Today my grandmother made me cry. I went over to their house about lunch time because I was hungry and my grandfather is so precise that lunch is at 12pm on the dot, so I never miss out. We had lunch and while discussing the intensive I mentioned that my legs had felt like lead lately. Turns out my grandma is a masseuse and rubbed the knots out of my calves. Was one of the most pleasurable but painful experiences ever. Once she had finished we put deep heat on. Have you ever trained with deep heat on your legs? The harder I trained, the hotter my legs got. By half way through training I was on fire!
This morning’s class was a blur, I continue to set my alarm later and later. What is unforgettable was Sensei Martin’s torture circuit. There were 8 of us seniors on the circuit all partnered up with somebody that would push us. I had Bailey. One obstacle was punching the makiwara (vertical wooden plank), another was using the chiishi (I worked on body balance), the third one was a punching/blocking with our partner, and the last one. The last exercise was why I called it the torture circuit. In the dojo we have an extremely heavy bo, It is a metal pipe closed at both ends with another metal rod inside it. We had to do an outside block while holding this bo and use the ‘twist at the end’ of the block to make a clunk noise. The other activity at this station was holding up a weight, while in shikodachi, while sliding our feet to move us in a circular motion. We weren’t meant to put the weight down until the end but I don’t think I was doing it properly and it was hurting the wrong muscles. After this class I came home and slept for another 3hrs – was well deserved
Little Champions Class:
Todays little champions class the intensive people were taken to the side to do some speed training with Sensei Helen. I’m no better than the first time I ever did speed training, I am always the last person to finish but I don’t take shortcuts and aim to do it autonomously. It got to the stage where it became self paced but me being me, I like a competition and I tried to go faster than everybody around me. What I learnt from this was that when I try to go faster, my posture crumbles and my shoulders become very rounded. So throughout the night I worked on keeping my eyes up and shoulders back!
Karate Kids Class:
These two classes really got my heart pumping. Straight away we split into juniors and seniors. Sensei Sandra had us seniors and partnered us up. We had a few minutes to encourage each other as a team to do 100 pushups, 100 sit ups, 100 squat kicks and for the intensive people, also 100 burpees. Was definitely a way to push us out of our comfort zones. The rest of the class was about pushing us out of our comfort zone. After a short drink break the intensive people went aside with Sensei Martin and he set up another torture circuit. At two of the stations we were doing mawashi geri (Round house kick). As a few people know, I can generate a fair bit of power with this particular kick. Poor savannah was the victim to this kick as she held the bag. The remaining person was the time keeper jumping over a bag 30x. We did this circuit 2x and were exhausted afterwards but I know I gave it 150%. We did a few kumite drills after this was a well deserved drink break. We did some core exercises to finish off the class.
Kids Extension Class: Never in my life have I been excited about a 10 minute seiza but this afternoon I was over the moon. If you’ve never done seiza for a long period of time, it makes your legs fall asleep, more so like logs that are on fire. It can be extremely painful. Was definitely a great way to reflect over everything that I had worked on over the past two weeks. Working with the theme I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. Sensei Martin really enjoyed watching us fight through mental battles tonight. We each had a bo and raised it directly above our heads while we stood in shikodachi. this went on for about 5 or so continuous long painful minutes. After we could finally stand up he took us through a stretch what finished in shokodachi again. My knees were screaming at me after this.
Adult Class:
Was a lot less intense than todays theme. We did a lot of partner work. Working on punching, blocking, kicking and stances with our partner. we would watch – do – and then give feedback. It was good to get feedback that my posture had finally straightened up. To finish it off we did more partner work, working on various wrist escapes. This can be difficult when you have a larger, stronger partner, but we did alter it occasionally to cater for us smaller people.
I know that tonight’s blog was more of a short novel but I feel like it has taken me in a new direction with my attitude towards receiving feedback and putting it into practice.
Also unfortunately I have not been able to capture as many photos as others. but I have taken so much out of training, and get so into it that I forget to do it myself or ask for photos to be taken. Tomorrow is the last Friday session and I will prove to you all that I can take more photos!