deralte | karate

Did karate again today, and I have to say that painkillers are my friend. It's interesting to see the differences in the art compared to the taijutsu, which I was trained in. At karate they believe in building up a resistance by repetitive motions, ie getting a person used to being hit by letting them hit and get hit repeatedly over and over. This is very useful if you do sports karate since you are going to be hit repeatedly and in the same spot. But for self defense it's not useless, but it's not going to help you much either. If you get into a real fight, your addrenaline will be going, you might not even feel the hit, but if you do, you're supposed to just keep on fighting, so if you're tough or not doesn't really matter until you count the bruises at the end. So, since taijutsu is entirely defense oriented, we don't train for these things, but being a black belt, I am training with all their senior grades at karate, therefore since they're used to it and aren't pulling their moves (not that I am either...) - I have some fasinating bruises developing on my forearms. And since these bruises are developing on top of the less obvious bruises from friday, well, it's a good thing I don't actually bruise that easy. Now if only my blackbelt would actually arrive...