During my short stint in San Sou I got the opportunity to train at the Ging Wu in Edmonton in traditional San Sou by a San Sou judge and competitor. I believe it was Sifu Greg, and anyone that was there please correct me if I'm wrong. He came up from Calgary and put a "Training Session" together that was very well done and fun. We went thru the rules, the scoring, the ring  and some basic but effective moves. It was done to hopefully generate some more interest in the sport in the west. We were there for several hours and, at the end, got to compete against some students from other schools.

     Now if you've been in a SRKF tournament and have sparred you know it can get intense and that's with people you know, who hopefully, aren't there to hurt anything but your ego a little. Well that's what I expected when the competing was about to start. There were 2 things that stuck out in my mind, #1 the first 2 people up were Sifu Tymchuk and another guy roughy his size, and I believe Sifu Tymchuk was a Blue belt at that time but I can't recall as we weren't wearing belts so I'm not sure of the other guys rank either. It was supposed to be light controlled contact with emphasis on the clean take downs and getting your opponent out of the ring and scoring points for such.  Well it didn't start out that way, it was like 2 bulls smashing into each other and swinging. It rocked the second floor of the Ging Wu training space and set the tone for the rest of the matches. That was # 1 number 2 was when my 1st opponent, who let me know earlier he was a "white belt", did a flying kick at my head in the first second and was nearly successful. Obviously he had loads of training, after that near miss I didn't let him breath, I just kept moving forward kicking, punching, pushing. At one point I could feel his frustration and considered backing off a little but after nearly having my head kicked off, I just couldn't. There was so much more but those 2 things keep coming to mind.

     It was during this training that I came to the conclusion I don't like going to the ground. If a clean takedown put my opponent on the ground, no problem, but if might end up on the ground with him I let go and kept striking.

    This blog was supposed to go in a different direction but seemed to come easy so I went with it.


To be continued...

   

Scott Fuhr

http://scottfuhr.blogspot.ca
http://flavors.me/scottfuhr
http://www.silentriverkungfu.ca

Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."