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October 20, 2005, Test Ukemi and Honorable Injuries
Just got back from a seminar in New Jersey. I had a great time. My Sensei and I went and we stayed at his Sensei's house. There was never a dull moment.
There was testing on the first day of the seminar after the classes. I was called up to be uke a couple of times by the head instructor at the dojo. Both were ladies. One was testing for fourth kyu and the other for third kyu. It was awesome. The woman testing for third kyu had a wicked iriminage. She was a bit shorter than me and she dropped me straight to the mat. I had no where else to go but straight down. She also had to do free style at the end of her test. I had no idea that was going to happen as free style isn't introduced until second kyu at our dojo. So when the instructor said "Free style" I thought "Oh s#*t." So another guy and I "attacked" her. She did well. So did the other woman who tested for fourth kyu.
During the seminar I was working with the uchideshi and he was throwing me pretty hard so I was hitting the mat hard with my hands. On one particular throw, when I went to hit the mat I actually slapped a guy's face. He had just taken ukemi for his partner and was still laying on the mat. There was this loud CRACK when my hand made contact with his face. Poor guy. He laid there holding his face. I was kneeling beside him apologizing and the head instructor came over saying it was an honorable injury. He ended up being alrigh
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We did a demo last night. I was totally wired before hand. (In fact when I was asked to do it I felt the gag reflex in my gut.) I'd never done one before and I wanted to do well for the dojo.
The guys said it's not a big deal and to enjoy myself…that it would be fun.
We were supposed to be the first group of martial artists to go on at 7:00. We were all ready by quarter to, but didn't get on stage until 8:00 or so. They were waiting for more of a crowd to arrive as it was out in a public place and they weren't charging or anything.
By 8:00 my nervous energy was replaced with "let's get this over with, I wanna go home and eat."
I don't remember what happened during the demo. Just that I had to do shomen attacks when I first went up. (I heard a woman in the crowd say, "Go girl!") Later on for tanto disarming I had to do yokomen and tsuki attacks. I remember having to flip a couple of times but that's about it.
I forgot about the crowd too. They kind of disappeared what with all the spotlights on us. That was weird.
We were on an elevated stage made of wood with thin mats over top. So whenever anyone of us went down we made a lot of noise when we hit the mats. The louder the noise, the bigger the "oooooh" we got from the crowd. Oh yeah the stage was small so we couldn't really be thrown. The sandans who were demonstrating did pins and made us breakfall. There was an occasional roll but they had to hold back on
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10-20-2005 08:00 AM 
