WELCOME!!!

This blog is for my family and for my martial arts friends. This is also for families who loves bonding and having a good time with their children while doing something fun and sometimes crazy stuffs.

WARNING about our videos (located on your right): We train in the traditional way and our practice vids may be a bit hard or rough to many. If you are following the "modern way or art", we are just following our tradition and have no quarrel with yours... Many thanks and ENJOY!!!


Saturday, April 27, 2013

Bye dad :)

First my apologies for being off the radar lately to share stuffs to my real life MA and military friends who are far away from me (you know who you are..), and my apologies for the visitors especially MA dads who reads my boring stories. You are all awesome! Times have been really tough especially for biz and this is why I've stayed silent these past few months... Anyway, time to start shaking off my belly fat and start moving again :)

Recent news is that my son got 1st in a Karate Full Contact Compe last month (many thanks for you guys who greeted us, that was very nice). The compe was no belt colors as always and I was not there to watch... He got a busted knee but I think he enjoyed it. I'm happy to say that after a few months since my son joined Karate, he has been promoted twice and hopefully he will reach brown soon (fingers crossed).


The reason why I'm sharing this is not because my son won but for another reason that really shocked me. A week ago my wife gently told me that it should be better if I don't watch my son during competitions. She has been trying to tell me this years ago but I was just too blind to see the facts. We had a long talk and looking at the facts, I know that she is right. Fact no.1 is that my son often lose whenever I am watching him compete. This happened a lot during his Judo days but I was too blind or to arrogant to see the facts. Fact no.2 is that he is never relaxed when I am watching. Fact no.3 is I often see my son looking or glancing at me during a fight which causes him to lose concentration. Even when he is fighting for another art is that after every fight, he goes to pay respect to his teachers and last is come to me and kneel down, bow in a very traditional martial arts way and ask for my advice or to apologize if he lost. This is very odd since I am not his main teacher during those times but he still does it which I don't know why but honestly I'm very happy and proud whenever he does that. Makes me feel like Mr. Miyagi or some fat MA master, hahaha! My wife said that probably he has a feeling of coercion or something whenever I'm around but I hope he gets through it fast.

My wife said based on what she know is that since I have been teaching him "weird" martial arts since he was a kid, probably it has been hard for my son to keep up to my expectations. She said that probably our son wanted to prove his skills to me but it just doesn't work even with the different arts that he mixes, my skills are more effective, simple and deadly. Sometimes she watches our private full contact sparring and even with his endurance, flexibility and skills, I can easily finish the spar with a thumb on this adams apple or eye. Probably he thinks that way but the truth is that he is getting very skilled and to the point that I may need to wear full body armor. Because of his other arts, sometimes he makes and combines his original techniques and uses them against me and when this happens, I've kissed the ground before I can ask for a time out, lol. Just imagine the feeling of receiving a knee to the solar plexus then an elbow to the jaw, then getting my arm twisted then slammed to the floor and then choked till I nearly pass off. Though the hits are controlled, it's still is painful... hahaha! Karate made him very flexible and agile and I really hate his heavy low kicks, he nearly broke my knee! Probably the biggest mistake is that we spar using Filipino dark combat arts and not the arts that he learned from the dojos. We tried many times to stick with dojo rules but when ever we get to serious training, all goes back to free style Filipino/military martial arts which I think we can never change. Getting slammed to the wall, dodging dirty laudry, evading sucker punches, being finger locked or getting a slap on the groin is so much fun (probably just for us, lol). He is getting more efficient and he has to accept that I'm slowly losing. I'm just good in cheating but I know that my gimmicks will not last long. Maybe all he need is to give some credit and some pride to himself and probably this will help him compete better. I really shook him down and bent his ego when I gave him 2 black belts before (MA lesson in humility) but I guess that he has to start standing up again. For fathers who are new to MA, lesson in humility is very important. We don't want to have a loose cannon do we? It is not beating or humiliation but it is about bending their ego so that they can be more responsible in life. My style was to have a full contact, no holds barred fight with my son and just toss him around like paper using only my weak hand which gave him the idea that there's lots more to learn and his black belts doesn't mean a thing. It is like emptying a cup full of water so that we can put new water inside... Don't worry if you yourself can't spar with your black belter kids because most good teachers knows how to do this. If the teacher sucks and your kids keeps beating them, you can still give some advice on humility. There are lots of ways to do this, just use your imagination. If I was not capable, I was thinking of passing him to some thugs and if he beats them all, I'll just get some more... joke-joke, HAHAHA!

Going back to the topic... About techniques... Though most arts do compliment each other, some of our techniques does not compliment most of the modern day arts and their rules. Many arts concentrate on pounding the opponent by giving heavy blows, I concentrate more on the vitals which is a big NO-NO for compes. Yes he can combine the techniques even for compe use using some limitations but tends to drop most of the skills that I know he is very effective and just try to pound his way through. He is not that good delivering blows but he is excellent in take downs and grappling but totally refrain from using them and just sticks with the techniques that he wont get a foul warning. As we all know that there is a sweet spot where a deadly techniques can be controlled and combined resulting on minimal damage to the opponent but still retaining it's effectiveness. In competition, many practitioners are very skilled with pounding techniques. If he tries to go knuckle to knuckle with a brute, he will surely drop. I know he knows but probably is still mixed up somewhere upstairs...

As of now, I am trying to refrain from training with him because I think that he will be having more fun at the dojo than with me. I am also getting too old and have problems trying to heal from the injuries that I got from him during our training. Old guys don't heal as fast as kids do, hahaha!

And for you guys who often suggest MMA for my son, my answer is a NO. He is small and those guys are huge!!! and is not a fan of the ring. Not that we don't like MMA but I guess that it's just not for us. He is more on the traditional arts side. And for you guys who asked about for what purpose and goal in teaching him dark arts, agressive riding, machinery, electronics, chem, and other BS. The answer is that I was hoping to prepare him if ever he would want to join the military or the police (or some zombie apocalypse, lol) that if ever he will be in a messy situation that he can go in, finish the job with pin point accuracy and silence, leave them clueless on what hit them, save the day and live for another. That is what my teachers have taught me and I expect that he will make the skills his own. BUT another sad thing that I learned recently is that I think he hopes to be a nursery teacher someday (scratching head). Don't blame me for trying... hahaha!

I think that it's time for me to stay away from watching him during compe which for me is very sad and just savor the fun private time when we practice together in the kitchen. Last time we practiced, he slammed me to the table and slapped my butt with a frying pan and that was so funny. I'll just hope that we will have more fun time like this :)

For dads who might be in the same boat as me, if you are seeing your child losing compes, studies, ect. even though they have good training and got our full support but they still suck... probably we could step away a bit from the big picture and just look from a distance just like what I'm doing. It's sad I know but if the situation is the same as with me, then maybe it will be best if we just give them some space and give our cheers inside the bathroom when they are not looking...
teens...hmmmmm :)


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