2005 Workout #97: The Red Phoot of Courage…

Last night’s workout was a bruiser. The warmups for the first class was lead by Anthony-san, who proceeded to jet his 10 year old body through the most rapid fire stretching exercises the world has ever seen. By the time pushups rolled around he was channeling the power of Thor through his young body and we could all only quail at his gusto.

And then started in. Pretty fast paced basics, and then we moved into the dreaded front stance drill where one partner sits down and helps encourage your front leg to remain appropriately bent and in the same place. My partner was one of Cunningham-san’s daughters and she was a TROOPER. I’ve seen full grown adults with significantly less capability to withstand pain. When it came to my turn everything went relatively well, aside from the fact halfway through the drill Cheddidiah Frito was almost brought into the world. It took all of my internal fortitude to not crap on my partner, and since her head was right at about hip level we would’ve had to have a funeral.

The second class was supposed to be some kata in groups and then sparring, but became pretty obvious that everyone was enjoying their work on kata so let it continue all through second class. I spent most of my time with , who is really starting to get somewhere with his kata. He’s just got to figure out how to keep his head still, his shoulders back, and use the other half of his body. But he’s getting somewhere, so that is good.

Before class, Mike-san and I decided to do our light, strategy oriented sparring like we have been the last few classes… we both scored some pretty good shots. My timing is getting better with my front leg, however I need to figure out how to generate more power from those kicks. As it stands, they simply just don’t do enough damage unless I get them off just right. This does not happen frequently enough to suit me.

This weekend should be interesting. We travel to St. Louis for instructor training, at which will be teaching us a class on kata. Its a damned shame we have to leave town at 5 am in order to get there in time. I hate being up before the sun.