Schmidt Tagebuch!

FredInChina said:

Aaaaaaaannnnnnddd........... what happened? 

The experiment was interesting, but yielding no strong results for good or bad except I think it hurt my immune system because before it was over, I got really sick with the flu and have been sick since. Just now getting over it!

FredInChina said:

You should try full contack knockdown karate Patrick

 

I might if there was a place that practiced around here. I live in the U.S., though, so about 95% of all existing martial arts establishments are McDojo's and just income factories.

I sent you a private message PAtrick

Thanks, Fred.

First strength training session in 2013 yesterday, as well as the first training session after being sick for the last 3 weeks.

Felt good... Times are down a bit which is to be expected, but otherwise felt pretty good considering being gone so long.

always good to hear! hope you keep making a steady recovery

Thanks, KeilaniG !

---

Sparring is going well. Even though I haven't been sick for the last few weeks and have done no real strength training, I have been keeping up with sparring and grappling (lightly sometimes, heavier than wise probably some other times) , I have improved significantly in my timing and manipulation of my opponent. My overall plan of keeping my basic strategy simple (roundhouse/side kicks kicks plus a few types of punches) and a few flashy (but effective) strikes like spinning hook kick, spinning side kick, or front leg hook kick is working extremely well. Yesterday I was fighting another black belt and timed my front leg roundhouse kick near-perfectly and managed to stop it about an inch before it hit his forehead.

I'm feeling really good for this tournament season. I think it has helped that I've effectively abandoned kata competition. It is true that I'm very good at it, but I really don't like it and it distracts me from fighting. Fighting is the only thing that fulfills me in martial arts competition. Kata is too subjective.

Training is going well. I can't wait 'till the new GB stuff comes out. <Eight days left :-)

Fundamentals 1 purchased and downloaded (and backed-up). Now I just need to fix FireFox so I can actually read it. 

Small update:

I am currently concentrating on mastering all preparatory elements in F1, working on neck strength, wide squats, "spring legs" techniques, slow kicks, straight leg bounces, calf raises and holds of all kinds, and sparring. No kata practice whatsoever, although I have not lost much ability to do them well. I just dislike the rigid-type karate kata that they teach at the club I go to now. I would love to learn some Chinese forms though, because they are strong but also seem to demonstrate proper use of muscle relaxation.

There is a tournament on March 9, and I plan on competing in sparring only. No idea what the competition will be like so not sure what to expect as far as placement goes. One thing is for sure, I will show a completely different fighting style than last year. It has two sides, a very defensive and evasive that makes me extremely hard to hit and also a purely aggressive side that I've used to knock a 250 lb man (tall and strong) back and send him rolling. I'm excited

Workouts are going great. Fundamental 1 is teaching me how to move and feel all over again, and I'm having a great time doing it! Every workout leaves me looking forward to the next, and every improvement makes me excited about the future!

Wow, I am so fortunate. Next Saturday, March 9th, I'm going to bring my best to an open karate tournament in Mississippi. I've been thinking about fighting (strategies and tactics) a ton lately; reading chinese strategy books and writing my own booklet on it is really sky rocketing how "smart" I fight (rather than letting it become a speed battle). I am very excited about it.

Anyway, I am very fortunate because next week happens to be an F1 deload week for me. What a seamless transition from training mode to competitive mode. The stars have aligned in my favour, I wonder what else is in store for me... 

Man, I have a long way to go in my abilities, and it's both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. I will improve...

I'm going to have quite a hard time at the tournament next Saturday if there are a lot of very tall people there. If they are my height I very much doubt there will be anyone who can stand up to me, but I could be completely wrong. Sometimes I fight very badly during tournaments. Hopefully I will be able to focus properly and get the job done. I am still developing the ability to fight tall people effectively. I realize I can no longer excel against people who are taller than me without directly training my flexibility and my kicking strength (active flexibility). When I have my side splits, then we will see. My first old fashioned kicking drill session is tomorrow. Plan to get 500 roundhouse kicks in with each leg: 200 singles to stomach, 100 singles to head, 200 double to stomach and head. 200 hook kicks as well. This will get me back in kicking shape. Been sick a bit too long... I still have effective kicks to the head, but the fact of the matter is that for my fighting style, head kicks should be as effortless as my stomach kicks are. The easier they are the faster and harder to detect they will be.

It's Sunday and I'm TIRED =_=

I need to go to bed early tonight...

Just to document things for future reference, these are the things I am working on:

1. Calculus II (got a 97 on my last test!)
2. Calculus III (Going pretty good so far! I WILL get that "A".)
3. Physics II with Calculus - What a lame course... my teacher thinks memorization is all there is to physics so the only who actually understands anything beyond how to use the formulas is me because I spend quite a few hours every week reading my super awesome collectible physics book by Feynman. Man I love that book. Feynman was quite a person.
4. Graphing/Communications - Learning how to use AutoCAD Inventor! This totally renewed my love for design and making stuff. Sometimes you can lose sight of the fun stuff while all you're doing is memorizing out-of-date facts and doing mathematical processes! LOL I'm going to download this application and try to get it to work so I can work on my own ideas. Believe it or not, I have a great idea for an orange juicer that I think will be equally as effectively as the electric ones.
5. Working on singing drills (no, really!). I sing pretty well although my actual sense of timing has to be the worst on the planet (I really suck at that). I spend a decent amount of time practicing this.
6. I'm also learning piano.
7. Practicing and studying German. This language and I were meant to be together. I find the speaking quite easy, and it's not too hard to remember the words. Thank god the sentence structure is so much like English's!
8. Learning HTML and CSS. I started on HTML four days ago and I'm almost done with the basic course. I'll start on CSS ASAP, and then I learn jQuery, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and then APIs. By myself, too. Self taught ForTheWin! I think I will be able to make a free website app with Ruby or APIs that will completely replace NutriTiming and be much better as well. Perhaps not as precise as far as all the vitamins and mineral food components go, but I don't think people really care about that anyway. It's just something to calculate your fluctuating kcal expenditure throughout the day and something to keep a detailed food log. 
9. Reading a lot of books on my off time:
   • "End the Fed" by Ron Paul
   • "Confucius" by Yu Dan
   • "Lectures on Physics" by Richard Feynman 
   • "Stretching and Flexibility" by Kit Laughlin (second time reading it)
   • "The Thirty-Six Strategies of Ancient China" by Stefan H. Verstappen.
   • "50 Battles That Changed the World" by William Weir.
   • "Legacy of the Drow" by R.A. Salvatore!
10. Taking online courses at Coursera.org! Introduction to Engineering Mechanics by GTU is superb!
11. My sparring ability. Not my physical abilities per se, but my thought processes during sparring and the strategies and tactics that I use. I'm currently using a few different strategy/tactics books (the Chinese one previously mentioned is one of them) to write myself a booklet on it that I can refer to.
12. Researching if I should transfer to a major university this Fall or next Fall. I'll probably have to change up my degree plans a bit but it's looking like the situation will turn out really well...
13. I have two part time jobs right now: first is an instructor at my local karate club and the second  is working for a local piano transport/tuner and music teacher. He's my cousin and it's fun to work for him.
14.  Working on getting full splits and active ROM for almost the full side and front split. I.e., I'd like to be able to raise my foot sideways using hip strength alone until I am in a standing split. I'd like the same for the front splits. I think once I have this ability, I will have come a long way in become the type of versatile fighter that I want to be. 
15. Working on F1 and HS1! Taking my time too. When I grapple with people who are strong in weight lifting, they almost always tell me how strong I am. The thing is, I am pitifully weak by GB standards. The fact that I have such a long way to go and so much to improve in gives me a wonderful feeling.
16. Secret project - THE WORLD. Can't go into details about this yet. Maybe in a year or two...

I think that's most of it. This log will help me in the future if I wanted to know what I was thinking/doing now. It's funny how even though future Patrick will be the same Patrick, he really won't be, will he? He'll be different... 

Phew. Got back from the weekend tournament about two hours ago. A friend, my sister, and I went up on Friday afternoon, and we stayed the night in a hotel rather than drive four hours up to the tournament on the same morning. I have to say, mentally and physically, it made a huge difference.

I didn't expect much because I was at first only concentrating on sparring. It was the only thing that mattered to me, and even it I was unsure about because of my asthma/endurance (which actually wasn't a problem thank goodness!). One of my instructors convinced me to compete in kata, though, so I reluctantly decided to. I practiced my kata a few times in preparation, but not too much because of school.

Actually, kata went really well and I took 1st in a nine person black belt division. A few minutes later, after I received the trophy, I walked back to the area where I had my gym bag and a few of my friends were congratulating me as I heard in the background, "Last call for black belts 18-34 years old, weapons kata, ring 5. Last call." My friends immediately asked if I was competing in weapons, and I said no, so they then said "You should! Go for it!" One of them spotted another friend's bo staff a few feet away so I grabbed it and sprinted across the gym to the ring. I got there just in time to pick a number and get in line. Man, it was close. I hadn't practiced the kata for about 1-2 years, so I had to quickly go through it to mentally review and re-learn it. Turns out, it was good enough to take another 1st place in a division of four with some pretty experienced black belts.

So far so good, I thought. Two first places.

My friends helped me stay limber and warmed up (mentally and physically) throughout the day as I served the tournament as a judge for the various kids and juniors divisions. It's easy to kind of glaze over from the judging and anticipation of the fighting. When it was finally, FINALLY, time for sparring I had managed to stay pretty focused and energetic, which is usually hard for me at tournaments. I fought in the middleweight division, which only had one fellow in it, but this guy was notoriously the best fighter at this tournament. Very well coordinated kicks and strikes, very calm in the ring, and obviously very experienced (unlike me). The fight quickly went to a 3-0 point lead in his favor, but I brought it back to a 3-3 tie or something like that. After a ton of back and forth fighting, the score was 6-6 and the time went out. Well, we had 30 seconds to rest and then we were going to fight for the last point. Sudden death! Whoever scored next would win the match. 

The 30 seconds was up, so I stepped back out into the ring and was rearing to go. I had managed to struggle into even with this guy, and I didn't want to lose to him again (like I had last year). I was in it to win it this time, and focused as hell. The judge called, "Fight!". I delayed a second, pretended to put on pressure, fell back, and then sprang as high as I could and lunged as far forward as I could to backfist him solidly on the helmet. I won that fight. Wow, it was close.   One of my friends told me that when the judge called "Next point wins!" my whole expression just changed. I didn't notice it, but he said it was like a movie. lol

My instructor and a friends congratulated me and told me that that guy was the best fighter there. I responded with a "Not anymore." 

Anyway, so I had won three 1st places (kata, weapons, and sparring) and now I had advanced into the black belt men's grand championship sparring. I then fought a 6.5", 215 lb guy with some nasty punches. I had watched him closely earlier though, and I knew his weaknesses. Remembering to attack my opponent's weaknesses rather than his strengths, I won the fight in less than 30 seconds with a score of 6-0. Three solid roundhouse kicks to the stomach. In and out before he could move. He needs to fix his guard...

I was in the finals. I had this crazy monkey kung fu guy to fight. He liked slappy punches and fancy kicks. I wasn't in the mood to entertain him, so I won the fight in about 40 seconds with a score of 5-0. Two roundhouse kicks, in and out, and a backfist punch to the side of his head. 

It was amazing. Last year I only won third and third in my first tournament in the black belt division, and then in the second tournament of the year, I screwed up my kata so didn't place and then got clobbered in the sparring (couldn't summon the will to fight in that tournament). I've gone from winning nothing in the black belt division to winning everything I could today. I won the tournament in every sense of the word, and I can't wait to start training again on Monday. First in kata, first in weapons, first in sparring, and black belt men's grand championship. It's been a darn good day!

I have 5 weeks before the next tournament, and a lot of things to accomplish. Time to start HS1 !! 

(Oh yes, and my sister, a red belt, also competed. She won 1st in kata and sparring by defeating a few black belts, and then tied with a 2nd degree black belt for the kata grand championship in the 14-17 year old division! Not bad, sister!)

F1/H1 are the best things that ever happened to my physical training.