Chidokan Misogi 2011

Once again the anual misogi had finally arrived for our dojo. Like last year, we had to get up before 6.30am and had to be there before then. So mum and I got up earlier. I think my mum woke up at 4.50am and then she woke me up.

We arrived at Mission Bay, near the fountain and it was freezing cold. Luckily, it wasn't raining like last time. There were people from the Papatoetoe dojo, North Shore dojo and the main dojo New Lynn. Misogi is compulsory for people who are green belts and higher. Everyone that was there assembled by the grassy area. Our sensei said to get in a circle for basics. It's kind of like a warmup, where we do basic punching and kicking. 15 minutes later, our sensei instructed us to get into groups for kata. There were three groups, one for the black belts, one for the purples and brown belts and anyone who was lower than those belts, in the third group. We practiced our kata over and over again perfecting our moves. With that finished, we headed for the beach and were knee deep in the ice water. We got into two lines for free sparring. I felt like my feet were sinking in the sand and I couldn't move as fast as I wanted to. While sparring, I got dunked in the water about four times from higher belts and even my sensei who wasn't my opponent. I had a lot of fun and I can't wait for next year.

*Chidokan Karate lessons are Monday and Wednesday at 6pm-7pm held at the Alan Brewster Recreation Centre in Papatoetoe.

Kata-thon 25/09/10

"Wake up Darius, it's time to go to your kata-thon!", my mum shouted. "Okay" as I got myself lazily dressed in to my gii (my karate uniform). We drove to Mt Eden War Memorial Hall because that's where it was held. As we approched the hall people were already there waiting for the doors to open. When it opened we all walked into the hall and started to warmup and get ourselves ready. Parker-shihan (my sensei) told us to get a form to sign so that you can say that you have done fifty katas and for us to mark off everytime we did one kata.
Some of the black belts were on stage and on the ground with us. The blue, green, orange and purple belts were on the left side and other black belts were on the right side of the hall. When we all started I was watching the black belt kata up on stage it was a really long one. After doing a set of 10 kata I had a break and got myself a drink of water. When I got to my thirtieth kata I was so tired and exhausted that I somtimes I missed out certain moves in my kata and wasn't actually doing it properly. So once I reached fifty katas I did some more to make up for the ones that weren't done properly. When some of us were finished we couldn't leave because we had to get our forms signed off by Parker-shihan. He was busy doing his 50 kata too.
Instead Paka-shihan said that all the people that were finised had to have a kata competion to see who could do their kata the best. I had to buddy up with a person that had the same belt as me and then I had to pick the kata I wanted to do. I did really well but this young girl was the overall winner. After all the black belts were done they signed off on our forms and we were allowed to go. I had a good day and it was a good experience for me. I can't wait to become a black belt.

* A kata-thon is an event where you do one kata 50 times and get sponsored for it.

Chidokan Misogi Video

Here is the footage from Sunday 20th June, Mission Bay at 6.30am

Chidokan Misogi 2010

"Wake up!" yelled mum. "But it's only five o'clock" I said. "It's time to go to your karate class at Mission Bay" replied mum. On Sunday 20th June, while most of Auckland were still sleeping, my mum and I got ready to go to Mission Bay. When we arrived, I saw lots of people both young and old already there. It was raining and still dark. We began our session by warming up in a big circle doing our basics. Our main Sensei led us in three lines and we did line work on the grass area just outside the toilets. After we finished our basics, we stood ankle deep in the freezing water. All of us had to do some gyu-pon (I'm not sure if that's spelt right) and basic sparring. When I did gyu-pon I did a take down on this boy, who I think was a higher belt - he ended up in the water and I stood over him. I felt really cold when it finished, everyone was soaked. I explained to my mum how cold the water was and said, "Next year I'm coming to do it again". Mum just laughed.

Chidokan Fightathon May 2010

“Iyaahh!” I do karate, it is a form of martial arts. On Saturday we had a Fightathon. “What is a Fightathon?” you ask, well it is when you have 30 fights against grades that higher than yellow belt. We only got to spar for two minutes. First I was scared because of the black belts, all the other higher grades and the adults who were all part of the Fightathon. There were only four people from my Dojo. My first fight was against a person from my dojo. I was punching, kicking, foot sweeping and trying to score as many points as I could. Did you know that sparring is like trying to hit them as many times as you can to score points. The fights I really hated was when I had to fight against the black belts. Like I had to fight against this old man that was a black belt. It was two against one. We got wasted by him…far, I punched in the mouth by him and it was wet as. Yuck!

I train every Monday and Wednesday at the Alan Brewster Recreation Centre in Old Papatoetoe from 5.45pm - 6.45pm.