Andy's Blog

I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.  Your imagination would have to be somewhat cosmic in its magnitude and more perverse than I would generally give you credit for; and yet me + morning would still not figure… I may want to talk to you about other things if the previous magnitude/perverseness *is* to be credited to you, but I wander somewhat from the main thrust of this little postette…

..I hate mornings!

So to have to swing my body up from the horizontal to something that faintly resembled the vertical at an hour that my brain hasn’t even begun to register in its 40 odd years of registering, means that something is afoot.

Karate tournament day!

Quite why I keep on going is not entirely clear to me.  I inevitably come back with a myriad of injuries; broken fingers, thumbs, toes and more bruises than an upset apple cart.  Add to that the shockingly quick exit from any bout that I stumble into, and get carried out from, and you begin to understand why friends and family all ask, what I hinted to at the beginning of this paragraph;

“Why do you keep going?  You’re rubbish!”

To be honest it’s probably because I am SO bad at this tournament malarkey that makes me want to keep on going back, that and because it is such a huge amount of fun!  We all need to stretch ourselves, to get that knot of fear in your stomach as you realise that your names just been called and you are now expected to either complete a complex sequence of moves in front of a room full of critical eyes OR be faced against someone whose trouser-holding-up-device is several shades darker than yours and has a somewhat alarming glint in their eye as they stare back at you!

Tongue suddenly dries up and attaches to the roof of the mouth, vision tunnels, orifices pucker up and you step into the ring…

That said, what made this tournament all the more exciting was the number of my students, both past and present, who were also attending.  To be able to see them take those first nervous steps and be there to cheer them on as they go through the exact same emotions *and* do better than I was able to do was way WAY more rewarding!  Not all of them got medals, and that didn’t matter, but a large amount of them did… and some of them even managed faux precious metals that I haven’t achieved as yet!

Proud much? Oh yeah!

..Of course, as the title kinda suggests, one thing does tend to follow the other.  Fortunately the “fall” was rather more literal than philosophical, and even more fortunate wasn’t captured on any photographic device for later evidence.  Team Kumite is a roller-coaster of a ride and doesn’t tend to allow you to blink let alone prepare yourself for the onslaught, and this particular team kumite was producing more injuries than the rest of the tournament put together!

I don’t think I have to dwell on my literal downfall;  suffice to say my opponents sweep was excellent, the crunching of my already broken toe was a nice touch, and the kick to the chest allows those colleagues who didn’t attend to ask; “how the f**k did you get a bruise THERE?!”… I think I’d feel cheated if I didn’t come away from these events without some form of injury that didn’t persist for at least a week… or four!

Oh, and of course I couldn’t let it slide that number one son managed to get his first medal too!  Proud parent and all that