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In preparation of Roy's surgery, we're probably going to have sparring quite a lot until he goes in. This is because he's not going to be able to kick anyone for a while afterward. Oh he'll be able to punch ya, but he gets more pleasure from kicking you in the face and watching you writhe on the floor while he laughs at you. So I have that to look forward to on Monday, and that excites me. I haven't gotten a good kumite in for well over three months I think, so it's very badly needed at this point.

There's a problem though, and I'll have to go into a bit of backstory with this one, as it contains mostly an ongoing in-joke that some of the guys throw around. Basically, every so often we'll get a guy join up because he either watches too much MMA on the telly, or he's really anxious to "fight." I'll tell you why I put that in quotations later... So these sorts often come off as enthusiastic and ready to practice every day, except when it gets down to it, they half-a** everything. I'm not talking just cutting numbers, they don't even have the technique to crease the knees in their uniform. In recent years, there have been a few more memorable figures to fill this role, one was a grotesquely overweight man of the ginger variety, and the other was a very tall and questionably sane sort. They're referred to as "Big Red" and the "Gearhead" respectively (the latter name came from this massive oil stain on his uniform).

These guys would show up to class, make us smack our foreheads and tell them what they're doing wrong, and make us smack ourselves again. It's that bad. Basically, they weren't in for the art of it at all, and wanted to spar every day. This isn't so much of a problem so long as everyone gets ample practice on their technique on the side, but they didn't want to practice routines or anything that required much effort. So they showed up during sparring days, and what's worse is that they always picked the smaller guys or girls to fight with. This starts their douche baggery off and gets them enough infamy to necessitate someone kicking them through a wall in the the case of Big Red. That guy... I don't think I have words to describe what kind of nails he scratches my chalkboard with.

For instance, I'm a pretty short guy, so he'd try to go at me quite often, and he'd go as hard as he could. For a 400lbs guy that tall, he really should have at least been able to hit hard, so basically I felt sorry for him and let him off with taps (you tag the guy with enough control to show him he'd have been hit). He never got the hint though and kept "picking on me." Somewhere along the line, people just got sick of Big Red, so all the little girls started beating him, which was pretty hilarious actually. I kind of wish that he hadn't quit, because I didn't get my power kicks in. He started showing up less and less once everyone had basically put him in his place, and where ever he is right now, I really want him to have learned something from all that and stop being a douche.

The Gearhead I think is still around, but I haven't seen him in class much. He was the "guy with previous training." Much different from the giant guy that nobody really wanted to mess with, but still generally the same problem. He had no technique, and he half-assed every detail until we got to the fighting portion. Then he'd just try to beat the other guy up, trading hits as he may. I would liken him to they way big guys fight when they think they can take any hit they want. This is generally a stupid strategy, because, done properly, it only takes a slight knock to make you KO. He'd have to stop every so often for a broken nose. But yeah, no control for the less experienced, little respect for what we're doing, and has issues following directions. His issue with following directions is because he thinks he knows what he's doing, because as I stated earlier, he's the guy with "previous training." He must have half-assed that stuff too, because it looks like he started just last week to me. Still, it was funny when he tried to pull drunken kung fu during the first sparing session, because he got smacked around quite a bit.

With that backstory out of the way, I must impress that I see a little of both of them in the new "Gearhead"... The guy obviously reeks of the "I've gotten belts before" attitude, and brags about his previous "fights." He's a very tall, skinny guy, who has a dingy yellow gi that started out white. He doesn't bend his knees, and his hand movements are like a five year old kid's! He's already placed the challenge to hurt one of the blackbelts, and I can only guess what he's going to get for it. He looks like the type to be punch heavy, so he's likely going to get the wind kicked out of his lungs until he falls down weaping. Either that, or he's going to try his hand on taekwondo and get his nose filleted off (which reminds me of another douche-baggy guy that had to be put in his place razz ). So, I'm hoping he starts out on the right foot so nothing bad happens to him. Hopefully he doesn't pick me to challenge the higher ranks, because I really don't feel like hurting someone. I imagine it's going to cause a vendetta, and I'm going to have to deal with him first thing every kumite... =_= It'd get quite annoying.

Oh yeah, I said I'd explain why I put that word in quotes up there. Basically, nobody wants to pick with a big guy. You know it's true, people feel safe with big dudes as friends, because people see a big guy and think "wow, he must be strong!" It's not always the case though, because they get that treatment naturally, whether they're strong or not, so they don't usually get into all that many fights unless they start them themselves, and usually if they see someone bigger than them, they'll probably think "Well, what should I do with him? I might not have the skill to get him down," so they tend to fight smaller or weaker guys. This said, smaller guys tend to get into more uphill battles this way, and generally when you have a guy like my height, he usually has to go through more trials than a bigger dude, simply because we get picked on. I'm not going to lie, I got picked on (I'm not going to lie again, I'd say less than half of them regretted it in high school). So, I don't put much faith in the taller guys, unless I know they put their grit in during practice. So you shouldn't really take a guy's size into account when sizing them up. This is why I tend to doubt some of the bigger guys when they brag about their past fights, because I'm sure the guy was either a lot smaller than him, or he never went for anyone he thought would over power him.

So in summation: We're going to spar next week, I have a feeling someone is going to pull a d**k move or two, and I'm probably going to feel bad when he's sitting out the last few rounds... Yeah, I don't like hurting people, so I'm usually very easy going.

Oh! I'm also going to have to practice Judo a lot in the coming weeks, because he's probably going to test us for our belts soon. I hate testing for belts, because people generally get the wrong idea about them. I do think they're necessarry though, because the instructor needs to know what you know and what you don't so you don't end up getting injured or falling behind. So, I think he's going to need to know which of us he can throw, and which of us he can't, because some of the students haven't studied Judo just yet. Which means I'm going to have to work on tomoe nage... =_= I can never do that throw right...