Downtime training record and a "Incident"

Since I'm not in classes for a bit and feeling better after a bit of illness it was time to jump back into the morning workout routine. As usual Bob at Striking Thoughts has added some motivation to my workout. In his most recent video he had something called "burpees." So I've added those into the workout and things have dropped back to the beginner mode. So where I was able to do three five-minute sessions, I can only do two. Here's today's accomplishments:

15 pushups
5 burpees
5 minutes of the knee/switch-foot drill
5-7 burpees
30+ pushups
5 minutes of drill
30ish pushups
5ish burpees.

Needless to say I was completely gassed. I'll remind you that I was in a 37 degree room doing this and I was completely soaked. It took a good part of an hour to cool down.
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So I'm at my friends birthday party this weekend. She's quite fit and knew that I attempted to be a gymnast in High school. She proudly showed a set of rings she'd bolted into her ceiling in her training room. I asked immediately if I could try them out. No problem she said. I pulled myself into an inverted pike (feet straight up, head down, and then lowered my legs into a "L"). This was followed by a crack, a bunch of disorientation and me sitting on the floor holding one of the rings. Both H and I sat looking at each other in disbelief. Apparently the load wasn't rated for 200lbs. Oops. Folks from the party ran around the corner not sure what they were going to see - me laying on my back holding one of the rings while H stood near by with a glass of Scotch in her hand. Nice.

Last class

With Teacher going off to parts unknown I felt obligated to go to the last available class. I thought he was just going for two weeks, but I find out that it's off till November!

Nilon was there, but he does appear ready to go. Little Sister was there and was handing out pain as usual. She loves the heel palm strike and managed to clack my jaws a few times. So painful. You'd think I'd learn to keep my mouth shut or move my head back.

Teacher Slim made a showing and showed me some creative locks to throws. My shoulder has never hurt more. I'm glad for the break.

Time flying

I've started school at night so I haven't been able to sit down and write at all. Just a quick couple of notes:

Teacher is going on a 2 week vacation. A rare thing indeed. This will help me catch up on studies.

Nilon reports that he is moving away. As soon as he said this I started feeling down because no one is going to challenge me like he did. It was good and bad. Now that I said that I'm sure he won't be going.

I tried to continue my morning workout and got up to three five minute rounds, but the cold temperature and just plain exhaustion has made me fight a cold and keep me in the bed whenever I get a chance.

Right Hook to Plateau

I've made jokes to my friends about being beaten up by children and can usually back it up with some horrible injury, but last night was a classic.

As anticipated the first hour was attended by just Little Sister and myself. Teacher still looks like death warmed over (fighting a cold). We got a new gal, Angel, who is roughly my height and weight. She'll be a good addition if she stays.

So Little and I are paired to work on one-step exercises. These have been expanded somewhat by Teacher so we can work on combos. So I would do two punches and Little would respond with a combo of punches and kicks. Right away she rams her knee in my side which drops me quickly and then does a redneck punch to the jaw. All I heard was, "bing!" I blame her for the rest of the night's poor performance.

I couldn't do anything without using too much muscle and over-thinking everything. Definitely not an aha! kind of night until Beard showed up at the 2nd half. He asked if I wanted to work on anything in particular and I said kotegashi. Each time we work it I learn something new, but last night everything he said was valuable and made perfect sense. I realized that for the first time I was able to learn a huge amount - I might not be able to put it into play - but it all made sense. Unlike the once in awhile insights. Have I grown?

Footprints in the Gut

I was trying to settle into a restive sleep last night and, as I like to do most evenings, catalog my aches and pains - especially after a vigorous class. Unfortunately for me the amount of heat I put off makes me a very attractive sleeping spot for our cats. Over the years I've become used to their weight on my chest and legs, but last night I noticed something a bit more painful that usual. The inevitable ache of a serious bruise on my abdomen which the heavier of our two cats felt was the perfect spot to roost. Thankfully she thought better of it after about of half hour of my twitching around.

The bruise came from a kick we don't practice that often - the thrust kick. Explained to us as a way to move people away without serious injury. However we proceeded to do just that. Moving from a front snap to a thrust required a retooling of strength and accuracy we didn't appear to have. So there was a lot of oofs and whoofs when the wrong footing or placement occurred.

The class seems to be going through a dry period again. We were saying goodbye to Lux and Beard will start back to his Judo class Thursday. Little Sister only comes for the first hour. So the new class structure will be Little Sister in the first hour and Beard for the 2nd. Hopefully someone new will come. I guess I shouldn't complain about the personalized lessons...