Flying Chiro

I have one year and eight months to go before I test again.  I'm very concerned about it because I know only too well how fast it goes.  I remember this from Shudokan and how much time we don't have to get the material down to the level where we are really sharp for presentation.  Especially developing the skills to the point where we look like we should be there.  The next thing you know, it'll be fall and we'll be pushing into one year left zone.  

That's neither here nor there, but if we do warmups class content just disappears.  My forty-minute class is suddenly fifteen minutes.  Frustrating, but let me tell you; it's very focusing.  

Notes from the last week or so.

- Cary is back after Covid.  She still looks a bit gray and has to sit down periodically, but yesterday she did her first break with a front kick.  Just smashed it.  Yeahh.  When I was working with her a while back, she and I got talking about cramps.  We spent five minutes talking about menstrual cramps.  Hah.  I have to say I'm glad not to be a female.  Sounds horrid.  

- I had a little accident with a wheelbarrow about a month ago.  One of the handles rammed me in the lower abdomen when it fell to one side.  I have a chronic pain there that would appear to be a torn fascia.  Takes forever to heal.  crap.  Jump kicks seem to agitate now and then.  I skipped box jumps today.  I can still do sit-ups, so I have that going for me.

- Andy uses me as his shu/uke when he needs to demo a complicated move since he knows I'll take the fall.  Our gang is pretty old and sometimes less flexible, so the default is me.   The other day he was working with Mr. Moore and trying to demo an attack.  Basically, a baseball bat to the head.  It's a complicated move, but you end up choking the attacker with his own bat and then throwing them.  I didn't realize that, so I went flying.  I could see the concern in the other students faces but I got up laughing.  No harm, no foul.  I'm clearly more accepting of that kind of thing.  I assume they fear that they are going to have to learn that at some point.  Nope.  

- Andy was doing a demo on Wednesday for Mr. Moore again.  This time it was an arm bar and submission.  The submission was a head twist.  I wasn't really ready since I didn't know what was going on.  I was compliant for the arm take and lock, but Andy pulled me down and grabbed me by the jaw and pulled my head around.  As my feet left the ground and my body spun in the air my neck made three distinct popping noises.  

Did I mention that during the beginning of the plague I damaged my C4/5?  I'm extremely carefully about certain things.  This is one of those things.  After I got my balance, I slowly moved my neck around and found that it actually felt better!  Even hours later, where I normally would see swelling or pain, there was no issues.  Talk about luck or maybe I need to work on more flexibility.  

  

Short and High

I think I'm going to keep my posts to a minimum for a bit.  My progress is minimal so writing about it can be a bit of a labor and I should be concentrating on my work a bit more.  So, if something cool comes up I'll write about it.

But with two feet in the air on two targets

Today I was the lead which was weird.  I worked with the two green belts on their seventh form (not really sure).  Sam Bu.  I was trying to think of when I last did it.  Maybe fifteen years?  With the book we were able to pull it together.  And it definitely wasn't the way I learned it.  That being said it burned the whole class.  I did a few forms for them in the end, and they were appreciative because they could take a quick break.  

I started class with box jumps.  I'm increasing the height and doing that successfully.  I brought out the dummies again and used the soft one for my rigid toe.  I definitely can do the height, which is pretty awesome, but breaking is something else.  I'll have to figure out a way to test that at some point.  Maybe putting one in the static rack and the other a dummy?  Feel free to give me ideas in the comments.

Further Testing My Limits

Not me, but the belt in the face certainly seems like something I would have happen.

I got up way too early, but it meant that I got some work done before I started warming up.  I got to the school and unlocked the joint and instead of jumping drills I had to find the roomba.  Andy and Colette have a two high end roombas.  One that vacuums and one that mops.  I'm not sure how good they are because my feet are always dirty after class, but I keep that to myself.  

When I turned on the lights, I noticed how nice the floor looked, but the vacuum was missing.  Hmm, I smelled a mystery!  I checked in the office and the whole main floor and nothing.  There is a ramp up to Andy and Colette's house so up I went.  I didn't think the thing could do that, but halfway down the hall I found the incident.  The roomba had partially consumed a dobok top and died not realizing that its eyes were bigger than its stomach.

Once I extracted the top, I took the roomba back to its charging cradle.  Mystery resolved.  Now it was time to start jumping.  After doing my box jumps, I went to grab some focus mitts thinking that they would be good targets.  I couldn't get them to stand, so I felt like I was wasting time.  I decided to move over to our two target dummies.    

I still don't have instruction about this jump so I'm doing all this in the blind.  I find that it's easier for me to kick with my legs apart in about a 45% angle.  The guy in the picture is doing his feet in an extreme position which I can neither do nor is it good for me to hit to targets in front of me.  I set the height of the dummies and adjusted it to my belt line.  I was able to jump and kick above the waistline!  Height is going well, and way better than I thought.  I'm not going to push that anymore unless I hear different.  

My current list of work for this kick:

1. distance.  I'm not as close as I think.  This kick is done standing right next to the targets.

2. my right big toe can't go back so I have to be angled in such a way that foot can be in position to do the break.  Super hard.

Number two was a problem immediately.  As soon as I started making contact my toe would let me know I wasn't in a good position.  Ugh.  

Still happy though.  I love the challenge.