Waza kai 2006 September 5 20:17
Posted by diamond in : Health,Random , add a commentFor 8 months back in 2004, starting at the same time as i went back to college, i started doing combat ju-jitsu with the waza kai club here in limerick. The style taught there is a pretty varied mix of different martial arts. Mike, the instructor, had taken the ground-fighting from brazillian ju-jitsu, the grappling from judo, and the striking from traditional ju-jitsu, mui thai, kick boxing and taekwondo. The various styles were combined with a focus on practical street defense, with a minimum of ceremony. I really really enjoyed it, especially the ground-fighting.
After about 8 months i had gotten promoted up a few belt colours, and was working on my green belt, the first serious one in the syllabus. I was training twice a week, 2 hours each Tuesday and Thursday. I had also taking part in the full-contact sparring class on saturday morning, with an eye to taking part in some of the mixed-martial-arts competitions that are run in ireland. One saturday i was sparring with a partner, another steve as it happens. The drill was to start off at striking distance, perform a takedown on your partner and go for a submission, while they were attempting the same thing on you ,-) I was pretty terrified; i’d only been to a couple of sessions of sparring before, and i was very unsure of myself. Still, that’s one of the reasons i was doing it, to get more comfortable with putting the skills i was being taught into practise.
After circling the mat a few times, trading blows, steve went in for a takedown. Steve was an impressive martial artist (and has since become truly terrifying -), he’d been a judo champion for most of his teen-age years, had a really natural flow to his balance and techniques, very focused. He did a judo leg-sweep (which one precisely i’ve no idea -), knocking my legs from underneath me. However, as i fell onto the mat, i twisted awkwardly (me, awkward? never), causing him to trip also. I landed on my back, with my leg out to one side, and my left foot was lying on its side. So far so good. Until all his weight landed, via his knee, onto the side of my foot. Crunch. Oops.
Over the next 3 weeks, the doctors filp-flopped a lot over what was wrong. “It’s not broken”. “It’s broken”. “It’s not broken, we think”. Helpful. It didn’t really matter what they thought though, i still couldn’t walk. It was a couple of months before i was off crutches, and through seeing a physiotherapist i was finally able to do more than just walk sedately after 6 months. By then i was well out of the habit of going to training, and life started to get real busy. That’s a year and a half ago. Life has finally started to quiet down a bit, and now i’m leaving limerick ,-)
I called into waza kai tonight, to see some of the people i used to train with, chatted to mike for a while. It was really good be back there, even if it was just visiting. I do miss it, and when i’m somewhat settled in dublin i must hunt down a suitable club up there to go training with. I’m just hoping i don’t end up breaking my foot again -)