A little blood...

Arms of Steel is back in town for semester break. He was doing some arm work with Lux and punched him in the nose. There was a little blood flow. Lux has never had a bloody nose in his life! He kept commenting about it and I think Teacher got a little tired and said, "do you need a tampon?" to which Lux responded, "why, do you have one in your purse?" Everyone fell down laughing. Teacher said, "I guess I deserved that."

Since we had a new guy I was placed with him to work on the basics. He's very athletic so he took physical correction extremely well. The 2nd half of the class AOS, Beard and I worked on grabs and locks. Beard deferred to me to pick the techniques (kotegaeshi and shihonage!) and it went very well. The three of us had a grand time throwing and slapping to our hearts content. Teacher worked with the new folks for the whole time and would only visit for a second or two to see what we were up to or to answer questions.

After class I told Teacher that I should have offered to work with the new folks on kicking techniques. He said it was no problem, but we did have a good conversation about how good it is to do the education portion as it covers the gaps in my own knowledge.

Just Another...

I didn't post last week because I'm not really sure I had anything to say! Will wonders never cease. I didn' t have anything to rant about for once, no one to complain about and class is really pretty wonderful.

Having a class of eight folks is really fantastic. I'd long forgotten what it was like to have a constant rotation of different body types to work with. No longer stuck with one person and falling into a frustrating repetition. I hadn't realized the pure delight of seeing other folks. All of us doing the same techniques differently.

Of the influx we've had two for sure that appear as though they are going to stay around. Philly and Lux. At least they appear as though they will. Tonight was six folks when Beard showed up, but it was still great. I thought it was going to be repetitive, but Teacher managed to have a fun class that jumped through the time window again and made it feel like it was only a few minutes. Very engaging and great timing.

Endurance done?

I ran into Nilon at the store and he told me that we have two new people in class! It was like the clouds opened and sun shined right down on me. It meant that I didn't have to experience two hours of Nilon's supercilious attitude. With new people we have a little time to focus on basics and he can't get out of line too much.

Then it strikes me - and I don't think I'm being self-centered - he doesn't like to be there if I'm not there! He honestly wants me to be there so he can have fun. How painful. I find that I like him in real life (outside of class) where he is subdued and prefers to observe life. In class he becomes obnoxious in his excitement - at least to me.

So I changed my thinking as I went to class last night. We were getting new folks and Nilon's behavior took on a new face.

Of course when such things happen in the mind the reflection appears in reality. We had eight people show, not including teacher. Holy cow! We haven't had eight folks for as long as I can remember (maybe two year...). So Teacher had his hands full with absolute beginners and salty veterans mixed up doing the basics. We also had a visitor from another school in town. I didn't even know this one existed. The local native association had a class for a short time and it was taught by a co-worker of mine! I'm going to talk to him today about that.

Oh, and my knees are killing me.