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rain and karate
May. 24th, 2002 02:16 pmAfter three days of rain the sun came back yesterday. On the one hand it's great - warmer, can dry washing etc - and on the other hand we're still on the edge of drought. This was really brought home to me on Sunday, when we drove up to Stawell. The grass up north is the dying yellow colour that I associate with drought. Not quite the dustbowl paddocks of 82/83 but heading that way. My family moved from North Central Victoria to Gippsland during that drought and I remember being amazed at how green West Gippsland was. No dying sheep in paddocks, no mobs being driven along the side of the road to feed on the only remaining grass of the long paddock, no completely empty and sun-cracked dams. Just green hills with dairy cattle. (Where we moved to was declared a drought area for three days, then it rained. Where we came from had been a drought area for close to 3 months when we moved.) On the drive back to Melbourne the role of the Divide came into focus - no rain all day in Stawell, but light rain as we neared Ballarat and then it poured coming into Melbourne.
We went north for a karate tournament. I don't do karate, neither does Dean, but the Escrima mob he trains with are involved with karate and they run Escrima demos/competitions at these events. There were quite a large number of kids who turned up for the tournament. Each karate offshoot has its own colours apparently, so there were groups of kids in the white PJs, in black PJs (much cooler, especially when you had a white v black bout - very Star Wars) in blue, blue with red stripe, black with white stripe - and a couple of adults in red. It was funny watching the littler kids before the tournament - as kids do they were running around and playing, only these ones were also aiming well directed kicks and punches. Knowing nothing about karate I was guessing winners on the basis of aggression showed - it's suprising how often I was right.
The other suprising thing for me was the differences in the way the older girls and older boys fought. In the lower age divisions boys and girls fight each other (there's not the same strength/weight/height disparities as after puberty) but after about 14 they're separated. The boys did a lot more punching, moving in closer and really getting in their opponents faces, whereas the girls preferred kicking and being further away. That was only in the lower grades though - by the time you had the higher grades both were doing more kicking (1 kick = 2 punches) and were further back. The aggression levels were about the same between genders though, as was the number of illegal blows.
The stick fighting bouts - that we went up for - were pretty short. Not suprising given that there was one novice grade (with 3 people in it) and 1 advanced grade (again with 3 people). Each person fights at least 2 bouts, which last for a minute. So all in all the Escrima went for about 20 minutes (time between bouts included). Dean tried to get me to fight so they could run a women's bout, but given that I'm a complete novice and the other two women there were blue and instructor levels respectively I declined. And I refuse to fight in workboots unless I absolutely have to. :-)
It was a nice day, but given the time and petrol output I'm kind of glad that the next tournament is in Ringwood, which is approximately 2 hours closer to us. And no, I haven't started Escrima or karate training. Everyone trains nights, which I work. :-) That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
We went north for a karate tournament. I don't do karate, neither does Dean, but the Escrima mob he trains with are involved with karate and they run Escrima demos/competitions at these events. There were quite a large number of kids who turned up for the tournament. Each karate offshoot has its own colours apparently, so there were groups of kids in the white PJs, in black PJs (much cooler, especially when you had a white v black bout - very Star Wars) in blue, blue with red stripe, black with white stripe - and a couple of adults in red. It was funny watching the littler kids before the tournament - as kids do they were running around and playing, only these ones were also aiming well directed kicks and punches. Knowing nothing about karate I was guessing winners on the basis of aggression showed - it's suprising how often I was right.
The other suprising thing for me was the differences in the way the older girls and older boys fought. In the lower age divisions boys and girls fight each other (there's not the same strength/weight/height disparities as after puberty) but after about 14 they're separated. The boys did a lot more punching, moving in closer and really getting in their opponents faces, whereas the girls preferred kicking and being further away. That was only in the lower grades though - by the time you had the higher grades both were doing more kicking (1 kick = 2 punches) and were further back. The aggression levels were about the same between genders though, as was the number of illegal blows.
The stick fighting bouts - that we went up for - were pretty short. Not suprising given that there was one novice grade (with 3 people in it) and 1 advanced grade (again with 3 people). Each person fights at least 2 bouts, which last for a minute. So all in all the Escrima went for about 20 minutes (time between bouts included). Dean tried to get me to fight so they could run a women's bout, but given that I'm a complete novice and the other two women there were blue and instructor levels respectively I declined. And I refuse to fight in workboots unless I absolutely have to. :-)
It was a nice day, but given the time and petrol output I'm kind of glad that the next tournament is in Ringwood, which is approximately 2 hours closer to us. And no, I haven't started Escrima or karate training. Everyone trains nights, which I work. :-) That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
