Being Published

GOOD NEW! GOOD NEWS!! I am a published author now!! Wrote about tabata intervals in Osu Magazine. download your copy for free. I had the copy on my desktop forever and didn't know I was in it. I was waiting for a magazine with a different name

 http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/324920

What's Your Range??

A little personal information first: I am very new at teaching. I don't think the first lesson I taught went over as well as I wanted to. I feel like I rushed everything but I do think the sparring game I had made up for it. People said that they really liked it. (see http://www.kihonwasa.com/2011/11/class-was-taught.html)

So for my second lesson, Shihan asked me if I would teach about 5 days before the class. I know, five days is a lot of time, but being new at this, 5 days seemed very short. I racked my brain for something that would be relevant to teach. Do I go over a basic technique and help them perfect it? Like front snap kicks, or the basic jab, cross? Do i go over something a little more fancy like a spinning jumping back kick? Do we work on something I need to work on so I can get better while helping others?

THE Class was Taught

Last night was a big deal for me. I taught my first Sabaki class. That is fight class. Gosh I had such anxiety about it. I have to thank my dojo mates for dealing with me.

I started with kihon, basic strikes, blocks and kick. I totally had a plan when I went in there. Just go through the basics, nothing fancy, but went I went so fast that I was under time, I started to make up kicks. Ever stand in zenkutsu dachi (front leaning stance) while throwing a round knee kick?? Neither have I, but lucky for me it worked.

After fitness and a water break, we went over my plan of attack. I had everyone line up at the back of the room so we could walk up and down the room throwing a jab, reverse, and a knee kick. Then we took turns strapping on the full body kicking shield and we practiced the combo against it. The next step in my master plan was to learn to defend against it.

Me And Ryan last belt test

Time flew by and I had 10 minutes or so of actual sparring time. There was only seven people in class so instead of regular sparring, I had them all circle up. I put one in the middle and sent people to spar him for 30 seconds. While this was happening, I walked around the circle and I would tag someone and keep walking. I would shout to stop fighting and the next person would spar the person in the middle.

I had a hard time explaining it, but while I was trying, Patrick said "Oh Boy!" cause he knew what I was doing. He got to go first. Pat sparred Manny, I walked around and tagged Ryan. When Manny's time was up I told him to stop. As soon as I did, Ryan pops into the circle. He just happened to be behind Patrick so that when Pat turned around, he got hit in the stomach. So round and round it went. We went about 10 minutes over time because it was SO MUCH FUN. I totally wanted to jump in.

There was one accident. J went to through a spinning back kick at Ryan and when he spun, he wasn't in total control and it turned into a spinning hook kick that got Ryan in the throat. I felt so bad, I still do.

Teaching Karate ~ My First Class

Last Sunday, at Sensei's dojo in Bethel, the orange belts asked if there was going to be class on Easter. Sensei told them that she was visiting family. She asked how many people wanted to come in and just about all of them raised their hands. I did too. So she announced that there would be a class. Said that if she couldnt find a black belt, that I would teach. I don't think Sensei even asked anyone else.

Thusday she sent me a list of things she wanted me to work on with a huge gap of time for me to teach whatever I wanted. I went over to K4L and asked for games and drills. I watched countless videos on youtube. I browsed many martial arts sites. I made a list of drills and games. I so wanted to make sure that everyone had fun.

Sunday came, I arrived early and practiced my kata for the upcoming tournament. Ray was the first to arrive, 10 minutes early.  Ray was the only one to arrive. sigh.

Ray asked if Sensei found a black belt and I told him that she hadn't. I think he was disappointed. He told me that it would be okay if we didn't have a 2 hour class, that we could leave early.

We lined up, bowed in and did our stretching and kihon. We went through the strikes and block. We then did our kicks while moving. Then in zenkusu dachi, moving, we did a block and reverse punch, trying to get the block and counter to flow naturally.

Kata was up next. Ray wanted to learn Sigogi Ichi but I was told that I should teach juji kata becasue they all needed to learn it and we haven't gone over it yet. Looking at the clock, I was speeding through every thing. So I decided that we would do all of the required katas. We took our time going over sigogi Ichi. Then we did juji kata. I taught him juji kata and he did well. Then I was having him do it without a count. He was going through it without kiai so he could concentrate on which way to go. Sometimes he would forget or he would have to think for a few seconds. Then I had him do it again. This time I insisted that he kiai. So weird, because his mind was on trying to remember to kiai, he did the kata totally correct.

On to the bag work. During kihon I noticed that his side kicks and round house kicks were off. His whole body would not only go back when he kicked but his torso would tilt forward as well. So out went all the drills I had and in came a half hour of kicks.

We practiced in front of the mirror going very slow. I wanted him to get the technique. He was struggling to get his kick high. I made him do the kick to the knee. Told him that in time he will get height but technique is more important. So he asked "I thought we weren't supposed to kick to the knee in the dojo?"

"Well yeah", I said. "Take out my knee and I can train anymore but kyokushin is not about the tournaments, it is about the real world. Take out a drunk muscle head's knee and the bar fight is over before it started."

I got the kick shield and still had him work slow for a 20 count, then I made him speed up. Now that he was all warmed up and the technique was better, I had him kick to the stomach, but I made him do it fast. No time to think and his kicks were so much better. No longer was he falling over.

The two hours was up before I knew it. and hopefully I did well. I wont know until Sensei talks to Ray. I hope I am asked to do it again.

Wednesday's Workout ~ ChaLEAN Extreame REVIEW

I am writing a review of a workout that I first did two years ago. Why so long? Because ChaLean helped me reach my fitness goals.

I was just reading in SandMan's Blog how Maggi went to karate (kyokushin) to lose weight, and soon found herself saying " Ya know? I wanted to do Karate to help me get in shape but now I want to get in shape to do Karate" and she did. Maggi went on to lose 131pounds.


I started playing tennis at 240 pounds. At 5'6", it was not pretty, but I didn't care, I loved it. Because of my bad shape, I developed tennis elbow. I wanted to play tennis more than anything though so I looked up how to fix tennis elbow and found that weight training helped. It seemed silly to just train my elbow so I did a whole body program. I went through several, not finding my fit until I got ChaLEAN Extreme.

Fight Video - 8th Annual US Kyokushin Karate Open

Patty Pittman vs Amy Kaufman

There are things in this life you just don't want to do, but you have to. I had to watch my fights from May. I had to edit and upload the video from the 8th Annual United States Kyokushin Open, the first 'full contact' fight I had ever done, it was also the second fight I had ever been to.


The reason for the quotes around the full contact, is that we weren't supposed to wear pads. There was a woman who came down to fight semi-contact, but there wasn't anyone to fight her. The powers that be, decided they would lump all us women together. So as we lined up for the march out to the mats, the woman looked at the rest of us and bowed out of fighting. It didn't matter if we fought with those thin hand pads and shin guards, it was fighting 'full contact' fighters that had her worried. They did find her a fight, but it was left on our ticket that we were "semi contact'. Let me tell you, pads or no pads, it was full contact.

New Tricks: Wheel Kick

Sensei Kristen O'conner led class in Shihan's absence a week ago last Monday. It started out as normal, but ended kind of strange. We did our usual, punches, blocks, and kicks. It was hot and even in the winter, that room gets steamy and uncomfortable. After, I looked silly, drinking from my tiny 1 cup water bottles. I picked up the wrong size case of water. They are so funny looking. Poland spring carries these tiny little bottles of water, that are 8 ounces of water. I can drink that in one sip after kihon, and did.

Sensei was very peculiar that night. She warned us that Shihan had instructed her to get us ready for something complicated. She said not to worry about it. It can be done, but it will be hard, but she was not going to tell us what it was. "Above all", she said, "don't give up". Very hard to concentrate on what we are supposed to learn, when the whole time I am trying to figure out what we are going to learn next week. Added a little more interest to the night though. I like puzzles.

8th Annual United States Kyokushin Open Part 2 First Fight

All the fighters were summond to the warm up room where we were lined up for our divisions. The women were line up last. First called was Amy, then a woman from Canada, with a yellow belt. Woodrena would be up next, and then I. The yellow belt jumped out of line. She said she was to fight semi-contact, not full. They quickly found a partner for her to fight.

My first match was against Woodrina. She was a big woman, a very nice woman, but scary all the same. I had spoke to her earlier when the kids were sparring. She was a down to business kind of person. A lawyer with two kids. Her kids were good kids too. They were well behaved and respectful. She was very nice and seemed to have her life put together well. When I grow up I would like to be as confident and as well put together as that lady. I'd like to be as scary too!

8th Annual United States Kyokushin Open Part 1

Friday night when I was supoosed to be sleeping, i was online writting for this blog. I couldn't sleep. I wasn't tired. Then about 11:30 I was done writting and checked all my usual pages for the latest news. I decided to get on facebook. I was checking status updates and was about to play poker when Sensei got online and starts yelling at me, ALL CAPS. Go to bed, she screams. 'Osu Sensei!', I reply.

I slept rather well for what I was going to do. Fighting in the US Open as a first full contact fight. Someone remind me, what was I thinking?

I had looked up Amy's fights in the Ligo Dojo website. She is crazy scary. She made it three rounds in the world's tournament. I didn't know for sure who else I was fighting so I couldn't research that.

Leading up to the fight

Last Friday strike to the solar plexus from Matt H has really shook me. I never felt so much pain from a hit and I have been hit pretty hard. If i get hit like that today I am going down. My husband and others are saying that it is not likely that I get hit like that from a girl, but the fact of the matter is, I can hit that hard, so can other women. If I  can remember a strategy today it is to strike hard at the solar plexus.

It is funny how that particular strike has been what I have been training  for this last month. It was the same hit that brought sensei down in Canada. So when she came home, the fighters did conditioning really hard. She certainly loved hitting me there, really hard.  She would pound that spot till my eyes watered, then she would keep going. Every once in a while I would ask her to hit somewhere else and she would, but always her fists would seek out the middle of my torso.

First day at the Dojo

I barly made it in. I feel out of place, like I know I won't belong. Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, just to say that I tried. I am going to get all sweaty and I am going to hate it but I need to be able to say I tried. Deep breath, and let's get in there.

The waiting room is tiny. Several parents are chatting away about their kid's school, their kid's teachers, their kid's homework, well just their kids. They all seem to know each other very well from what I can gather from the kind of conversations they are having.  No one asked me what I wanted there, so I figured that none of them work here.

On the other side if the large glass windows is a large room with blue and red mats all over the floor. The kids are being lined up at one end of the room and are being sent to the other end to kick a pad and run back in line. Whenever they goof off, a large man with a very large beard makes them do push-ups. He has this very deep voice. He seems very serious and I wasn't getting that warm friendly vibe from him at all.

On My Way to my First Karate Class

 "Is there anything you want to do, just for you, by yourself?", asked my husband last month.

My husband had to take a week of vacation so as to not lose the vacation time. Our two youngest kids are home schooled. The kids, that week went on a field trip, geography club, lunch with freinds, skiing with the town rec department, a trip to the library, spent two days helping out at the local food pantry with me, plus the time I spent with schooling the kids. Our oldest teen needed rides here and there from sports, teacher conference, and a late field trip where I had to pick her up at 11 at night. Just another week in the Pittman house.