Taken from a recent thread from the CFTS Forum:
I was just thinking the other day of all the strange things that can go wrong during MA practice, and was wondering if anyone had any good stories, preferably harmless (ie. nothing really serious, just a fluke incident) to share:
Choo Choo I had a student, nick-named himself "Freight Train" Frank. Well, as most of the younger students liked to do before class, he would do running kicks to our 200 lb punching bag. One day, as I sat with my instructor in the studio office, we watched him cross the room, and we figured what was about to happen.
He ran full speed across the room, put his head down, and proceeded to ram the bag with the top of his head. The bag swung, the frame it was attached to pulled itself from the floor, and the whole thing went through the wall into the beauty supply store next door.
We got bigger bolts for the frame that night.
Oh yeah, Frank was fine. Just stood there and almost soiled his Gi, with the damage he caused and all.
Swing Low... A few eons back, we were practising the first kendo kata. The attacker cuts men (the top of the head) and the defender steps back, avoiding the cut, which swishes almost to the floor. I was defending, and I jumped back more than stepped. A certain sensitive part of my anatomy swung up as my opponent's sword came down. The downswing met the upswing, so to speak, and I was on the floor. Luckily, we were using shinai. This ties in to the underwear thread, because ever since then I've worn briefs under my hakama to prevent another painful incident.
Another time during ji-geiko, I tripped on my hakama as I was passing my opponent. I executed a fairly snazzy forward roll, did a half-turn on the way up and ended up facing my opponent, who was so surprised that he stood there doing nothing. So I hit him.
Where did that come from! I remember when I was sparing with a friend of mine I suddenly did a knife hand block right out of a form without even thinking. I was so pleased with my self (or surprised or something) that I just kind of stood there and grinned and then ate fist. I would have found it funnier at the time if it didn't hurt so much
Moonlighting I have one for you... During one class, Sensei called one of the senior students up to help demonstrate the next technique. Now this guy is known to be...shall we say miserly....so his gi was way past its prime and had shrunk until it was really too small for him. Sensei starts to demonstrate the technique which ended in a throw. I am so intent on the technique that at first I don't really notice anything except what Sensei is doing. But suddenly, I realize that my husband who was sitting next to me is shaking so hard from laughter that he is about to fall over. I watched again and realized that the senior student's gi had slipped down on his hips so far that he was pretty much mooning us every time he was thrown.
Pretty soon, the whole class was basically in tears from trying to hold in the laughing. I don't really know how Sensei kept a straight face! Anyway, needless to say, Sensei strongly recommended to him after class that he purchase a new gi...
The stupidest move ever performed in a tournament I was an orange belt at the time and had won quite a few tournaments. As a result, my ego was inflated much more than it should have been. I was fighting this guy frm Northern Karate in Toronto who was able to read people better than anybody I had every seen. He could predict the moves of someone so well that he had ample time to perform any block or whatever, the guy was phenomenal. I was fighting in the final match against him and was down 2-0 (fights go to 3). I knew that I had no chance to best this guy, basics were not working so I decided to try something that had worked quite well in the dojo. I got some distance between us and performed a front roll, intending to come up into a jumping side kick (hey, it worked the one other time I tried it). Unfortunately, the guy did not step back but side stepped and placed his foot in my chest as I was starting to come up out of my roll.
There I was back flat on the floor, foot in chest, and the guy grinning at me. I felt like a fool. What was worse is there was a girl from Northern, video taping the match.
After that match I disappeared REAL quick.
You know, have not tried that since.
Did you register that deadly weapon? Working on elbow strikes on a heavy bag, I almost knocked myself out with the palm of my hand. The worst part wasn't the pain... it was explaining the busted lip to friends. Impressing the judges At one of my first tournaments I was really pumped about sparring. Got into the ring, head judge said to begin, I charged in with a beautiful side kick to the head. Unfortunately I put a little too much into it and instead lifted my entire body off of the ground, landing clean on my left hip and sliding into my opponent, knocking us both into the head judge and knocking him over as well. Needless to say I got a stern warning about fighting under control.
Check please In one of my testings, a couple of my classmates were doing one-step sparring techniques. One of them accidently (I think) kicked the other soundly in the groin with a snap kick. The poor fellow just stood up, put his hand up, turned around, THEN collapsed. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen because of the timing...
REALLY impressing the judges In a pattern competition, ~2 years ago, I managed to punch myself 5 cm above my right eye. How this happened - well, It's not always easy to do an upward elbow strike when you're focused on something completely different
Well, I managed to finish... Last!
WHAT hit me? My sensei is 62 and just had both knees replaced 6 months ago. He's really like a new man, and he MOVES again, quickly for a big guy. So one day, (since I am the senior assistant he demonstrates techniques on me) he's showing a punch roll (don't ask, it can't be explained in text) that is followed by a shoulder bar and then a knee to the face.
Well, he's not quite used to the new knees yet and they're actually very lightweight. So as I'm going down, I feel this WHAM on the right cheekbone that is LITERALLY like being hit with a hammer. Turns out, his new knees are titanium and some polymer plastic and HARD AS HELL. Almost knocked me out.
Stick with it Once, as a mid-level kyu student in karate, I was holding a shinai horizontally for a brown belt to run and leap over. my grip was light, and as he crossed over, his toe caught the shinai, knocked it free, and as he began to land, it tumbled into a vertical orientation, whereupon he proceeded to impale himself in the jewels... I never knew how deadly a shinai could be...I always hold with both hands now. he's okay, but he won't let me forget it.
What am I forgetting? A friend of mine went to a karate tournament and was watching a men's senior belt kata division. One of the competitors began his kata, which involved motions done with dynamic tension (I believe the kata was Nisei shi sho). About five moves into the kata, the competitor just passed out! He hadn't been breathing properly during his kata and just keeled over. He was fine after a couple of minutes.
Advanced technique in a bar fight I watched someone apply Ude-osai, god I'm mangling the spelling today, or your common wrist lock from a lapel grab. I guess the guys snapped it on good, because when the person dropped to his knees to avoid the lock he actually bounced his head off the floor knocking himself out. Very neat technique.
Red = danger The stupidest accident I've had was when I was a red belt in Taekwondo. I had seen a 2nd dan black belt hold a pine board in his left hand and neat as you please, he broke it in half with a right hand shuto.
One day while practicing alone I decided to see if I could do the same thing. I was completely successful, but the top half of the board came off and flew right up and smacked me between the eyes, opening a fair sized gash, and leaving me with a nice goose egg. To add insult to injury, both of my eyes were blackened.
Punch out at the perforation! This reminds me of something in class I'd forgotten about. A small third dan (maybe he was a second dan then) was going to do a jumping roundhouse kick to a board held at head height of a tall second dan. The kicker tried once and kicked an inch or two too high on the board. He tried again and this time kicked an inch or two too low. Finally he jumped again, kicked right in the centre and- the middle piece of the board went flat back against the holder's nose while he was left still holding the top and bottom pieces!
Get your finger out of there! One of my instructors once, during a 'anything can and will happen' talk, told us about a particular grappling match in which he twice attempted a cross body arm bar (jugi gatame?). The first time the sweat on the guys arm made him lose his grip as he was thrusting his feet into position and he went flying back about 8 feet or so. Later in the match he had the same opportunity, grabbed the arm and pulled, lost his grip and proceed to drive his finger up his own nose - which promptly began to gush blood everywhere.
Next time watch where you're going We were doing a show for the Ontario Winter Games a few years ago. The opening ceremonies was being broadcast live on local television stations. One of our BBs was doing a break of two concrete slabs with his head. Unfortunately, instead of hitting with his forehead he hit with his face. He broke his nose and began to bleed all over the stage as the cameras did a close-up. Gotta love live TV
He was a monster, honest I was competing at a karate tournament last summer; for the first time my girlfriend, who is fairly apathetic about my budo madness, came along to videotape my matches. I really wanted to impress her so I had trained my ass off. When it came time to fight, I came up against one of these incredibly irritating asses who fights with his leg cocked up, jumping around on one foot. He was quick though, and caught me with his mae-geri front kick twice. Knocked me on my ass because my fighting stance at that time was very square and aggressive. Needless to say, I lost the match because my shots were deemed excessive contact (joke!). Sitting up in the bleachers, I was hoping that the guy would go on to win so that I didn't look like I was eliminated by some nobody. Up there, sitting beside Ange, I watched only half-interested until buddy came up. As we watched, he attacked with a penetrating front kick. The opponent side stepped and buddy went sprawling to the floor, hit his head on the floor, and knocked himself out. I got eliminated by someone who knocked himself out. As we walked out of there, the only thing more injured than his bald head was my rapidly deflating ego.
Next time read the instructions This one reminds of a student in our dojo. He was a yellow or orange belt (don't remember) he had picked up a 3-sectional staff somewhere and was trying to figure out how to swing it. Nobody in the dojo really knew how to use them very well so he was experimenting on his own in the middle of the dojo.
As he was swinging it one section swung up and struck him in the back of the head, knocking him out. After we brought him back to consciousness and determined that he was ok we left. Not 10 minutes later there he was again, face flat on the floor. He had knocked himself out again with the staff. Twice, in less than 30 minutes. This time we took him to the hospital to check for a concussion, luckily he did not have one.
Q: What do you call a pig that does karate?
A: Porkchop!
Q: How many Karate people does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Three! One to hold the lightbulb. A Sensei to teach the technique. And one to come "with empty hands."
One Sign That You've Become A Middle Aged Martial Artist. You Kia and your dentures hit the person in front of you in class!