Detached Retina

While warming up for the beginning of class Mark told me that after our previous class he started seeing flashing lights in his vision.  After he visited the doctor he found out that he had a detached retina!  He thought that it was from the throws I was giving him on a leg sweep move.  Wow.  I was kind of feeling guilty, but he pointed out that it's just his body being old and we just have to take it easy with throws in the future.  Needless to say when we practiced that move again I was hyper aware of where he was going and how fast.

Regular class was laughably small.  Basically Mark and I with four very young kids.  I got three six year olds and was told to set up the sports floor.  These giant red and blue puzzle pieces are the mainstay of most dojos I've every been too and provide a nice barrier between my pointy bones and a hard floor. 

After we emptied the closet out and got the floor put together (we can't keep it down permanently because we are renting a space for the hour).  We had an exercise to teach the kids how to bridge.  One would bridge (a back arch with the shoulders and feet on the ground), one would roll balls under the arch and one would catch the balls.  As you can imagine this was met with incredible delight and much noise making.

After that was mastered, we were taught the full mount, open and closed guard, feet hooks, and an escape from full mount.  Once the kids got used to being in close proximity to one another they did a fairly nice job of twisting and rolling.  Thankfully Reed came and saved me gave me the option to do this same stuff with MaryAnn Sensei.  As usual I'm worried about my back, but since I was fairly warmed up I could bridge her and roll without any problem.  I took Ibuprofen in the evening just in case though. 

After class we met at the garage and ran through the kata about three times and addressed a lot of little pieces.  An arm out and foot placement in a couple of spots.  I'm not sure I remembered any of this in my morning practice though.  Too sleepy this morning.  However we are only a few moves from the end of the kata which feels tantalizing close.  The practice time is paying off.  We are three months in and the kata is almost fully realized.  In another month is should be fairly smooth and we might possibly working on the two man application. 

On the depressing side, by wife is getting a little tired of me being away from the house for so long.  She's been great with letting me have this time but it irks her because it only gives us a few hours a night to hang out.  I'm seeing that I'm going to have to make some breaks in the schedule to reduce that trouble spot.