Fun night of Karate last night…

Well, we have two new Shodans at WISK. Kaleb and Ginny got their black belts, and the ensuing carnage was pretty memorable. Kaleb, being a national champion, was so keyed up that obliterating everything was his default mode. He proceeded to pound the crap out of me a la Kraft-san and I did the same for him. It’s very rare that I actually feel pain at a WISK workout. This is a good change.

The only difference between him and Kraft is that Kaleb’s punches have a lot more slap. And they had an increasing probability to hit in the solar plexus. So last night was Red Belly Central for me. Also, Kaleb has perfected a method of being able to actually strike the upper abs, and because he can angle his punches slightly upwards you still get partial shock to the solar plexus.

At one point I took three of these punches in same spot, right below the solar plexus. The third one was finally able to force the remainder of my air out of my body. This left me with the barely able to draw a breath quavery pall of death that makes you have to take a break for a minute. I’m actually very happy he got his belt as he is EXTREMELY talented, but some control would be nice for a change.

Ginny was pretty low-key about getting her Shodan, I have a distinct feeling that her mom wanted it more than she did. She’s taken a couple of black belt tests and not passed, and her mom had been getting more and more incensed as time passed. After she got her belt, I walked by her mom and asked if she was happy now, and she said “Well, I guess.” My reply: “Damn, it’s really hard to make you happy, isn’t it?” and off I went. Some people. 😛

And it turns out that down here everyone is given a kari-Shodan (wha?) until they train for an additional year. Contact me privately for an extended extortation on my feelings about this.

So for the most part it was good fun for a change. It’s nice when people get to their goals. The only unfortunate side-effect was that I missed class because I couldn’t sit up today. Ah well. Professor KnowsEveryone will just have to spray food at someone else today.