Some thoughts and tiny bruises

Well I'll quickly start off by saying that I started my courier job for the City of Edmonton. I did this last year, and a quick description of what I do is that I deliver the garbage pickup calendars. Mailing it out appears to cause a few hassles with using Canada Post (oh yeah, and deliver these calendars in housing zones that do not correspond with your mail route) so thats why we have a job for the month of May. This is accomplished by having groups of 6, with one being a leadhand (and driver of a rented van) and the rest of us to deliver the calendars. This year I have a decent driver that is a retired foreman, and 4 fellow couriers that are female.

Interestingly enough, despite the City of Edmonton being "equal opportunity" the ratio of females to males seems to be 8 to 1. Is the fact that most of the couriers I'm working with girls a good thing? I'm not really sure it is. I'm not that great with initiating a lasting conversation and I don't have a whole lot to add when they're talking (did you see the Bachelor??). You also tend to overhear some interesting comments, such as: "Back during (high) school we used to have "commando" days. We thought it was so funny and cool! So I went the day without any underwear! Later on, I had a yeast infection..."

...What the ...

Huh?? How do you respond to that??

Some last comments about the job. Mentally, its not very difficult. For the most part, if you get good directions from your leadhand you won't get confused. It helps to be decent with reading maps and understanding where you are, but not completely needed. Physically it can take its toll, despite the fact that you are just walking. The weather is the tough part, and really when the job is walking outside there are a lot of tougher jobs out there. Despite that, I remember walking in some blistering heat last year and thought to myself, how slow am I moving??

Soooooo onto the Ging Wu tournament! Its a relatively big deal because our Karate club doesn't often go very out of the way to hit the tournament scene. This year was a good one as people from our club managed to medal. The ones that I think still read this blog I'll just congratulate, so kudos to Devin, Anthony, Larry... and uh... I'll give one to Kevin for helping finish my pizza. Thanks man, a very difficult role indeed. Unfortunately, I didn't medal but at least I didn't embarrass myself (=

This year would be a toughie, as now I'm in the blackbelt category. Now I would have to wait the whole day before my division starts. I guess I could have helped judged kata and sparring divisions, but I didn't really feel up for it. Sparring I wouldn't have minded. But katas (forms, patterns... same thing) are really tough because I didn't remember what different styles (even just for "hard", the one we're categorized under) look like. Katas, very briefly, can be described as prearranged movements in a fight. I tend to look at it more of a training tool that helps you in balance, conditioning, body movements, attention, and dedication to bother to learn something. I'll just leave it at that for the moment. Judging kata's can be very subjective, and thats whats difficult. I also tend to be very biased against certain kata's that to be put bluntly, seem unusual to me. I'm pretty decent with details regarding these, but I'd probably feel more comfortable judging these next year.

As for judging point sparring, which I call the baby of combat sports, its a bit less subjective. The main thing you learn from Point sparring is to land the hit first. However, some purpose is lost because you need to score jabs to the head the same as a hard body kick.

Anyways, on to when I actually competed. I'm just going to talk about myself, because thats whats important after all. Plus, I missed Ant and Ranald's sparring because my kata division got called up. I didn't place, but I'm confident I was scored in the upper half of the division. When you perform a kata, its pretty much only going to be you performing a routine for about a minute and a half at the max. In the middle of it, I knew I was doing a good job but that it wasn't enough. There are some adjustments to make (be quicker, improve certain parts that require kicks), but I got some encouragement. One person who's katas I admire is Irvin Tong (ended up with a silver) and when we lined up he gave a compliment, saying that was a nice kata. "Well thanks, but I'm still chasing yours..." I also got one from Larry, who's always been watching me like a younger brother. "Okay, well dude I'm gonna go with the conspiracy thing... it was great because you emphasized this part and this... and then you only got ______ for scores... jeez!!"

Now for the point sparring. Quick description of what it is. Its a match where the competitors try to get 5 points first, or the most in 2 minutes. I was pretty nervous about this one for the whole day because I really did not want to go in there and lose 0-5. I was in the lightweight blackbelt category in a single elimination tournament.

I didn't really remember a whole lot about the first match except for the last two points. Luckily, with the aid of some video (Thanks to Jo and her bro) I remember a few things. I remembered this guy is very aggressive, but that his hands weren't particularly sharp. His movement coming in while using hands were probably similar to mine. Anyways, he wasn't wearing a helmet despite the rules stating that it was mandatory. When it was pointed out, the score was 3-3 and the points came by him either attacking and landing, or attacking and missing and me countering. After he gets the helmet he scores so its almost over. Its only a 2 minute match so I kinda had an inkling that I was nearly out of time, but I wasn't going to rush in and get kicked in the body. Its down to the wire and he misses an attack and I miss the counter, but he ends up at the edge of the ring. Knowing I really have to come in, I switch from orthodox to southpaw and then throw a right leg kick that barely resembles anything, and come in with hands. The kick helps break the distance and I know I've got the point because my punches landed on the jaw of his helmet. Just as that exchange ends and the ref breaks it, the timekeeper throws a white belt all tied up to signal that time is over. Phew! Quite the timing... Well its sudden death now, so what do I do? I felt I'd get an opening, and in the video he is clearly inching up toward me before the ref restarts it. I'm actually backing away already. At the time, I just felt that the way he was standing he was going to come at me as soon as the ref says "start!" Well, that exactly happens and I jump back and throw a simple roundhouse kick that scores to his body. Match over and with a bit of luck I manage to move on.

Quite the paragraph for a 2 min+ first round match huh?

Thats all for now since its late. I'll probably add some more comments about how everyone else did.