A little time, a lot can happen
Aha! Yes, a lot apparently has happened in the past few days. I've relaxed a little on the job hunt, although I'm still pursuing it fairly madly. I went to career services at TU today, to see what opportunities I could find there. Still sending out new applications. One very good thing - yesterday, as I had suspected might happen, I was (finally) contacted by City of Tulsa. The contact was out of town on vacation, and apparently that was the only reason they didn't contact me. So I have an interview this Friday. Yay! Think good thoughts for me, I could use them.

In other events, kung fu has taken a lot of time. I have the tournament this Saturday. I talked to Sifu yesterday about it (the guy running the tournament visited and was there when Sifu pulled me in). He asked me if I wanted to compete in advanced or in black belt. I told him I've already competed at black belt level before, so I'll keep it up. Looks like I'll be up against a few black belts, should be quite interesting. The tournament's going to be an open tournament, hosted by a taekwondo school. Which means sparring is POINT sparring, not the good stuff we're used to. This is what Sifu likes to refer to as a game of tag. Which I tend to agree, it really is. And it's only the person who LOOKS like he hit the other one. Real contact is not necessary. And if you block and it's not blatant (even if it would have prevented any real impact), it can often be missed by the judges not used to actual sparring techniques. Not that I'm bitter, or anything. Which means putting an arm in between your body and a round kick at close range won't always be seen as a successful block. So I'm thinking I'll have to get Justin to practice point sparring tomorrow night, instead of our normal all-out battles.

Speaking of which, we had an excellent one on Tuesday. Half an hour of it. But starting at the beginning... I helped instruct a new student on Tuesday, his first day. He's been interested for a while, and I think that helped him pick up a lot of techniques quite quickly, he was good at learning fast. Didn't make it EASIER for him, but he's got an advantage of practicing correctly early on. Got him through all the basic stances, the hand formations, the basic blocks. I think he'll catch on well. After that, time for sparring goodness. There were four people - Sihing and I, and two other guys. One was Ron (who had his birthday last Thursday), the other was Sean, who just turned 18 a week or so ago. Which makes him valid for adult competition in the tournament, which will definitely be interesting. For some reason Sean was worried about sparring Ron. He seemed to think Ron was particularly tough, which he's getting better at. Ron is definitely very aggressive, he doesn't back away easily. So of course, we had to put them against each other, since it was apparent Sean wanted to so badly. Justin and I pondered the idea of them opening a shop together. Sean and Ron's. Doesn't matter what they'd sell, it'd be a hit. I mean, how cool would it sound just to SAY, "Hey, I'm going to Sean and Ron's. You should come with me! To Sean and Ron's."

ANYway. The two of them went at it, pretty rough and tough. A little more than they probably should have. Because they ended up hurting each other. It was kind of funny, actually. Ron nailed Sean with a good kick, but it was shin against knee. Which was bad for Ron's shin, and bad for Sean's knee. They were both down and out for a little while. It looked like Sean might have even been injured for a moment, but it turned out okay. So they stopped. And being masochistic (or something), they started up again after a couple of minutes. And they injured each other AGAIN. Pretty impressive, I thought. Shin to shin. Both were done. For some reason, though, even though Sean's shins were done for the night, he STILL wanted to spar me. For some reason he craves fighting me. No idea why. So we did, no kicks, just arms and hands. And I think he was just not having a good night. I ended up nailing him with a cross punch, but with a closed leopard, which basically means hitting him with my second knuckles. Yeah, knuckles and thumbnail (outside of the mitt). In the FACE. Actually, almost IN the eye. Just enough to close his eye up for a few moments. He decided it was probably a good idea to stop then. It was my fault, and I felt pretty bad, but I also couldn't help laughing at how bad his night turned out. Hopefully he'll be better at the tournament.

Ah! But there's one other thing missing... yes, the BATTLE between me and Justin. We went quite hard against each other, which I think people enjoy watching. I rushed him more than normal, which makes him take a very good cover, which makes me MAD. His cover covers pretty much everything, except the top of his head. So I just popped him in the top of his head many times. I did manage to get him a few other times, in the stomach, and the side of the head. Although I'm still not up on his skills... he nailed me with a few thrusting heel kicks, sending me flying several feet each time (although he threw twice as many as he landed, I'm learning to evade better - and he DIDN'T knock the wind out of me this time), two open-handed slaps (which makes me mad, that's just insulting), and one very funny jab. We had set up boxing style for a moment, I leaned in with a quick jab and just barely touched his nose. I guess I was in shock that I actually got in that close without any resistance, because I sort of froze up, in a state of mild confusion. And he let the pause hang for about one second... then he returned the favor. With a rather SOLID jab. He landed it, my head pops back, we both pause again, and then burst out laughing. It was pretty freakin' funny. He's a lot of fun to spar.

Yeah, I didn't get a contact knocked out this time, it only rolled up and UNDER my eyelid. I thought it had come out once (after he hit me in the face, AGAIN), but it had gone under the eyelid. I actually managed to blink it back down into place, somehow. The thing that I thought was funny was the number of times he hit me hard enough to move me more than four feet, and checked to make sure I was still good to go. Because SOMEHOW I was. I guess after getting smacked hard so many times you just get used to it. One of the benefits of having someone much better than you available to spar with. Sadly, I got no new battle scars to show off. Maybe tomorrow.

So tonight was choir. We had a massive turnout for practice! Four people! Oh, but only three at a time. One had to leave, and another showed up very late. But somehow it was still kind of fun. I like music.

Ooh, and Sandra arrived back in town. Yay! I will say I was quite happy to see her again. In an effort to not be so extravagantly sappy, I shall leave it at that.

Oh! And more kung fu. Yes, lots of kung fu. I still have to perfect a form to compete with in the tournament. I'm going to use Gung Gee, but I can't use the whole thing, because it would take too much time. So I'm going to have to come up with a revised version. Make one up, memorize it, and compete with it. Hopefully I won't get too nervous. One week after that, I have to test in my next form. I shall test in the staff set, which isn't too hard. Sadly, I've known it for at least a year and a half - I just never formally tested. So I'll have to get it smoothed out and test-ready in a week. That, and pick out some self-defense moves with it, too. Hopefully that won't be too bad. That, and break two boards with palm strikes, two with kicks. That's two at a time. Board breaking can be satisfying, sometimes. A good way to vent frustrations.

Okay, enough blog for tonight. I am going to leave you with your random link! This one I stumbled across, I thought you might find interesting. It's nobody you know, but at the same time, maybe it is.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:35 AM | 0 comments