Enjoy It While It Lasts
Project 365 here 365Pieces
Mar 5th, 2011 @ 2:18 pm
Fight Night
So last night I was competing in a “fight night”. Basically everyone in the karate dojo I train with was fighting someone from another dojo (or in some cases, like my own, we fought someone from out own club). The night was organised by the people who founded the clubs so the whole thing was friendly. It was competitive obviously, but we’re “one big family”, and you don’t exactly try to knock members of your family out cold.
It was held in a packed Asbourne Rugby Club in Meath so I wasn’t familiar with the venue or anything. First up there were the Juniors. This was by far the biggest group and took up about half the night. Everyone under the age of 14/15 (I’m not really sure what merits Junior or Senior status) was pitted against a member of the opposing club and had to fight them for a minute then they got a break and then they fought for a minute again. These were probably the best fights of the night anyway.
I was asked to umpire the Junior fights which was really fun. Basically I got to wear a red t-shirt and hold two different coloured clickers (red and blue) and clicked them every time the clicker’s corresponding fighter hit their opponent. There were all these technicalities but it was easy enough.
I suppose I should say that this whole thing wasn’t vicious or anything. We’re all being trained in karate so it wasn’t like street brawling or anything. We could only use certain kicks or punches and the fight was stopped and restarted if anything below-belt happened. The fights were monitored by professionals and all that and there were first aid people on hand if anything happened.
So after the kids fought it was whatever category I fall into’s turn. There was a wide range of ages in my category, from 15 to 57. I was last in my category to fight so but I wasn’t umpiring these ones. I was left waiting nervously on the side lines. I’m sure I was nervous but I don’t really remember much of the build-up to my fight. I was kind of just watching the other ones and not really thinking about anything else. Then it was time for me to fight and I can remember a surprising amount of it. I was fighting David, a guy from the club where I train, who is exactly my age and a bit taller than me. We were both hoping to fight someone we didn’t know but there wasn’t anyone from the other club our age. We had sparred each other before in the club but obviously in a packed room the atmosphere was completely different, and this time it was competitive.
We both put up a good, eh, fight. I kept turning my head away and spinning on my kicks so that gave him the chance to really lay into me - which he did. I lost the fight (sad storii reboggle ur creyz boohoo) but one of the umpires deemed it a draw so I suppose I can feel good about that. But even though I did lose, I’m still really happy with how I did. I thought I’d be battered altogether but I managed to ~hold my own~. David was better than me on the night, though, so I’m happy he won.
A video I took of one of our instructors (on the left at the beginning) against someone from the other club.
This is where the whole thing goes bad though. We were meant to just have one fight each but then they decided to pit the sensei’s daughter (she’s a red belt and like amazing) against both David and me. I didn’t know that this was going to happen and evidently neither did she. Fair enough, both Dave and I were tired but it was still completely unfair to her. She was not prepared to fight two people, even if we were wrecked after just fighting each other; we still had to fight though. She still managed to pretty much clatter the two of us. It was just horrible though because she was not ready and she got upset and ugh I felt awful. I know I wasn’t the one who chose to fight her but she was so upset and it feels like Dave and I caused it. I don’t know, I heard that she’s fine now.
Things got worse. Basically someone from our club cancelled and someone from the other club was left without a fight. So sensei said he’d fight him. Now this man is world class so it was no bother to him. During the fight though, the guy from the other club punched him on the edge of the mats and our sensei fell and hit his head off a stool. He was on the ground for a full minute just lying there and I really thought he had died. It was the worst thing I have ever witnessed or been part of. He’s ok now, of course, he was just knocked out but it was so bad. It’s really put me off the whole competition thing. Of course these things happen but his daughter (who was still upset from fighting Dave and me - apparently she thought she did badly!! I was in pain afterwards!) was there and so was his son and his wife. He’s ok though. It’s fine.
So overall it was a good night. It’s just such a pity what happened towards the end. It was my first competitive fight and I’m happy with how I did so I suppose that counts for something.
And here’s the trophy I was give - for losing! Cute. Here are some more photos from the night aswell.
