Friday, August 02, 2013

Push And Shove

I don't have my calendar in front of me, but I think I'm up to 31 days of 100 push ups (or Earthdowns).  

My observations are:
- that due to the lack of proper rest intervals the plateau came quick.
- I'm one month in and can't quite crack 55 reps at one time.
- Weekends are the best because I can do them later in the day, creating an artificial rest (of more than 24) hours.  
- warm-ups do nothing to improve the overall session.
- I've got little muscles that crawl from my pecs through my armpits that hurt so bad sometimes I have to check to see if I have a open wound (I don't).
- The vigor that is created from doing this makes me feel massive and pumped up.  
- It still doesn't help my running.  

Class is a bit sad.  

I got to class last night in fear that I wouldn't have some kind of exercise before our next guests came in and found only Cherub and Teacher.  I guess it's been this way for months now.  Cherub let us know that the few of the folks that did come have all started going to an Marine combatives guy that teaches on the side to keep in form.  Cherub had a huge bruise on his forehead from a recent session.  Seems a bit rough?!

Most of the others that formed our healthy core have dribbled away.  Beard will always come on his own time, but Trucker doesn't have the schedule, Storm is focused on family and the few others have moved or moved on to other things.  

The only upswing should come in a few weeks when the kids class starts up again.  That might bring in parents and friends.  

Last night we practiced this and that which included the use of a bokken.  This is so rare that I can barely count the times on one hand in the last ten years that it's been pulled out.  We did two different hand bind on the "chopper" and two different deflections.   I realize the samurai of old were supposed to be able to grab the sword, but it would obviously have to come from a lifetime of training.  Last night was occasionally punctuated with the crack of the bokken connecting with my elbow.  Ow.   


2 comments:

Colin Wee said...

My class has shrunk greatly since we made the decision to leave the church hall premises that we were hiring. We're now training in my garage. However, this does not make my training worse off ... the quality of the stuff we're doing is still excellent, and the people who come are still enjoying it. I can teach one or one hundred. Or none, for that matter. My martial art training still continues. Keep it up! Cheers, Colin

Potatoe Fist said...

Colin, it's great to hear from you. However, I'm slightly depressed to hear the change in numbers, but I can see that you are taking the long view about your own development.

I think I tend to see the class/school as an ongoing concern dependent on itself to maintain itself; not the fact that it's simply a catalyst for us to work on our own martial journey.

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