"Falling" into the season.

Spinning roundhouse kick. Second attempt. Somewhere in the middle, both feet lose the floor and my face finds it. The extremely loud slap/thud my body made when it connected to the mat was enough to silence the entire Dojo. The only noise that I could hear was a shocked inhalation of  breath one of my dojo mates made as she contemplated the seriousness of my injuries.  Seconds later as I uttered a breathless "I'm ok" and wiped the puddle labled "Annes pride" off the floor,  business continued on as usual in the Cheney dojo. I think people are getting used to the fact that I fall a lot.  I like to think to myself  that I fall a lot due to the idea that I am not afraid to take risks and thus occasionally lose my balance while attempting things that might be a little above my skill level. The truth: I am a klutz. Its genetic. I come from a long line of people who fall up (and down) stairs, trip over the lines of longitude and latitude, cut, burn, and generally hurt themselves. Did I ever mention that in grade three I managed to impale my foot with a toothpick? Right through my shoe into my foot. Now that takes talent!

On to sparring. After five weeks of respiratory problems, sparring is not easy.  I am still up for taking a few risks though. My combo: Jab, reverse punch, spinning roundhouse (did you think I was going to give up??), hook kick, and reverse roundhouse. Steps one, two and three went off without a hitch. Four took me off the mats onto my rear end. Yay me!! Hurray for the second fall of the night!  My sensei  did comment that he was impressed that I pulled off the combo as far as I did . My hook was actually in the vicinity of my opponents face.  So not so bad. 

Epic fail of the night, though, was when I punched the poor half yellow in the face. Not cool. Not cool at all. The worst part was that I could see  that I was going to connect a millisecond to late and by then there was nothing I could do. I was mortified! I felt so bad. After the hit, she looked so mad. Which made me want to let her win.... almost....

I have approximately 3 weeks until my first tournament.  Team kata, sparring, and regular kata.  Time to focus.