ohhhh markus ….

so we had again an interschool tournament, and this time I didn’t feel ready at all, waiting to the last minute to go there. Fortunately fabulous S persuaded me to go there so I went there and had a fabulous time, discovering lots of room for improvement on my form (although I got a 8.4, not that bad).

funny thing is, snoring prevented that the video of my form was recorded. how? well, our guest (yes, the one who didn’t hear the fire trucks and chainsaw action) is an incredible loud snorer. he was SOO loud that I recorded it, switching the camera to audio only (where the lens doesn’t extend at all and only audio is recorded).

and I (of course) totally forgot about it when I handed the camera to a friend to record my form today. since the lens didn’t extend and there was no visual feedback whats going on, he assumed the camera was broken, and couldn’t record a thing ….

here are some nice pics:

and I got kicked right into my face multiple times as you can see in the video. I was just too tired, not kicking at all and only playing defense. well, we all have those days. I am pretty happy that I went anyhow.

oh, and I got my nose broken (but already 4 days ago when a roundhouse kicked scratched my face during sparring. and luckily only the lower part got broken. but still …. ouch.)

 today I had a real mental breakthrough during sparring, quite fascinating and kinda hard to explain.

until now fighting was more like throwing around legs and hands, having the focus somewhere between you and the opponent, fighting for air, and with almost no strategy behind it. after the sparring last week I had a short talk with my trainer that I am making progress but I need to pay much more attention to my opponent, to open spots to hit on. that its basically a strategy game. can I detect his next movement and can I use it and vice versa.

and today I put much more thought into the whole thing and suddenly everything fell into place. I saw my opponent as a whole human being and suddenly I had an incredible amount of respect for the strategy and fighting style of him. sounds kinda weird but it changed the whole perception of the sport. the bowing before and after a fight suddenly made much more sense. and fighting was so much more fun. good stuff.

I give this day a happy rating of 5/5.