Posts Tagged ‘karate’

Friday night, I was officially awarded the rank of Ikkyu, or first-degree brown belt, in Shuri-ryu karate at the Academy of Okinawan Karate.
The black stripe down the center of the belt signifies the next step is Shodan, or black belt. This means I’m done testing for rank for a while, and it’s up to me [...]

Every day for the week we were in Hawai’i, we met at 6am for a karate workout on the beach. I didn’t look forward to getting up every morning, but once we got rolling it was very invigorating. I’d return to the hotel ready for a shower and hungry for breakfast, but full of energy [...]

I may have been out of town last week, but I took a bajillion pictures. Tonight I selected one to be part of my Photo Friday collection, a simple shot of the group of karateka after a morning workout on the beach.

A total of 13 of us went to Hawai’i together, and as it was [...]

It’s been a hell of a day.
It started with a crashed server at work. It took a turn for the better this evening when I burned through two more steps of my karate review process, leaving me only sparring and ju ju undo to complete to earn Ikkyu, or first-degree brown belt.
Then it ramped up [...]

There are two things that seem to draw the “oohs” from the crowds at a fight: good punches and big throws. There were a couple of good throws Saturday night at Throwdown IV, and I managed to catch one of them on camera. In this case, one fighter lifted the other off the mat, got [...]

I’m posting a day late, but this pic was actually taken last night at the Academy of Okinawan Karate’s graduation.
Judo is something I hope to work on myself, soon. There is just enough Judo in the Shuri-ryu curriculum to give karateka a taste, but the AOK offers a dedicated Judo class as well. Once I [...]

Wrath James White put on a Muay Thai demonstration Saturday morning at the con, and as I mentioned previously, he recruited me to hold the pads for him. In a nutshell, my job was to get beaten on a little.
Ass-whoopin’ jokes aside, it was a great demo. Wrath spent a lot of time discussing the [...]

I posted a picture of two students of the Academy of Okinawan Karate competing in a koshiki (sparring in armor) match last week, and I have the video up now, too:

I’ve since learned the competitors hold their punches to the head back just a bit to cut down on neck injuries and limit the brain [...]

All in all, I’m in good health. I’d like my cardio to improve, but I’m ahead of many people my age and most people my weight. Despite a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure, my blood sugar has been consistently good and my blood pressure has dropped from borderline to just a tick [...]

I’ve finally managed to put the camera to use a little more in the last month or so. Most of it has been event or family photography rather than the creative photography I’ve been intending to do all year, but at least I got out and put my rig to use.
Sometimes my 50mm prime lens [...]