oof
weekend of karate galore... but surprisingly relaxing. saturday i tested for the next level of brown belt and was an absolute wreck about it for the week before it. the interesting part about this test was that every skill i have in karate was tested: basics, all weapons i know, kata, kumite, and miscellaneous 'need to know' stuff. No pressure or anything. i also couldn't shake the outcome of the last test from the back of my mind. All this anxiety made my adrenaline flow overtime; so much so that my first fight with ji was like 2 concrete blocks smashing at each other (she was equal on the adrenaline level). No worries ji-chan, the wrist will be fine.

i'm sure any injuries sustained weren't helped much by the tournament on sunday. ji and i went up to aliso viejo to cheer on some teammates, and somehow i got talked into competing. Kata was decent; i was victim to the "it sucks to go first because by the end, judges forget what was good at the beginning" phenom that resulted in me getting a second place to a girl whose kata wasn't deserving of first. Not saying that mine was, just saying that she lucked out because in comparison to the 3 people that went before her, she was good, but in comparison to the group as a whole, she was OK. Silly judges. Kumite saw me facing a Mac Truck with flailing arms and legs. I peeked through my fingers to watch her fight her first round, but mostly had to hide as it was so scary. All I could think of when I got up to fight her was "dead britto walking..." My personal 'oh sh!t' moment came when homegirl pushed me into the ring next door. Yikes. But I got my 8 points on her and got outta there as quickly as possible. Next time, I ain't bringin' the gear along.