01209dom’s Weblog

The second beach party of 2008 was also the venue for Master James’ birthday, and fortunately the weather was considerably better this time. It was a much bigger crowd this time which meant it was a bit of a squeeze fitting all of our tents into the bunker, but we managed it in the end. I had taken a stroll down to Argos on my lunch break and picked up a new tent myself as my old one had just about had it. Being slightly larger than my previous tent, it was a little trickier to put up. I think a few people took amusement in watching me fumble around for the best part of half an hour putting the damn thing up, but in the end it looked pretty impressive if I don’t say so myself.

We were a little short on fire wood on the previous outing, so me and James decided to go in search of some pallets the night before. After successfully evading CCTV cameras in the back of Tesco Extra, we managed to steal four decent sized ones. Everyone else chipped in too, and in the end we had half the amazon stocked up ready for burning.

After the camp was set up, a few of us went and checked out the sunset. The whole sky was bright red and made the perfect backdrop to a really nice group picture. By this point the beers had come out and it wasn’t just wood we had plenty of! We had enough alcohol to get half of Cornwall drunk, and I think its fair to say that a few members ‘peaked’ a little early. One member of the group even managed to sneak off and go to sleep in his car at the criminally early time of about half ten. This was never going to be allowed, so we assembled a four man assault team to ruin his slumber. After quietly creeping up we decided that the best method of waking a sleeping person in a car, is with a flashbang on the bonet. This didn’t seem to work, so it was onto phase two; rock the car. By doing this we also managed to set the alarm off too! He stirred a bit, but it became clear that he wasn’t going to return to the party so we let him off. He did have work in the morning I suppose.

Our stealth mission wasn’t over as we decided to creep up on the rest of the group, and managed to get right into the camp before realising that they new we were coming the whole time. The rest of the night was spent sat around the fire, playing guitar and chatting before going to bed. Remarkably I had managed to actually stay dry for the entire night and for the first time in ages, woke up with dry clothes! I also needed to spill some fluid really badly because it was raining in the night and I didn’t want to get up. Got a bladder like a camel I have.

I was never going to make it through a whole camping trip without getting soaked through at least once, and as we were packing up the tents the heavens opened and it hammered it down. Soaked again.

That couldn’t bring me down as I had another awesome night and hopefully Rob enjoyed his birthday as much as I did.

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It’s been long overdue, at least two years since the last one. But last Saturday we braved the weather and hit the dunes for the first beach party of the year. Unfortunately having been sunny for most of the week the rain decided to show up right in time for the evening, literally starting to hammer it down as we left Camborne. Being seasoned campers this was never going to put us off, so we stomped over the dunes and set up camp. I hadn’t really prepared that well and soon realised that I didn’t have any poles for my tent, so luckily I was able to crash in Aj’s. It continued to rain so we all sat in the tents and had a few drinks, including a bottle of apple sours with a glow stick in it for fun, paid for by our lottery syndicate win! I had pretty much decided that we were going to be bound to the tents for the duration, but then suddenly the rain stopped.

Straight away we got a nice fire going and a few people lit up a barbeque. It was a lot better being sat around a hot fire playing some acoustics and having a laugh and even better for me because I could dry out one of my shoes which I had accidentally left in the rain. For some reason I always get soaked when we go camping and it was no different this time, as first my shoe, then my trousers and even my bloody hat got drenched. I am seriously starting to believe I am cursed!

We had a traditional midnight hike over the dunes in a desperate attempt to find some fire wood, but most of us spent a lot of it falling over due to the combination of alcohol and wet grass. Unfortunately we returned with no wood and a little bit wetter but it was very amusing.

I awoke in the morning to find a cheeky little dog in our tent and had to scare him off with a biro I found nearby. I then noticed that my clothes were soaking wet from the night before. This made me proper grumpy and I refused to get out of my sleeping bag for some time. All in all it was a great night and a welcome relief for me due to some slightly troubled times I have been having.

It may seem like I have been a bit subdued recently, which I suppose I have. This has been picked up by a few people including some of my friends and also my mum, who keeps commenting on how quiet and distant I am. I haven’t been feeling myself for a while now and although I haven’t really mentioned it, last week was one of the worst weeks I have had for a very long time. My boss even called me into his office and asked me if there was something bothering me in my private life. I didn’t really know what to say, just that I was feeling tired. It just feels like there is immense pressure on me at the moment and I have so many things on my mind.

Training, as always has been a welcome relief to me over the last couple of weeks, helping to take my mind off my things in and out of work. It was also really good being able to spend time with my friends at the beach party and I look forward to the next one.

I have been afraid of something happening so much that when it didn’t happen, I actually started wishing it had…

It’s taken me a while to write for some reason, but on Sunday 11^th May, the Viper Squad returned to St Austell for the S-Factor regionals hosted by Ashiita Kai Karate. I attended last year but only as a camera man and really wished I had entered. The reason I didn’t was because I was a 9^th gup (I think) and thought that I wasn’t ready for competitive fighting, although now I wished I had because it is really good experience even if you get your ass kicked.

My last tournament was the EMTF Europeans last October, so it has been a while since my last competition which left me a little nervous to say the least. This was mainly down to the fact that I was entering three categories this time as opposed to just one; adult point stop. As a few of my team mates were the same grade as I am now last year and had performed Pyung Ahn Ee Dan, I thought that I would have a go at performing it myself this time round. Also with a bit of gentle persuasion I also entered into Adults Continuous too!

Last year the forms section came first before the sparring, so I was caught a little of guard when I was dressed in my traditional dobok waiting to perform my form only to hear my name announced for my first fight. I had to dash off and get my pads on super fast to make it.

My opponent was roughly the same size as myself and wore a brown belt with a tag or two, so I new I was in for a tough one straight away! He was a pretty offensive fighter from the start, and he came straight at me every time. This I don’t mind too much as I rely quite a lot on my defence and counter attack, but I just couldn’t get into it in the beginning. I dropped a couple of points early on and was playing catch up all the way, which meant I had to commit myself a lot more which generally leaves me a lot more vulnerable. I did manage to turn the fight a bit, scoring a nice quick backfist to the head which felt good. Unfortunately I couldn’t make up for the earlier points dropped and lost. He was a really nice guy and thanked me for a great fight which was really nice to hear. Ability wise, I think I would have been lucky to beat him, so I wasn’t too disappointed.

No sooner had the fight finished, my name was called out for the adult forms. Ah bloody brilliant! I again had to sprint over to the mat and (literally) throw off my pads and run over to the judges to register. Its wasn’t the best preparation I had hoped for to say the least, as my head was still in fight mode and I didn’t have time to run through my form beforehand.

I don’t think that I made the mistakes that I was worried about making, although it was definitely not the best performance of Pyung Ahn Ee Dan I have done by a long shot! I came second and won a trophy but this was via default and had there been more competitors I probably wouldn’t have won it, which is a little hard to swallow. My friends reminded me of how much hard work I have put into training for the category, but in my heart of hearts I still don’t think I realistically earned it.

My last category was adults continuous which for some strange reason I was looking forward to. I think it’s because of the new ‘points accumulator’ system we have now incorporated into our Viper Squad sessions which is pretty much continuous sparring. I haven’t done too badly in these sessions so maybe that’s why I was up for it, and sods law I got paired up with Aj. I was really hoping for someone of a different club, but as it turned out it was a really good fight. The whole category was a bit disappointing as the referee’s were restricting the amount of contact to a comical level, but despite loosing I had a really enjoyable fight and both myself and Aj were praised at the end for a disciplined and very entertaining fight by the judges.

I left the competition with mixed opinions.

From a personal perspective which is also the slightly negative side, I felt that although I had contributed to the team’s silverware collection I didn’t really deserve it, and it was only after a reassuring chat with my good friend James in the car park afterwards that I started to feel better.

The most important and most pleasing aspect of the day was that the club won a combined total of eighteen trophies and were clearly the most prominent and successful team. I feel privileged to have been a part of the squad and am deeply proud of all of my friends and team mates who competed and did so well, including the three junior sisters who represented the club superbly in their first comp. Everyone went into the competition without fear and with full confidence, and that is why we are continuing to grow and expand as a club and establish our art of Tang Soo Do on the local scene as a major force to be reckoned with!