Bruise Randori

On Tuesday I could only attend half the class as my parents were coming in that evening so I came early to the kids class to help out/participate. After enduring that for awhile (you have to really take the long view on their progress) the class finished and I was doing jumping jacks when Nilon came in and, I swear to you, only did two stretches before he came up me all bug-eyed.

He was ready to go and I figured it would be a nice warm up, so on to Randori. However, this wasn't our regular slow, light impact kind. His first two strikes were pretty powerful and after that I knew I had to be careful as well as pay sharp attention. Nilon is hyper-aggressive and almost half my age so his advantages lay in his ability to produce a continuous attack and excellent fitness. His weakness is a lack of skill and virtually no kicking. I've never seen anyone so allergic to stretching their legs, but it's to my benefit in this case.

So we started and I have to say in all fairness it was really fun. As much as it can be painful it reminds me of how much I have learned and how I might do in a real-life situation. A kind of verification and feedback on how I've progressed in my own eyes. Well, I got cocky right off and didn't bother to protect my head and caught a spinning back fist across the chops. Again I was thankful that he doesn't look first or aim because if that caught me across the eye or brow I would have been out like a light. Thankfully, it didn't do anything, but he actually was concerned about his shot.

I shook my head and it was back on. Since I'm about 5 or 6 inches taller I have a nice reach, but he doesn't mind moving in and using elbows. I backed out and circled and used my legs for some head kicks. Round house to the noggin - point to me. I figured I'd do that for a bit and set up a pattern, but I was too slow. He moved in on a midsection roundhouse and used both arms elbow down to stop my kick. I think we all know this is a horrible block because he had to take all the shock in the shoulders in an upward motion, but I really came out bad because it felt like I had slammed leg into two pointy bits of metal. A little bit later Nilon stopped the action on his own!

Although I felt like I had taken the worst of it, he was dripping sweat from every pore. I guess he felt he got what he needed and was done. I turned to Teacher and asked how long we'd been at it. I asked this because I can never guess how long the action is - it could be 30 seconds or five minutes - when I'm in the mix I can never tell. 3 minutes he replied. Not bad. I wasn't huffing and puffing, but the elbows on the leg were starting to make my leg puff up.

We ended up doing Katas for the next hour to continue to knock the rust off and I could really feel that leg groaning. I took the ibuprofen when I got home. It's still sensitive two days later. Ouch.