Just thought I'd pose the question to everyone, what do you consider the highlight of your Martaial Arts careers? It may be anything from winning a spectacular tournament, perfecting a certain technique, helping someone in need or having a student of yours acomplish something great. It might be hard to decide, so feel free to list more than one moment if you like. I'm really keen to find out where everyones been and what they have done.
Having Kancho (Kyoichi Inoue, 9th dan Yoshinkan aikido) show me a technique personally, then later at a dinner sitting opposite him. Spending 45 mins doing jiu waza (freeform) with the head instructor at my dojo (Joe thambu, 6th dan) My 4th kyu grading, despite it being a 44.6 degree (celcius) day, I triumphed, note it was the day after the jiu waza.
1. seeing people be impressed with my students. 2. tapping out a monster who outweighed me by 110 pounds. 3. winning all challenge matches at the gym. 4. dropping a 5th degree wtf tkd blackbelt with a spinning hook kick. 5. my instructor telling a pro boxing coach i have big-time power.
Great stuff guys! Very impresive. Keljian, best of luck for your senshusei. You have had the honour of training with some great people! Faster than you, you knocked out a 5th degree tkd fighter? WITH A SPINNING HOOK KICK? Wow! I have three highlights, that all happened on the same day, at a National tournament for my club: There was a student in my class that stuggled for a while, so we worked on a kata together for a long time, and she won gold with it at the Tournament. After that I picked up my 2nd and 3rd National gold medals(1 in kata, 1 in kumite). In the quarter final of the kumite, I landed the most spectacular move I have ever used in sparring(spinning hook kick, followed by same leg spinning sweep). And it was on the guy who beat me the year before!
Loads of them but here is a few My first black belt i hurt for a whole week after My second Black belt myself and two others taking it under the watchful eyes of Mike Lambert think he was 8th dan at the time no one else present in what felt like the biggest room in the world, My 2nd Duan from Nigel Sutton an unexpected pleasure. Passing my shiatsu exams. My very first seminar where i was one of the teachers and the number of people that came up afterwards saying that they had not realised Tai Chi was an effective martial art.
Thanks for the compliments and encoragement, it's good when you train with some of the best, you learn a lot quickly. Your achievements are just as highly valued however and you shouldn't discount them at all so keep up the good work
i've got plenty, heres a few. 1. having my jujitsu instructor tell me i'm one of the greatest fighters hes ever met. 2. Having all my coaches suggest i join the UFC. 3. sparring with my MT coach. 4. KOing a 2nd dan TKD fighter with a straight knee to the face and welcoming him to reality. 5. seeing the look on the guys face when he realized his nose was now on the far left side of his cheek. 6. pushing my limits. 7. Developing a good relationship with my jujitsu coach.
check me out 1. having my tai bo instuctor tell me im the worst tai bo'er shes ever seen 2. having all my coaches tell me to lay off the KFC 3. sparring with my parol officer 4. getting KOed with a knee to the face and being brought back to reality 5. plastic surgeon bill 6. finding my limit in 20 seconds 7. developing a good relationship with my mother
1.Nearly every time we do a "jumping type" kick having Sensi say in a **BAD**(on purpose) chinese accent "you kick lights out" or "you fly like eagle" (like back leg switch round, or jump front kick, or tornado kick) 2. Tornado Kicks, I love them, they look cool, and I can nearly touch the ceiling (8ft.) with my foot on a good one. 3. Anytime I get to teach the kids - they are funny and it's fun to see them learn techniques.
As my MA career has only been very short so far... ..my highlights have been achieving my 9.th Kyu in Seiki-Juku, one belt higher than I previously held in Shotokan, talking briefly to Frank Perry before I joined the dojo, our red belt class being called "one of the best ever with alot of talent" by the chief instructor and meeting two buddies in the dojo, Dan and John. And concerning love...well, we'll have to see about that one.....
My biggest highlight is also my biggest frustration: starting judo at the age of 11 and being told (they told my parents, who told me afterwards ) i was one of the biggest talents they ever came across (been asked for demonstrations when i only held a yellow belt at the time). At the age of 12/13 my teachers told me that i - for the sake of my progression - should stop training with my age group and move up to the group of 16+ year olds. I was already only training with my trainers during our classes at that time. But, i had so much fun with the guys from my class that i didn't want to leave them and i was also a bit afraid of joining the other group (because they were older and i was also scared that my 'talent' would be lost there). Another reason i dropped out in the end was because i got bored with doing the same things over and over again (remember age ). My trainers kept on talking to my parents to get me back to judo but they (especially my mother, coz my father wished i would stay there) allowed me make my own choices. Now i will always wonder what would have become of me if only i had stayed there. Oh, and a couple of years later (17 at the time) i was taking karate lessons and i was paired with another newcomer for randori on the ground. Our fight lasted the longest and in the end the other guy pinned me down. He then asked me if i did judo. I told him that i had trained in judo for a good 2 years and then quit. He was astounded seeing as he was a black belt judo-practicioner and competitor. He told me that if i were in better shape i would have won from him... Sorry for my long post...
I don't have many great highlights right now. I'd have to say my biggest (which is still pretty insignificant, because no one even remembers) was at the beginning of the year, when I was going up against this red belt from another school who outranked my and outweighed me by a huge amount (he was also probably nearly twice my age, but that didn't really slow him down). He threw himself at me to try to take me down to the ground, and everyone in the audience (small audience, from our two schools) shouted "ohhhh!", thinking I was going to get flattened on the mat. I didn't budge, so he tried a different takedown and ended up lying flat on his back while I was still standing.
I'm only a high red belt, we really don't have highlights. I guess we're not really doing much other than training.