I hadn’t been to Karate in a while (sick one week, out of town the next), so it was really great to get back. We did some stick exercises, learning such gems as the way to strike to the prostate. Afterwards we did some sparring, and did several back to back to back matches.
Match 1
This one was against a much higher ranked opponent who was about twice my size. I landed a few good kicks, but spent most of the time blocking punches with my face.
Match 2
Fought against the assistant instructor, who is almost the same size as me. It was pretty difficult to land shots, but he didn’t hit me that much either. Pretty boring fight, although he almost threw me once, which sucked.
Match 3
It’s always fun fighting against new students who bring bad habits from their last school (hey, I do it too). This guy’s fighting style can only be discribed as “Fist of the Chipmunk” as he was constantly sucking sharply at drool or something in the front of his mouthpiece, causing him to make rodent sounds. He fought in an extremely open stance that was a ghetto version of the crane kick or something. Easy fight, but for the first few seconds I was confused and disoriented by his stance. I also didn’t want to get kicked in the face like that guy from Cobra Kai.
Match 4
Fought against a female white belt student. She was highly aggresive, and jumped into a lot of blows, causing me to hit her a lot harder than I wanted to. I hit her so hard in the hip bone on one sequence that she twisted and flew back 2 feet, before falling to the ground. I felt pretty bad about that and followed up by accidentally punching her in the face T__T.
We don’t wear very much protective gear, so getting hit hurts. On the other hand, this is much more realistic than point sparring, and develops the ability to keep fighting even after getting hit.
I had a pretty good Thanksgiving weekend, as I went home to the Jersey shore. Although the arrival flight sucked big time, everything else went very smoothly. Food over the last few days was excellent of course. I don’t know the English translations of most of what I ate, but it was all extremely tasty. Thanksgiving dinner was a wonderfully roasted turkey, homemade gravy and some wonderful cranberry-orange sauce, a medley of fresh vegetables, and a Chinese rice dish. Dessert was pumpkin pie, yay!
I also caught a lot of movies while I was out of town.
- While in Chinatown, NYC I picked up Fearless and SPL. SPL was much better than I thought it’d be, and Sammo Hung was excellent. There was not quite as much action as I expected, but the Wu Jing/Donnie Yen fight (retractable baton vs. tanto!) was exceptional. SPL also had much more grappling than you typically see in a Hong Kong Kung Fu film, which was nice.
- I watched Azumi. Fight scenes were mostly craptastic, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quantity. Wait… The story was not that great either, but I liked that monkey guy. Why did he make that weird noise every time he got punched in the face, though?
- I also caught the new 007 film, Casino Royale. Daniel Craig was fantastic and the action was truly amazing. I like that there were less goofy toys and explosions, and considerably fewer groan-worthy double-entendres. Major props for the Parkour scenes!
- On my long arrival trip into NJ, I watched Wedding Crashers on my video iPod. It was entertaining, but not as wildly funny as I had heard.
- Sadly, I watched Boa vs. Python on the Sci-Fi channel. This movie was so bad. The Wikipedia entry gives insight to those who don’t want to kill their brain cells by watching the whole movie. The list of plot holes made me chuckle. There’s also a more thorough review at Something Awful.
Went back to NJ to visit family for Thanksgiving and things started off so well. I caught both buses to the airport, even though they came early. I almost got interviewed by KDKA, but instead got to cut all the people who stopped to talk to reporters. Made it through the funky ion-detecting puff machine. The weather in Pittsburgh was perfect.
Of course the weather in Newark was apparently horrific, and so my flight got delayed more than 4 hours… Still, I made it safe and sound, so that’s reason enough for thanks.
For Catnip: Kelly Ripa and Clay Aiken feuding… WITH VIDEO!!!
And in video where it is easy to pick a side: Michael Richards is a racist. I know everyone worships Seinfeld, but I never really liked the show, and I especially hated Kramer. Fortunately, I never heckled him in public.
Michael Levine, Richards’ publicist said of the incident: “I think it’s a career ruiner for him… It’s going to be a long road back.”
Oh yeah, and a bit about his crappy apology. Have fun not working, dumbass.
Sports | Kabitzin 11/30/2006 | 
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