Mano A Mano

In keeping with my Spanish theme from my last post I thought I'd try start with a bang.  A literal bang.  

Regular class was taken up with Celebration, the seasonal testing for under black belt grading.  For once I was able to concentrate on what was going on because I knew the kata and techniques well enough.  I just had to judge two people in the middle of their brown belts and there were doing all the same techniques, so I was able to compare and contrast.

Just as we were leaving to go to afterclass Reed Sensei said that Daniel wanted to practice sparring because he was leaving to a tournament soon.  The normal spike of adrenaline I normally experience wasn't really happening.  I guess I was tired.  

When I got to the garage, where after class takes place, I was the only person there for about ten minutes.  I stretched out and tried to go over some common attacks and counters that I thought might help me out with Reed.  I've never sparred with Daniel so he was an unknown.  Reed likes to blast in super fast when you show an opening so dealing with that is miserable.  I'm just not anywhere near his speed.

Once I got a little practice out of the way (on my application) we went to sparring. Daniel is a big thinker and not overly aggressive, preferring to be a responsive player.  So I often felt like I was pushing him into a corner, but as I got close he'd strike.  Before we worked out that dynamic we both exploded at the start with right punches and, bang!, both our fists contacted.  I actually had to stop for a minute from the pain - fearing that he broke one or more of my knuckles.  My hand functioned fine, but by the end of the night I had already developed a bruise.  My concern was a boxer's fracture; where the two knuckles over the ring and pinkie fingers are crushed.  Lucky me, this morning doesn't appear to be damaged.  

However, through the course of the evening, I had all kinds of impacts, but didn't really notice them due to sweet, sweet adrenaline.  When I got out of the shower last night I noticed my middle toe was black and bleeding out of the nail.  So I'm not sure it it's broken or just smashed to pieces.  I'm walking very slowly and taking ibuprofen. Definitely not optimal.  Doing kata this morning was terrible and that was only made worst by a terrible night sleep.  Hopefully, this will be good by Monday and I can go about my business in class with minimal degradation.