Ground Work

Today was a busy busy day at work. Ugh, it can be stressful at times. I came home and took a quick nap, then went to karate class. We worked on knife defenses. The thing about defending yourself against a knife attack is... your chances are pretty slim. Even if you do have time to pull off a good, well executed technique, you are likely to be cut on the hands or arms anyway. But the alternative is far worse, so we work on knife defenses. Tonights instructor made it interesting for us, as he required 10 pushups for each time our opponent was able to cut us with the knife. Ok, so I had to do some pushups, but I didn't do as bad as I thought I might. Next, we worked on some ground work. Allow me to explain something for a moment. Since I've been out of karate, something happened in the martial arts scene. That thing that happened was a moderately sized man named Royce Gracie demonstrated to the world that, in a contest against just about anyone with just about any background in martial arts, he could whoop men twice, even three times his size, by purposefully taking the contest to the floor, where he was able to apply a variety of joint locks and chokes to make even the biggest monsters "tap out" in submission.


Don't get me wrong. Gracie didn't invent anything new (it's basically the way good old Judo is supposed to be done).


Nor is Gracie unbeatable. But what he did was make everyone rush out to find someone, anyone, who could teach them Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This being the case, there are bunch of guys out there who think they can take out anyone by simply "taking the fight to the ground." So, our karate school wisely started teaching more ground techniques... not because we agree with the idea of taking a fight to the ground (in Isshinryu, it is deemed much better to put the attacker on the ground, while you remain on your feet -- much better to escape that way. And why would you even consider rolling around on the asphalt, on broken glass, on the rocks, ON PURPOSE???), rather we work on ground moves because you just very well may find yourself someday laying on your back with a bad guy on top of you... now what? Well, a well rounded defense system has to consider ground fighting. So, it was alot of fun getting to roll a bit, get stabbed, do pushups, and all that. But the best part was when I came home and my wife had me some Chicken in Basil Sauce and butter fried asparagus, and for dessert... cheesecake with strawberries and chocolate chips on top! Yow, and mmm.