Return to the way of the open hand

I decided, as it's generally frowned upon if you don't do some sort of sport at university, that I would pick karate back up. The trouble was, as I looked around the various sports groups, the only type of karate they did was shotokan. Shotokan is one of the strictest forms of karate; I learnt freestyle, which is a mixture of traditional karate, ju-jitsu (wrestling), kendo, and general self-defence.

The differences between my style and the style I was about to begin learning became apparent at the beginning of the lesson. As he told us to form lines, I wandered over to a spot at the front, only to be approached by a brown belt who quietly told me I should move to stand over with the black belts. Ok, you may have thought that forming lines according to belt rank was a bit of a no brainer, but in my club it was ok if you just stood anywhere. Generally the rule of thumb was that the senior belts would form a line at the back (black, brown and purple) and the intermediate belts and beginner belts would go to the front. But here we formed strict lines with black belts at the left of the hall, decending in rank to the right.

Another thing; it was all in frikkin' Japanese. So after we had warmed up (my lazy muscles complaining rather loudly as I stretched them for the first time in 2 years), he was asking the black belts to do twice the amount of work than the other belts, but he was asking us to perform moves I knew, but couldn't understand. I was alright, copying other people and thankfully he didn't berate me on my technique (he stopped another 'new' blackbelt; one from shotokan apparently, and one who hadn't, like stopped training like I had) and told her the way she blocked was incorrect.

Anyway, I had fun and I'll definately go back. I'll perhaps join in the beginner's class until I find my feet though. I knew what to do, it was just hard understanding what was being asked.


(Lol, this post was interrupted by a fire alarm. Someone had burnt their toast)