2005 Workout #71: *Sploit Sploit* Dave-san’s Silver Ribcage…

Last night’s first class was championed by McCabe-san, who took stance training and strengthening exercises to new heights. He had the whole class form a circle and then proceeded to enforce strong stances and tensed techniques that were intermittantly interrupted by pushups, situps, Japanese situps, and the like.

One of the most interesting moments of the first class for me (I was helping correct) was when my Dad and Hickman-san got across from one another to do stomach tension testing when doing Japanese situps. I thought Dave-san’s eyeballs were going to burst from his head when dad tested his stomach for the first time. Dad was hitting him square in the stomach but Dave still insisted that he was getting hit “in the sternum and ribs.” I took special care to monitor Dad’s strikes closely for targeting because I know how fragile Dave’s ribcage is. This leads me to the conclusion that Dave suffers from Red Belt disease… he thinks that everything aimed at his center line is going to end up in his ribs.

Several of the red belts exhibited this behavior when I came to test their stomachs for tension. I was tapping them gently because they’re kids, and they still recoiled in horror as if I was going to brain them. This usually caused me to clash my arm on their elbows, which was not pleasant. Eventually, I just them be after I tried to fix them several times to no avail.

The “No Sensei Contingency Plan” was for me to take second class since Garls-san didn’t want to, but I was pretty happy to see Sensei Brewer show up. We did sparring “light and lively” basics, which made me feel like an invalid when it came to foot sweeps. I can’t get the hip and thigh tension right without something there to sweep, so I feel like a retarded duck whenever I try to execute this technique. We moved on to do the kata Meikyo, which I had only done a few times in the past. It was a lot of fun and has this awesome half-Empi styled jumping attack at the end that made me feel good.

We rounded out with some 3-5 time sparring, which Garls-san commented that I was “keyed up” during. I was having fun, and I felt pretty springy after all that light and lively basics. My center was staying down a little better than normal and I got a few attacks in that I normally don’t. I mark the whole thing as a success, mostly because I sparred with Erbe without requiring medical attention at the end.

In all it was an excellent workout and I think there was a little something for everyone in there.