Six Weeks

Last week we had a new guy show up for class which is always a pretty cool thing in my opinion.  He came last night and participated and by the end of the class you could see that twinkle in the eye that reminds me of a religious conversion.  He's going to come back to class on Wednesday for sure. 

I enjoy when we have a new adult in class.  There is such an interesting chain of events that gets people there as an adult.  How they find time; how they make a new priority; and how do they find us?  If he makes it more than a month I can't wait to here the story.  He's at least done some TKD and Judo so he's no neophyte, so it's nice to see him fall into the basic moves.

---

Daniel Sensei said we've got 6 weeks to go until the test.  Generally speaking this is the pinch time where we work out as much of the bugs in our katas as we can.  Up to two weeks before the test it's crunch time.  To that end we are meeting as much as possible to get things dialed in.  At two weeks out they no longer trying to correct actions and just encourage us to keep practice sharp. 

This week I think I'm going to be meeting every day, but I think Reed Sensei is getting us particularly squared away because we are going to head up to Eugene to visit with his instructor to have a fake test.  This process is to get an objective view of our progress.  Albert Sensei should be able to identify anything that we can work on it short order. 

All of this work means that I'll be sharper, but it's exhausting.  I hope they don't expect this for the next 6 weeks, because my wife will kill me and I'll never get anything done around the house. 

---

Maia was particularly sharp last night.  Our little brownbelt helped the new guy and me through variations on takedowns last night.  Unfortunately, leaving me a bit bruised and sore this morning.  She's going to be a good instructor possibly one day. 

A Brief Glimpse Into The Future

In the midst yet another deep dive in the details of one of our kata I started feeling the warmth of some emerging confidence.  I'm not saying that my kata was any better than before, but I felt relaxed in that I was able to correct small errors quickly and feel a bit better about things in general.

We didn't have much of a class last night.  I was just with Reed and Daniel and the point I found some of that confidence was when all three of us did the same kata and I saw that I was doing the same timing as them and I actually looked good.  Of course then I messed up some portions, but the first part was gold.

I haven't been writing much because there hasn't been much beyond practicing the test and working on timing.  May feels far away and just around the corner at the same time. I'm experiencing a bit of nervousness about the bunkai portion simply because we haven't spent much time on them.  Olivia and me just haven't been in the same room enough to really get into it.  At the very least we have the basic ones down.  The newer ones we tried aren't set in my mind so if we go that route we won't do well unless we work very hard in the next couple of months and real life doesn't often allow that. 

I'm off the East Coast next week so I'll miss yet another tournament period and I'll have to really work on practice as not to lose what I've got.