2005 – Workout #1: Why Karate makes me happy…

Tonight was a GREAT workout! We spent much of the first class doing basics and combinations, and about fifteen minutes left in the first class Sensei Brewer tells McCabe, Odie and I to break off and take everyone under 15 and teach them how to kick. “Work as a team,” he said.

Apparently, working as a team means having Odie count a quadrillion times in succession, while we go around and make corrections on how to do a knee kick. I was so frustrated at him that it was overlaying onto my treatment of the kids, I hovered over them bending their knees, barked at them for talking during class… I basically swept Colin-san so much that he immediately bent deeper whenever he saw me coming.

After twenty minutes of that agony, Sensei finally put an end to it. Oedewaldt did some irritating things during the class, but I’m going to leave those be for now. The only thing that *really* bothered me is when we’d like to make a point, he’d cut us off 2/3 of the way through it like he thought we were done or something. Sometimes mid-sentence. He literally stopped McCabe-san midway through a sentence, I was about ready to throttle him.

Either way, it ended up being a pretty good time, despite a brief dizzy spell that I had about twenty minutes into the first class. I noticed that my sinus medicine says “MAY CAUSE DIZZINESS” in big blue letters on the side, so I figured that was it. Some water made it go away for long enough to enjoy things.

And finally, the fun part. Second class started late mostly because it was just the black belts left. We were doing 3-5 time sparring, I got across from McCabe-san. Sensei Brewer switched out with him because he wanted to “get warmed up”. We did three to five for about ten minutes, and then went into some slow sparring. I felt like I was doing pretty good. I distinctly remember a backfist that got in, several kicks that met their target, and a whole lot of stuff that didn’t. At one point I decided foolishly to attempt my “fake jump kick to dropping punch” schtick that sometimes does the job on some of the other black belts. It worked enough for me to get a punch in on the way down.

I scrambled out of the way and Sensei Brewer did that knowing little nod that he does when you know the storm’s comin’. He got me going backwards, despite my attempts to counter as he moved like I have been working on. He wobbled my stance midway through backing up, followed that up with a front kick (or something I thought was a front kick). I attempted a block and then, BAM. Lunge punch city, population my face.

I’ve not been hit that hard in the nose in a long time. It’s one of those where you see the fist coming and then you see your feet going toward the ceiling. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt at all. I got back to my feet to notice I was fountaining blood into myself. I caught most of it with my hand pad as I bowed out and scrambled to the bathroom to clean myself.

For the more visual, I offer the following documentation. Also, the aftermath according to my schnoz. That last pic is a little misleading because I do have a bit of acne outbreak on my nose, but still, it’s pretty obvious where the blow landed. said to mention to that his was at the dojo waiting for him. You’ve been warned, buddy.

It’s workouts like this that make me feel alive. I hung in there with one of the most skilled men I know for an entire advanced class. I made some good attacks, I took some good attacks. Life is good, and this has been a great start to the New Year.