belly, he grabs my leg and shoves me to the floor while raining haymakers on my body. One Point ,Me. Opponent warned for excessive contact. Hajime, Opponent Charges and I quickly make my way behind him and score with another gyaku-zuki, opponent spins around and hits me square in the face with his elbow, opening my lip. Opponent Disqualified for excessive contact and a head strike. I'm awarded two points. I win 4 to 0. If this would have been on the street, my 4 point lead wouldn't have mattered. I learned a valuable lesson that day. The bigger they are, the harder they hit and actually your opponents strikes to the throat would have been the way to go on the street or maybe to stop a maniac from killing me at a tournament. Joe
  • FoxyCitrus
    I don't like this story. Please remove it :-(
  • haha, I figured this one wouldn't be your favorite.
  • You are certainly not the only person I've heard of who had to deal with something like that at a tournament. I hear that women are especially nasty. It's a good thing I've never had an interest in doing tournaments I guess. I know I wouldn't be the dirty fighter, but I wonder if I'd be able to keep my head in the game and not just get really ticked off if someone did that to me. It's very easy to forget the control part when your opponent has forgotten it. It says a lot about you that you kept at it, while still playing fair.
  • Elias: I was almost at the pass out stage, haha.
  • Chris: It's weird trying to reconcile the anything-goes mindset of traditional martial arts and the rules of sport fighting.

    Riz: Ohh man...good times. Tournament experiences can be memorable.
  • B
    Riz: *snort* Not allowed to bleed on the mats. Maybe they should have penalized the person who caused the bleeding in the first place.
  • :o

    Scary.

    It's good to see you took a lesson away from that though, I probably would have just looked for somewhere quiet to pass out!!
  • Riz
    Ahh this brings back memories! The first time I competed in the UK, everyone in my club drilled the idea that Shotokan has semi-contact competition (since I came from a full-contact background).

    The opponent across from me was a nervous looking fellow - very skinny, his gi draping his body like a curtain might, but a fair bit taller than me (duh). Just before we started, his sensei had a quick word with him. And the moment the ref said "Hajime!" he charged at me like a loon (arms swinging!); instinctively, I hooked his body. He immediately folded over, and the ref gave me a warning. When we started again, I was careful not to switch back to full contact, but the first thing he did was grab my gi and elbow me in the face (breaking my nose)! Now, we both had warnings from the ref.

    Time was running out and I was doing my best not to lose my temper and the ref approached him with what I assumed was a warning and then approached me and said: "Your nose is still bleeding. Be careful". We resumed the match and almost instantly the ref stopped us, declaring him the winner. I was completely baffled until my opponent came across the shake my hand and said:
    "OMG! Thank you! That's the first time I've ever won!! My sensei heard that you did full contact so he said you wouldn't mind if I hit you too hard..." I interrupted him midway:
    "But I still don't get how I lost?"
    "Ohhhhhh! You're not allowed to bleed on the mats!"

    *sigh* ...nostalgia
  • In The Inner Game of Fencing, Nick Evangelista discusses what is identical to the budo ideal, and fencing under similar circumstances.
  • Maybe I'm an idealist...
  • I know a guy who initiates competition sparring with an immediate and very hard kick to the opponents thigh to deaden the leg. this is of course to try to give him an advantage but I just can't stand the idea of not playing fair. As you say you have to take tournaments serious and stay aware and ready for anything but the idea that he feels he needs to go outside the rules to ensure this advantage is difficult for me to reconcile with my vision of martial arts.
  • Swrdhand: Yea just take it from me, haha.

    Steve: Yea tournaments can be funny like that. Sometimes luck falls your way and some times it falls the other way.

    Krista: No doubt Higaonna Sensei embodies this concept to a very high degree! It's quite an experience when working with an instructor like that, knowing that only their self control is saving you from all kinds of terrible pain and unpleasantness.
  • I've seen people win tournaments using similar 'dirty' tactics and while they might come away with the medal it doesn't necessarily get them respect in the end.

    I think your point about 'flipping the switch' is an important one though. Something very important in bunkai and kumite. Sometimes when we watch Higaonna Sensei demonstrate techniques his cheery grin disappears and he gets this fire in his eyes which is genuinely frightening. Intent is everything in these settings...
  • Back in something like '88 or '89, I won a karate tournament by getting kicked in the stomach twice. My opponent's lack of control got me the gold!

    I don't recommend it strategically...

    It never really felt like a win.
  • Great points Steve!
  • SrwdHand
    ive seen people like that but never had to fight them thankfully. sometimes tough learning lessons can be vaulable though. even so- i dont want one! hah.
  • Jney
    Youch - that sounds like a rough experience.. I also happen to luv that episode of seinfeld, not to get off the subject : - )
blog comments powered by Disqus