Archive for the 'Martial Art' Category

This is the story in a two minute video of how your humble narrator got his butt kicked in today’s tournament. (It is me in the white headgear.) A full report on this event will follow. Meanwhile, if any of you have some good advice for me on how I will win next time I will gladly accept it. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday September 4, 2006 it was fighting time again. Another middle weight K1 event in Tokyo. This time I stayed home and watched it on TV. It’s mostly very good fighting, but I am waiting for the K1 Grand Prix to see the heavy weights. The event will be held in Tokyo end of December. Read the rest of this entry »

Japanese boxer Koki Kameda who won the title for the World Boxing Association’s light flyweight championship on august 2 may be forced to defend his title again. Venezuelan fighter Juan Landaeta should have won the match according to many, since he was dominating the match in large. Today NHK announced the news: Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Kameda

In a month there is a competition coming up and I now focus my training on improving my sparring. My boxing has improved but I feel that the overall sparring needs a lot of work. I picked up this technique at YouTube, check it out:

By feinting a low-kick to the thigh you make your opponent guard with a leg cut. With him standing on one leg you simply sweep the other one.

Read the rest of this entry »

My karate instructor makes an effort to sometimes speak English to me. This is mostly at times when it is obvious to him that I can not guess what is going on from my yet limited Japanese. Now, “belto testo” I understood. It means belt test. Grading. So there was a belt test coming up and he wanted me to take it. The test would be graded by the chief instructor so it would not take place at our dojo. In conjunction with a competition in Shinjuku, an hour from Yokohama by train, it would take place.

After various styles and belts over the years I started fresh again with a white belt when I began training here in Japan six months ago. The colour of the belt is not really important to me, I was always into MA for the exercise and the well being emerging from leaving your aggressions behind. Anyway, it is still nice to be above the white belt. If not only for the look. A coloured belt looks better with a white gi. The white belt makes the whole thing look like a pyjamas. A coloured belt looks more athletic and serious. And a black belt has of course this whole master vibe around it. So, if it feels good it is good sort of.

The problem doing things here in Japan not knowing the language is that everything becomes an approximation. I can go into a restaurant and order food, and I know I will get approximately what I order. Maybe beer in a bottle instead of glass, maybe curry with pork instead of curry with beef. The same goes for the grading, I did not know exactly what was to be tested, or how.

“It will be just like a normal training” was as close an answer as I managed to get. When the day came the few of us who were there for the grading started a joined training session with all the others who were there for the competition. In a crowd with a lot of people I wondered how this could possible serve as grading test. Did they check us out? The head sensei was sitting at the front and most of us was standing in the back so I thought this must just be some kind of warming up. At the same time I tried performing my techniques as proficient as I could, maybe there were assistants watching and rating our performance, I thought.

After this the competition started and I watched a few youth matches. We were asked to stay, so there sure was something more to come. I assumed there would be sparring in one form or another. This is full contact so to grade without some sort of fighting would be kind of lame. Seems I was right when we were issued protective gear to put on. By now I thought I would just be fighting another student who also was there for the grading. Turned out I was wrong.

When they picked a black belt from another club as the first opponent I slowly realised that this was going to be tough fights. The match started with a series of fast attacks from Kato who was up against the black belt. The fighters wore headgear that is made as a padded leather helmet with a plastic visor. This means you can punch each other straight in the face without any real damage. Even wearing gloves you have to be careful with your hands, punching wrongly can hurt both your knuckles and your wrists. Watching this first match and knowing that I was up next was a strange feeling. On one level I felt a fight or flight sensation emerging through my body. I remember thinking, I wonder if I can leave this place now without anybody noticing? After that I switched from flight to fight. I would punch out the other guy or die. No matter who was in front of me. It is good that I was not the first to fight. Watching the first two fights gave me enough time to prepare mentally and perform.

Luckily this was short, one round fights. After the first two minutes fighting I felt as I had consumed more energy than I normally do in a full two hour work out session. I had decided using the same tactics as Kato, to attack furiously from the start. Fight for my life. Go out with a bang. This worked out fine and I got many hits in the first thirty seconds. Then the opponent started to counter and I took a few blows to the head. Even though the visor protects the face a hard punch still gives your head quite a shake. I decided here to change tactics and try to keep him away from me with kicks. Problem was he started kicking me too. And by know I was so tired that I had no energy lifting my leg to protect from his low kicks, even seeing them coming clearly. It was here that I made my mistake. Too tired to think properly I threw a hard low round kick to the front leg of the opponent. This he blocked the full contact way (Thai boxing style) by picking up his leg and turning it slightly outward. The sharp pain when my leg hit his almost dropped me to the floor.

Our bodies contain many amazing things, one of them is a small drug factory. By now my brain felt immediate pain and grave danger at the same time so it issued a large shot of adrenaline. My leg hurt for three weeks after this, but not for the rest of this fight. I realised I needed to try something new. The idea was never to win against this guy, but to perform a decent fight that would earn me my belt. If I was to go out it was to be in style. Having hurt the front of my right leg I decided to be bold and try a back spinning round kick. It actually worked and hit my opponent! Even followed by cheers from the crowd. By now I was so tired that I could barely stand so I just tried to hang in there until the match would be over.

I got some ice on my leg and was quite happy about the whole thing. Afterwards my instructors congratulated me on a good fight. Two weeks later the results came and I now carry the blue belt with two black stripes. I know that I earned it from fighting and it feels good wearing it.

Related articles:
Training martial arts in Japan How to get started doing martial arts in Japan.

Update: Read a review of the K1 World Max from September 4, 2006.

K1 World Max is the middleweight and not so prestigious as the heavy weights. This year in Yokohama I must say that the fighting was not bad at all. Some of these middleweight fighters definitively have enough character and fighting skills to get as famous as the heavy weight bunch.

As always the show starts outside. I arrived early to watch the people gather. You would think that an event likes this caters mainly to a macho crowd, but that is not true in Japan. More than half of the ticketholders are women in their twenties. Fame gets you a long way here and the fighters are like rockstars to the girls.

Fights always attracts other fighters coming to watch. This is a sumo wrestler dressed in a traditional yukata. When a wrestler is in training he never wears civilian clothes when going out. Right photo shows girls posing for a picture outside the arena.

One good thing about Japan is that they always manage to keep a very relaxed atmosphere even at a big event. Seventeen thousand people filled the Yokohama Arena to the last seat for this event and they do not even check your bag coming in. I am not saying that security is lax, just that the Japanese are very good at keeping it in the background. I mean, where else in the civilized world are you allowed to bring your own beer from outside to drink in your seat? Anyway I did not, but the 500 yen beer they served inside was still ok. I sat pretty good rather high up with a girl behind me screeming her lungs out cheering her favorite fighter. Most of it right into my ear. Luckily he was out after the first fight.

These gentlemen were waiting for their boss who arrived shortly in a black mercedes. Dressed in a panama hat, all white, with black and white leather shoes he was escorted in by his men. It is the same all over the world. The mobsters never miss a good fight. Other photos show members of the K1 fan club getting to take their picture with a fighter

Thai fighter Buakaw Por Pramuk won the whole thing. The thai fighters do not always win but you can always count on them performing excellent fights. I am not sure that it is the muay thai in itself that is superior, but rather the background of the fighters. Imagine a country full of poor people with only one chance to make it, and that being winning every single fight. The check for twenty million yen will support this guys family for a while. In his thank you speech Buakaw said he would use it for his sisters education. In the ring he never seemed to get tired. It is like he is able to tap into some other source of energy during his matches. Something not available to his opponents. When the opponent can barely stand in the third round Buakaw just keeps pounding away. The kicks keep coming as fast as in the first round. If the opponent makes it that far. Buakaw knocked out Andy Souwer in the second round.

Buakaw vs Souwer Buakaw vs Drago

Dutch Andy Souwer did good. He is very well trained in fast lowkicks. This with both legs. His specialty is using his front leg to kick the inside of the opponents left knee. An efficient way of wearing him out. Only it did not work against the thai fighter Buakaw. Still Souwer sported a nasty cut on his face from the match against South African Virgil Kalakoda.

Kalakoda vs Souwer Drago vs Kraus Masato vs Souwer

Dutch boxer Albert Kraus sure belongs here. He is a very solid fighter, but lost to Armenian muay thai fighter Drago. Armenian fighters are known to be wild and Drago is no exception. He is really the perfect K1 fighter because he makes sure that your ticket was worth buying. Gets you bang for the buck. His esoteric style looks like a street fighter in a circus disciplined by muay thai training. You never know if he is going to attack with a flying knee, a backspin kick or take a wild chance with a knock out blow.

Anyway, K1 is a big circus. The format of three round matches and the new rules against clinching is of course good, but there is a lot of fluff too. I don’t mind a magic show with lights and effects, but here it is a lot of it. I guess that is what people like. They are definitively doing something right to get 17 000 people, mostly girls, to come and watch a couple of guys knock each other out.

Fight videos here.

Related articles:
Training martial arts in Japan How to get started doing martial arts in Japan.

Japan is known as the home of many different Martial Arts. If you come to stay here you may want to try training. Get a piece of that Mr Miyagi mystery thing. I know I did. Ever since I first saw the movie The karate kid. I thought to myself, do they know something I dont. Is there a mystery aspect of karate that they kept hidden in Japan and never told anyone?

To get started in training Martial Art in Japan is not difficult. Just find a gym and ask if you can join. Thats what I did. If you live in one of the bigger cities it should be no problem finding one. Tokyo is more like a set of small villages that slowly growed and connected than a big city. Think LA more than NY. That means that every neighbourhood has everything. Restaurants, dry cleaning, doctors, shops and martial arts gyms. It is likely not far from your house to the closest gym. If you cant walk there you can probably ride your bike.

When you chose your gym there are a few things to consider. To me it is important that the gym is close to where I live or work. This is to make sure I go. If your gym is to far away it is likely that you skip going the days you feel a little lazy or if it is raining. To get results you have to train regularly. My gym is ten minutes from my house riding my bicycle. It is perfect because while it is close enough I still get warmed up pedaling the bike to get there. You can also chose a gym near your work, so that you can go straight from work to the gym.

As a foreigner doing martial art you probably have heard of only a few dojos in Japan. Remember there are thousands of them. If you promtly want to train at the Honbu dojo of a particular style just because Master Oyama did or at the oldest dojo in Japan in Kyoto maybe thats what you should do. But it is not the easiest way. Most universities also have a wide ranging choice of sports in their athletics departments. Besides football and baseball there is usually a choice of the traditional japanese martial arts: judo, karate, kyodo, aikido and kendo. But then you must be a student of a university.

Now, you will have to chose a style. If you already hold a belt in a particular style it might be a good idea to find a club where you can continiue with the same thing. If you for example hold a yellow belt in Kyokushinkai you simple look for a Kyokushin Club and inquire there.

If you are a beginner, or like me, have tried a variety of different martial arts over the years there are other ways of finding your style. After some basic research of what the different styles are about the best thing I think is to actuallt go to a dojo and ask if you can watch the training. Usually you can watch for free. Sometimes you are offered a free trial to sample the training. If it is possible to actually train with a group, do it. Dont be afraid if you dont understand the language or the moves. Just do it to see if you like it.

Easy enough, but how to actually find the gym you say. Word of mouth. Ask your friends or colleges. Usually the best way to find things out. Internet. Search or browse Martial Arts sights. But thats not the way I did it in the end. After trying all of the above with no result I just went out and started looking for a dojo. There are a lot of martial arts resources on the internet, but it is mostly in japanese and you need to be able to type and read japanese to get any help from that. Check out the difference for yourself if you google “karate yokohama” and then the same thing in japanese: “空手　横浜”.

So, I was new to Japan, had a very limited japanese vocabulary and wanted to find a dojo. The internet could not help me so I decided to check out my neighbourhood on foot. Go to the station. There you will find shops, restaurants and very often a noteboard. If there is no posts about martial art ride your bike to the next station, I did. Or you can also take the train. Doing this I realized that in the blocks a round every station there is at least one or two adverts for different dojos. If it was in japanese I would take a digital picure of it and get help translating it. If it it was something I knew I was not into I would just find another one.

Pretty soon I found an interesting place one station from where I live. If the poster looks good, then go check the place out. Once there, look on the signs, are there pictures posted? Does it look good, does if feel like it is something for you? If you like the place then go in and inquire.

Even though my japanese was very limited I decided to go in by myself, rather than come back with a friend who spoke japanese. It is not difficult to communicate what you want. It feels better to know that it was me who found the dojo and went in. Even though I had to get help later with the application forms.
This is the club where I train in Yokohama. Looks more like a dojo in LA than the traditional Japanese style!

After watching the training once I knew I was in the right place. The style was full contact karate. Traditional white gi and color belts, but boxing stance and boxing techniques. For the higher belts they also require you to learn take downs and grappling. I began training there the following week. It is not so much “wax on wax off”, more punch the bag as hard as you can!