Solo in St. Louis: Recap of Silver Sun Tournament

This past weekend, I completed the emotional roller coaster that is participating in an out of state tournament. Specifically, I attended the 2012 Silver Sun Showdown in St. Louis. It was my first out of state tournament without Teri (or Sensei) and my first time to St. Louis without her. And, without Teri, I had to face a half dozen phobias and new situations: conquering three bridges, the car rental counter and NASKA-style judging.

The Trip

Megabus is what Greyhound could be if it was run by a half-hour MTV reality show: free wifi, outlets to run laptops or charge your phone and, if you score a seat in front, you can work at a table with cup holders. Round trip to St. Louis cost me $38.


The only down side is that Megabus does not avoid scary bridges when routes are planned. Whereas I spend hours on Google maps, popping into street view over every major waterway, Megabus just goes for the fastest route. In this case, the fastest route included the I&M Canal Corridor and the Martin Luther King  Bridge.

REALLY?! Have you seen this? It’s a 4,000 foot cantilever truss bridge. I cried when we crossed it. (Just a little, but I think I may have frightened my seat mate.)

The Tournament

For weapons, I performed a sound (but not very memorable) tokameni. I don’t know what else I can say about it. It was one of my better performances. I thought it went well, until I got my scores: 9.95 across the board. (Well. one person gave me a 9.97 but the highest and lowest scores gets tossed.) So, I got fifth out of five.

I was heartbroken. And angry. Counting the bus ride to the train station, the train ride into Chicago, the bus ride and the waiting at each point in between, I had spent 8 hours trying to get to this tournament. There was no way in heck I was going to walk out of here with last place in every division.

For kata, I performed Sunsu. I started strong…really strong. I was totally crushing this kata, until the thrust kick. Before I started the kick, I was aware that my Chinto stance was way too narrow. And, when I did kick, I lost my balance. It was a tiny little wobble…approximately 2 feet in front of the center judge.

When the kata was finished, I stormed from the ring. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to trophy that had me upset. It was that I was going to get last again for something so stupid that should not have happened. All that hard work was ruined. I paced back and forth in an attempt to stop from crying. Then, it was time to collect my scores: 9.97s. Third place. My eyes filled up with tears again. I hadn’t completely blown it.

The best part, however, came later when it was time to shake hands with the judges.

“It was a very strong kata, intense,” said the first. “It’s why I gave you such a high score.”

I didn’t have time to respond before the next judge had hold of my hand. “Yes,” said the second, “but the wobble.”

“I-I meant to ask about that,” I stammered. “Besides the wobble…”

“No, it was just that.” I had the attention of three out of the five judges. The wobble was a BIG mistake, so big it couldn’t be ignored. But the rest of the kata was…good. And the three judges I was talking to were smiling at me (real smiles, like with their eyes and everything), telling me it was a good kata. For one tiny moment, I thought I knew what it would feel like to be Brett.

I lost sparring 7-0. There was considerably more swearing in this event. From me. It’s an adrenaline thing and I’m really working on it. (For reals, yo.) I landed two techniques, neither counted for points. With a five-judge-ring, that’s not an angle thing. That’s having poor technique. I’ll work on that. (And the blocking.)

Judging

In between kata and sparring, black belts have a lot of time on their hands. We’re first to kata and last to spar. So, I told Sensei Creamer I could help.

“Brett, grab two judges and start a ring in ring 5.”

I looked at Brett expectantly. If I remembered anything from middle school gym class, it’s that your friends pick you to be on their team.

“You two,” Brett said pointing to me and the man next to me.

(Yes. Next incarnation, I’m going to try and make some friends in middle school.)

We had 13- and 14-year-old division, which was a larger group than I am used to. Also, the NASKA-style scoring is a pain for large groups.

In the scoring method I’m used to, you’re given a point range (like 5-7) and everyone in your group will receive a score within that range. So, one of the first three people I see will be put squarely in the middle of those scores. If I like someone better, they’ll be placed halfway between the middle score and the top score. I continue placing people in various halfway points until everyone is done. The scores are lined up neatly on the right side of my white board in the order in which the competitors appeared and nothing is erased. When I’m finished, the scores I award are significantly lower than what the other judges are awarding, but we pretty much agree on who gets first, second and third place.

In this style of scoring,  we have 10 possible scores to hand out: 9.90 through 9.99, and the top four scores (9.99-9.96) can only be awarded once. We watched everyone go through and awarded everyone points at the end. The first group through had 10 competitors. I figured I’d just write down what place I thought each person should get and then assign points later.

A little more than half way through, the side of my white board was a mess. The “places” were erased and written over again several times. Some were scribbled out. It was barely legible. I glanced over at Brett’s score card to see if he had an easier system. Apparently he did, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He had a neat column of numbers down the right hand side (mostly 5s and 6s), some of them had a plus or a minus next to them.

The hardest part (besides reading my own hand-writing) was changing the places into scores. First through third was easy enough. For fourth place and lower, I had to count on my fingers to get the score.

Embarrassed, I tried to keep my right hand low as I counted on my fingers.

“Judges, ready…”

“No!” I squeaked. Damn, I lost count.

“Take your time.”

Crap, lost count again.

“Shut up.” I said.

“Take your time.”

Surviving kata, it was finally time to judge sparring. I definitely feel more comfortable here. My only issue is that Brett was much faster than I’m used to. In local tournaments, the center judge says, “Judges…” PAUSE, “score!” Brett was more like “Judges score.” (I skipped the comma on purpose. He didn’t even put in a comma’s worth of a pause.)

I was so consistently late on calling points, that I made it a point to look away from the other judges when I did my hand signals. (I didn’t want the parents and coaches to think I was just mimicking what the other two were doing.)

It went considerably more smoothly, except when I almost got run over by a couple of 14 year olds. I was trying to move out of their way, while still watching them and got hung up on the corner. I also kind of forgot that, while judging, I could step out of the ring. (I spent three years trying to stay inside the ring; it’s a hard habit to break.)

“Stay out of the way, Stacy!”

“Yah, thanks,” I muttered.

Recap

All in all, it was a good tournament. I got to bring a trophy home with me and it was small enough to put in my purse. Just for the record, I brought a really huge purse, so I could fit Sensei’s bo in it. His bo breaks down into three pieces that screw together. I carried it with me the entire time I was in St. Louis – terrified I was going to lose it or forget it.

Even with a competing, equally large tournament taking place the same weekend in Detroit, it was a good sized crowd. I had adult women to compete against, always a plus. Better yet, I had senior women to compete against.

Combative Seminars: Bringing Martial Artists Together

“Oh, they’re just fighting,” I said with a sigh of relief.

It was day two of the Hand-Stick-Knife-Gun Close Quarter Combatives Seminar the Romeoville Isshin-Ryu Karate Club was hosting. You have to see the flyer to understand my trepidation. The words “combat” or “combative” appeared at least four times and it had the stencil font that makes you think of the military.

As the love child of a beatnik and a hippie, things that have overt military themes make me nervous. I had visions of black military fatigues and attendees who had bugout locations hidden somewhere. But, as it turns out, I was worried about nothing.

“There’s different ‘types’ of martial arts,” explained seminar attendee Steve Zorn, Warsaw, IN. “There’s sport, art, traditional. And then there’s defensive or ‘combative’ – stuff for survival.”

The seminar was led by W. Hock Hocheim, founder and creator of the Scientific Fighting Congress. One of the principles of his program is to “’bridge the gap between the military, the police, the martial artist and the aware citizen.’ Each group knows things about fighting that the other doesn't.” That’s a quote from  his Web site. Someone seriously needs to tell Hock’s graphic designer about this part of the mission statement; it’s not adequately depicted in the marketing materials.

But, desktop publishing aside, there were a variety of styles represented at the seminar. The bulk of the students came the Romeoville school but there were also martial artists from Indiana and Michigan attending. 

“It's not just one martial art. For lack of a better phrase, it’s a brotherhood thing,” said Steve, who attends two or three of Hock’s seminars each year. “We have varied styles and come from different backgrounds.”

So, how does Hock bring together a group of people with varied styles and experiences? By looking for common ground.

“I’m interested in the essence of combat: What’s smart and universal,” said Hock. “It’s not any system in particular but the essence of many systems.”

Feel free to giggle at this point, if the existential, hippie-sounding phrases seem out of context. I didn't have that luxury because I was looking Hock in the face and I didn't want to piss him off.

He provided a better explanation of the whole “essence” thing. Let’s say you have a guy from the krav maga style and another guy who learned muay thai. Both of them perform a turning kick. You can’t tell the krav maga guy he’s doing the kick wrong, if it doesn’t look like the muay thai kick. You can’t tell the muay thai guy that he’s doing it wrong either, when his kick doesn't look like the krav maga kick.

“But you can look at those kicks and ask yourself, if you strip away all the ‘style’ what’s left?” said Hock. What you should be left with is good solid technique that will work for the muay thai guy, the krav maga guy and even the karate girl.

“Ideally, I want our guys not to look like any one style,” he said. “They should be completely devoid of flavor.”

Hock brings his flavorless, style-less style of combat to thousands of people each year by providing 35 to 40 seminars in up to 11 different countries.

“It’s a modular system,” said Sensei Eddie Cavazos, “so you don’t have to attend events in a specific order.” Many of the movements and terminology is shared across the modules, whether you’re learning to disarm someone with a knife or using a baton/arnise.

Sensei Eddie has been attending Hock's seminars since the late '90s. In fact, Sensei Eddie is a black belt in many of the Congress' Training Divisions and is a Master Instructor in Knife / Counter-Knife Combatives and Impact Weapon Combatives.

Finding something new and the time to train can be a bit of a challenge. Hock is home in Texas Monday through Friday, most weeks unless he’s out of the country. He tries to turn his seminars into workouts. And he’s always “on the prowl” for new stuff.

“I’m a retired cop, but I have access to free training,” he said. “Of course, I’ve been doing this since 1972, so there’s not a lot of ‘new’ stuff.”

But don't think that means he's not finding new stuff that works. That's Hock's style: a kind of self-deprecating humor that allows him to talk about his accomplishments without laying on the shit. On his own Web site, where he mentions being featured on the cover of Black Belt magazine, he says, "BB has been around for almost 40 years. That's 40 years times 12 covers a year. Folks, that's 480 covers. Sooner or later they will work through all of us." But still, he admits, it's kind of cool.

Sensei Eddie and others who work with and study under Hock can see the advantages: taking what's universal -- what works -- and putting it to practical use. And, despite what Hock says about not finding a lot of new stuff any more, his students find new details, new ideas, at each seminar.

“His courses are fluid,” said Sensei Eddie. “So, if he finds something new that’s working, he puts it in. You’re always learning something new.”

I felt like a fish out of water at this seminar. Have you ever attended one of Hock's seminars? What did you think? How do you feel about stencil fonts and ads at the back of Black Belt Magazine.

Close Quarter Combative Seminar to be Held April 14 & 15 in Romeoville, IL

Military, Police and Martial Arts Veteran W. Hock Hochheim returns to Romeoville, IL, to teach a Hand-Stick-Knife-Gun Close Quarter Combatives Seminar on April 14 and 15, 2012.

Hock will instruct participants on a variety of techniques and strategies from the programs of his Scientific Fighting Congress: www.hockscqc.com. This seminar will also focus on:

• Impact Weapon/Baton Combatives and Filipino Stick Techniques: "The 35 Essentials of Close Quarter Stick Fighting"
• Knife Combatives Takedowns and Grappling
• Combat Kicks and Counters to Kicks

Please bring a pair of training sticks (rattan Filipino style is the most common) and a training knife.

The seminar will take place at the Romeoville Recreation Center, 900 West Romeo Road in Romeoville, IL. for more information, contact seminar host Eddie Cavazos at eddiecavazos@comcast.net.

The seminar will run Saturday, April 14 from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday, April 15 from 10am to 4:30pm. Both days will have a lunch break in the middle of the seminar.

The cost for is $150 for both days, $100 for one day. You can register online at www.hockscqc.com. Available discounts:

AOKA members can receive a $25 discount for the weekend.

Instructors will get half off their own admission if they bring 3 students with them. Instructors who bring 5 students can attend for free.

These discounts are not available online. Contact Eddie Cavazos for information, eddiecavazos@comcast.net.

If you are traveling in and need to stay overnight, stay at the Romeoville Best Western, 1280 W. Normantown Road, Romeoville, IL 60446, 815-372-1000. It is the closest hotel to the seminar site and has very good rates.

Download flyer.

Fox Valley Goodwill Karate Championship - Recap

Pictured above is Gyda Stoner, of Kim’s Black Belt Academy in Aurora, who turned 70 last Friday. She also did a brief judo demonstration during the Fox Valley Goodwill Championship Karate Tournament on March 24.  (See more pictures on our Facebook page.)

Back in the early 1990s, I took a science class at Aurora University that was taught by Gyda Stoner. Even then, she was a bit of a legend in Aurora.

As a child she had polio. And, I guess, if you had polio back then, you pretty much spent the rest of your life in a wheel chair. But instead of giving up, Gyda Stoner took up learning to use a lasso and trick riding (horses). In fact, she not only overcame polio she got a job with the rodeo. (It’s the type of story that, once you hear it, it sticks with you for 20 years.)

As an adult, she has served on a dozen or more community boards. She’s one of those people who never stops moving and, when you see her name mentioned in the newspaper or somewhere else, you say, “Hey, I know her! What’s she doing now?”

Anyway, she didn’t do a lot of talking during her demonstration. But we did get to watch her toss around her 58-year-old uke (or whatever the Judo-equivalent is). It’s always fun to watch a woman beating up on a guy. It’s double the fun when she’s 70. (EVERYONE was recording this. So I suspect someone will put it up on YouTube, soon.)

Now, for the tournament. Parking was tight, the lot quickly overflowed and cars lined up on both sides of the street outside of the Fox Valley Montessori School. The venue was also a tight squeeze. It turns out, the organizers were actually able to squeeze in three rings plus spectators. It was a snug fit, but it wasn’t really crowded. It was…cozy.

Get this: no score cards on the forms competition. The judges held up fingers. If I understood the process correctly, crossing your hands while showing a score, added a half point.  So they could only do scores like 6 or 6.5. It was old school, yo. (But they had flags for the sparring matches!)

The judges were experienced. And it didn’t look like any of the competitors were confused about where they were supposed to be. I wouldn’t say that things moved quickly, but there wasn’t a lot of standing around in the rings either. So, I’d say things were moving smoothly, but a little on the slow side. (Which, of course, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

All-in-all, it appeared to be a good event. It’s a little on the pricey side for its size ($60 at the door for a single event), but still one you should consider adding to your annual schedule.

PS - Don't forget to check out our favorite pictures from the event, which are posted on our Facebook page. You can tag pictures of people you know and add your comments. (Don't forget to "like us," while you're there so you can keep up to date with other Martial Arts events.)