In another tournament Saturday

[fa_jing]

Results to follow.

So should I throw'em, or try to knock them out? One catch: your not supposed to knock'em out.

[fa_jing]

Another catch: I'm only just learning to throw.

[Martial Joe]

Do what you have to do man...what you asked is stupid, not being mean...sorry..

[Water Dragon]

So how'd it go?

[fa_jing]

Pretty good, but not great. There were three times as many people at this one, including 9 competitors in what they called continous sparring, but turned out to be full-contact this time. I beat my first opponent Victor, who's associated with Sifu Miller's school (Sev's school) in Memphis. My co-student lost his first bout. Then I got knocked out by my next opponent, a very experienced martial artist. My sifu had to throw in the towel in the second round - I wanted to keep going, but it's a very good thing he stopped it. I had gotten rocked once and almost had to quit, then kept going for a while, then apparently my sifu asked them to stop while a haymaker was on it's way to rock me a second time, and the gentleman was nice enough to pull his punch.

[fa_jing]

I also participated in push hands, another of Sev's friends beat me in that one. I don't remember his name - 5'6" white guy, 34 years old, real nice guy and he knew Wing Chun, Tai Chi, and Shaolin. I pulled a silver in Wing Chun forms and first in Southern forms - a gimme, my only competition was a man with a mullet. The full-contact was for real this time, there were far fewer throws because everyone was hitting hard. It was a little like Toughman, lots of punches and little defense. Those who won were those who had the better boxing skills, plain and simple. I have a nice purple mark on my forehead and felt light-headed for about ten minutes after my match - I've had worse. I really wanted to finish the bout, but live to fight another day, you know? Safety first is best.

[fa_jing]

Besides me, one person got Knocked TF out 20 seconds into his match with an uppercut, and another got a cut on his nose. They were both wearing cage headgear - shows you how much that does. Both were declared losers - thus it was true full contact, albeit with rules. They let me use my regular Thai headgear this time. I want to come back in a year and be a match for the top guys - there were about 3-4 there that outclassed me.

[MonkeySlap Too]

There were probably fewer throws because no one knew how - the harder the contact, the easier it is to throw somebody.

Another good effort fa Jing. Let's see if we can spend a little extra time when I'm out next.

[fa_jing]

Martial Joe - I was just trying to stir up conversation last night. It's like asking, what should I eat, a cheesesteak or a pizza? Just talking sh!t.

[MonkeySlap Too]

Although you still do not know how to tell the story of your battles like a true martial artist.

Here are some tips:

a 'gimme' is when you face 100 mulleted opponents with FANGS.

you never fight somebodies friend - you fight the embittered bastarrd son of your sifu's first wife, who was scorned because she ate the hearts of men.

somewhere in there, you needed to feel completely overwhelmed, until you heard the voice of your teacher say "listen my son, trust no one. You can count on only yourself. Hardern your body, become a NUMBER ONE MAN! Do not let anyone beat you." At which point you kicked the guys @ss.

[SevenStar]

Congrats on the tourney man. Glad to hear it turned out well. The guy that beat you in push hands sounds like bill - he's been doing wing chun for years. How did the fight with vic go? I wonder if they taped it. What did you beat him with?

[fa_jing]

First of all, Bill and Vic asked me to say what's up to you. Excellent dudes (plays air guitar :)).
I used the right hook, the right hook, and more of the right hook to beat Victor. Otherwise it was even. He told me he had never fought with heavy gloves before - he did a real good job for his first time. He hit me with a few good shots and my neck was a little sore afterwards. My sifu was very happy with my first bout - he said that's good, find a weakness and keep attacking it over and over again. Both of us landed a couple kicks, but I am more and more convinced that as Bruce Lee said, the best puncher usually wins the bout. Victor showed some heart, he didn't get frustrated and he had his moments. We got it on film, although I don't have a copy of the video yet.

[SevenStar]

cool, glad to hear it. Sifu has a 16 year old son named uriel who is phenomenal - did you get to see him?

[fa_jing]

I had a lot of fun pushing with Bill. My one great moment was a clean shoulder strike, otherwise he dominated and threw me at least 3 times cleanly in the free-style section (2 minutes) of the match. Sifu Miller is awesome. I got to judge him in weapons sparring. He took out some japanese sword stylists. He was almost going to participate in the sparring, but switched off with one of his advanced students at the last moment. That student was the winner of the middle-weight division and totally outclassed his opponents. Great puncher.

[fa_jing]

I'm not sure who Uriel is. He wouldn't have competed in the continuous sparring, which was for 18+ years.

[SevenStar]

Do you use AIM or yahoo pager?

[SevenStar]

what weapon was he using? kwan dao? The student he probably switched with was antone - did he look hispanic?

[fa_jing]

AIM or yahoo pager - no, I don't know what that is.

Sifu Miller performed with a Kwan Dao, and wore a elaborate gold clothing getup when he did.

The student he switched with, was not going to compete in any way and seemed to just be helping out up to that point. He didn't have any sort of martial arts uniform, and seemed like he might have had a boxing or kick-boxing background. He was a black guy and looked similar to Sifu Miller like his cousin or something, they both had their heads shaved and wore mustaches, the guy I'm describing was pretty cut and in good shape. After he won the middle-weight division, he asked to participate in the heavy weight division, fortunately for the heavy weights, they didn't let him because this guy was the best fighter out there. I myself made the heavyweight division by 1 pound, I weighed in at 179 and the cut-off was 179 and up. Doesn't matter much, though.

[SevenStar]

Does the name Danny ring a bell? What about Jabari? Those are his two brothers, both of which are into MA. His intro to martial arts was training under one of them, who at the time trained in the green dragon society...

[fa_jing]

Could've been Danny. And "student" was definitely the wrong term. Ask your Sifu about it. BTW, they miss you down there, maybe you should stop by.

[fa_jing]

Actually both names ring a bell, it had to be one of his brothers. Maybe the reason why they both ring a bell is that my bell got rung? :D

[SevenStar]

:D could be. I've heard good things about both of them, so it coulda been either one. yeah, due to solo training, bjj and judo, I haven't been there in a while. I talk to sifu on a fairly regular basis though, as I'm currently making his website.

[NPMantis]

I went to one on Sunday, it was a joke, all about boxing skills and aggression, I saw hardly any technique and the people who won were the ones who were friends of the judges, it was a complete load of pants, but a real eye-opener.

[fa_jing]

The judging at our tournament was fine. I forgot to mention that Bill took second place in his catagory in push hands. Also, many parts of my body are now hurting. I definitely got my neck yanked, fortunately it's on the other side from my last neck strain. It was a good wake-up call, I feel excited to come back next year and be equal with those guys (except for Sifu Miller's brother). My strategy could have been a lot better, I didn't play good defense and didn't execute a game plan. It hard not to lose it mentally when you are competing! This was great experience, the turnout for the tournament was awesome, 14 total full-contact fighters.

MS2 - If your reading, yes I think some shaui would have gone well with all of our fight games.

[SevenStar]

glad to hear that it went well! how did you end up placing in the full contact? I think shuai is something we all need to work on. I'm definitely working on making it a bigger part of my game.

[fa_jing]

I made it kind of complicated above: There were 9 fighters in my catagory (heavyweight). I won my first match (against Victor) and lost my second. That puts me in 4th place as there were 5 guys that lost their first fight, including the fighter that had received a bye. The top three guys each won more than once. Unfortunately they didn't give out a medal for 4th place.

Many styles were represented in both middle and heavy weight catagories, particularly Karate and Shaolin. Also wing chun/JKD (2 of us), one Muy Thai guy, and one unknown style guy, who was the one that beat me. He was wearing a t-shirt that said "Integrated defense systems" or something like that. I didn't get a chance to talk to him after the tourney was over. Apparently he's well known in the tournament circuit here.