A Taste of Testing

Here are a few moments of our Black Belt test. You can tell we were really tired!

Black

Three years ago I started martial arts along with Miss Munchkin.  Mostly I wanted her to learn self-defense skills and she agreed to the lessons as long as I took them with her!  Along the way, I’ve learned some valuable techniques, become physically stronger and made some wonderful new friendships.

Miss Munchkin and I have been testing for our Black Belt over the past six weeks.  Last week was our final test.  It was 2 hours long!  Before class started, we had to complete 100 situps, 75 pushups and 25 laps around the dojo.  Then, for the first 30 minutes of the test, we were pushed to our limit physically with strenuous drills and exercises.  After we were good and tired, we were asked to demonstrate all of the techniques we’d learned over the past 3 years.  Kicks and punches, escapes from various chokes and bear hugs, throws and grappling on the ground. Then we sparred.

At the end of class, we learned that we’d passed!  The following night we received our Black Belts in an official graduation ceremony.  We also read a 3 page paper that we’d written about our “journey though martial arts”. 

I’m so glad testing is over.  It is one of the harder things I’ve ever had to do.  I’m really proud of Miss Munchkin for hanging in there though it all and of myself, for doing this at age 40!


Reading my paper

Miss Munchkin graduating

Getting my new belt

The graduating class (we’re on the right)

Something New

I’ve been busy working on something entirely new the past few weeks – I’ve been taking photos of the students at our martial arts studio.  This project required the use of lights and a green screen and digital backgrounds – all new stuff for me!  It’s kind of funny – the students get to choose their backgrounds and every single child (and even a few of the adults) choose Fire. :)

Here’s a little taste:

      

Black Belt Boot Camp

If you have followed my blog for awhile now, you know that my children and I have been training in mixed martial arts.  We’ve been taking classes for 3 years and this month we are starting to train for our final test!  There are 5 weeks of grueling classes that we have to go through and, at the end, we learn if we passed.  So I hopefully I will become a black belt in December!  Miss Munchkin will be testing with me.  Wish us luck!

Part of our test includes being able to do 100 situps and 70 pushups.  Uh oh! I can do about half those amounts right now, so I need to get busy!

Speaking of busy, I just finished coordinating our school’s Book Sale.  We’d been taking donations since the summer and about a bazillion books needed to be organized and, well, sold!  It was a lot of work but we made $600 for our little school library, which is more than its yearly budget.  Yea!

Fight Class

Tonight Fight Class begins.  This is my 3rd year doing this and I’m still both nervous and excited about going. 

Check out my post from last year: 

Ready to Rumble!

 

Superman Punch

 

Last week we learned how to do the Superman Punch in class.  Now  it never takes much to fake me out and I fall for this technique every time.  It looks cool though, and it’s fun to do.

I should come up with my own variation, some kind of Supergirl punch.  Wait, is there a Superwoman?  Or a SuperMom?  I could do that.

Kicking with Tommy

This weekend I got to attend a kickboxing seminar with Tommy Whitaker.  He was former professional fighter, a 4-time kickboxing champion, and is a very big, very nice guy.

He showed us some techniques then turned us loose.  I hid behind my camera most of the time took it upon myself to document the event.


  

I think we all had a lot of fun, especially the guy on the right. ;)

Struggle

I've been struggling with learning this armbar in martial arts class.  It's just not clicking, not matter how many times people patiently show me.  I think it's something I need to DO, repetitively, not just see.  To make matters worse, MrMama won't let me practice on him anymore.  Somehow he keeps getting hurt.  Wimp.

Here's a quick version of it.  It's actually a bit more complicated, once it's broken down.  Especially for me!

All Choked Up

Here are a few self-defense techniques we’ve been working on in class lately.  They are actually pretty practical to know.  I remember a time when I was a girl; a boy grabbed me by the throat and started choking me, just like in the video.  I was shocked and frightened and had no idea what to do.  I dare him to try that on me now. ;)

The second technique (escaping a bear hug from behind) is also practical and very easy to do.  Just be careful when you’re throwing those elbows – once I accidentally gave Miss Munchkin a bloody nose in class after she tried to pick me up.  Sorry Sweetie!

Grunt Work

In our martial arts class we are encouraged to make a lot of "noise".  It not only helps us remember to breathe, but it can intimidate an attacker or draw attention to us if we are being attacked.  A grunt, a growl, a yell, a kiai,  whatever.  As a woman, it was really hard for me to do this at first.  After all, ladies are expected to be quiet and polite, demure, etc.

Now that I've been training for a few years, it has become more natural.  Perhaps a little too natural.  I've noticed that I make noise whenever I'm doing something physically challenging or at all exerting.  This isn't an issue at home or in class, but when I'm at the grocery store, lifting a heavy bag of cat food, I get a few strange looks.  The other day I was trying to plug in the coffee maker at church and the cord didn't want to cooperate.  I gave it a good push, along with a loud grunt, and it wisely gave up.  Perhaps that's why the other ladies in the kitchen stopped making eye contact.  At a fancy Italian restaurant, a little piece of bruschetta took a bit of convincing and a noisy "unh!" to break in half.  I didn't look around but I'm sure lots of people heard me.  At least I didn't go "Hi-Yah!".

Yet. :)

A Little Ground 'N Pound

Well, the guys got their chance to get even last night.  But they didn't take it! :)   Whew.  I'm so glad we have such nice people in our class!

One of the self-defense drills we did started with one person on the ground and their partner straddling them, wearing boxing gloves.  The person on top would throw punches at the person on the bottom.  The goal of the person on bottom, at first, was to just "survive".  You could parry, block, cover, grab his hands and try to trap them, whatever.  But you had to stay there and take it.  After doing this for some time our goal became to get out from under our partner and to get away.  The basic technique is demonstrated below, except we added a good ol' fashioned groin punch at the end, scrambled to our feet and ran away. :P



It made me feel really good that I could get out from under guys bigger than me and I know it is good for Miss Munchkin to have this exposure.  Even though she may not agree at times. ;)

(insert Monty Python's soundbite "Run away!")

HiYah!

FBPMA-7, originally uploaded by MrsMama.

Master Munchkin chops through a board (held by the elusive MrMama).

The Munchkins and I have a martial arts lesson coming up. During the last class I accidentally hit a Black Belt in the forehead with a hammer fist and kicked another Black Belt in the mouth with a reverse kick. I am rather a bit of a klutz!

I hope they aren't feeling vindictive! gulp

Interest and Awe

I took this photo at a martial art's tournament last month. These little guys are lining up for someone to jump over them and break the board in the background. I love the look on his face. It's not really fear, more like interest and awe, I think.

Makes a Mama Proud

Tonight, in our martial arts class, we learned how to do a basic gun disarm. As usual, I was a bit slow to catch on but Miss Munchkin picked it right up. After a few minutes she was taking my gun away like candy from a baby. I'm tellin' ya, it makes a Mama proud.

She also learned how to drag me down from behind and render me unconscious in 8 seconds. But that's another story... ;)

Don't Try This at Home

Our martial arts instructors are creative and cruel most inventive when it comes to thinking of giving us a workout in class. For example, last week we were asked to:

1. Sit in a tight circle. Lift up your legs and place your right ankle over the person next to you. While trying to balance and keep your legs off of the ground, lean back and do a sit up. Oh, and throw a jab-cross at the end of each sit up. Let's do 10. Ready? Go!

2. Grab a partner and one of you get into the Push-Up Position. You are going to do 10 push-ups. Between pushups, your partner is going to jump over your legs then crawl under you, army style. Arms aching yet? Good! Now switch.

In Which the Munchkins Compete

A few weeks ago the Munchkins competed in their first martial arts tournament. Master Munchkin entered Board Breaking and Flag Sparring. He set up 5 boards then struck each one, in order, quickly. The judges looked at technique and the degree of difficulty of each strike. He and another boy tied for first place so it came down to a "sudden death" contest. Only there was no death. The Master came in second but he was still pretty happy. I was just happy about the lack-of-death part.



Flag Sparring involves trying to remove the "flags" from your opponent's belt before they remove yours. The kids had a lot of fun with this one.



Miss Munchkin entered Point Sparring. This involves landing a kick or punch to certain areas of the body. Since there weren't any other participants in her belt rank, she had to spar Black Belt guys. Gulp!

Here she is, in the red belt, throwing a kick at her opponent. Of course she didn't win, but she held her own and had a pretty good attitude about the whole thing.



One of the highlights of the event was when the Master's teacher jumped over several children and broke a board. Very impressive!


They tried to get me to compete, but I insisted that they needed a photographer. So I hid behind my camera volunteered my services. I'm nice like that.

Tournament

Today our martial art's studio held its first in-house tournament. The Munchkins competed and I took photos. A lot of photos. 1,214 photos, to be precise. I think my brain is broken now. I'll post pics and fill you in soon.

Sicko Spins and Hooks

Even though I was feeling under the weather, I decided to go ahead and try to test for my red belt last night. On the way to class I took a couple of Tylenol and washed them down with a Starbuck's Doubleshot. If they kicked in, I might just have a chance.

Our Instructor on Thursday nights is quite fond of Ladders. Not the kind you climb, the kind where you run lines. These are also called "Suicides". I think they are aptly named. Thankfully, we skipped the Suicides last night and warmed up with jogging. I can jog very slowly. I am very good at jogging slowly. Slow jogging is very good. They should call it "slogging".

For our test we had to escape three different ways from a side headlock on the ground. I showed you one here, remember? Then we performed our new kicks, which included a lot of "hook" kicks, which I am not very good at. Especially when I am susposed to spin, jump and throw a hook kick at the same time. Miss Munchkin is really good at these. I'm equally proud and insanely jealous. Then we moved on to kickboxing combinations, which involved a lot of elbows, knees and a good amount of clenching. Once Miss Munchkin caught me in the nose and it HURT. I know, I know, turnabout is fair play but still! We ended with a drill, one designed to push us physically. At the end I was barely standing and trying quite earnestly to catch my breath. It's hard enough for me when I'm well, at this point I was wishing I had waited to test. But it was over and I passed. Out. Not really, not the "out" part. But I did pass. So did the Munchkins.

We start learning new material next week. Can't wait!

She Strikes Again!

You may recall some of my clumsier moments in martial arts class. My lastest victim was Miss Munchkin herself. Last night we were working on various self-defense moves and Miss M grabbed me from behind in a bear hug. I dropped my weight and started throwing elbows. Well, one connected. With her nose. Ouch!

I followed her to the bathroom and stayed with her until the bleeding stopped.

"I'm so sorry; I feel awful!"

(muffled thorough a kleenex) "That's OK. I forgive you. Besides, you can blog about it."

(laughing) "You are really something, do you know that?"

"Yeah." (grudgingly) "Well, it is kind of cool."

Uh, oh. I don't think I'm going to be living this down anytime soon!

Dizzy Mom Attacks!

In martial arts class, our instructor decided that we should practice hitting a target while we are disoriented. Just in case, say, we were knocked down by a blow to the head and became dizzy but still had to fight. Hey, it could happen!

So we partnered up and took turns spinning around, bent over with our hands on our head. Think forehead on a baseball bat. When our teacher called out the signal, we had to quickly orient ourselves, find our target and hit it five times in a row, fast and hard.

There seemed to be a distinct division in the class; those under 20 years of age were spinning and smiling and giggling and nailing their targets. The rest of us were spinning and staggering, groaning and sometimes falling. Ugh! I managed to hit the pad my daughter was holding but not fast and once to twice I almost hit her in the face. (Sorry, Sweetie!) I think it's an age thing. You know how it used to be fun to ride roller coasters and get spun on merry-go-rounds? Then, after a certain age, it's just not fun anymore. After class I had to wait a bit for the room to stop spinning and my stomach to settle. And for my daughter to stop laughing at me.