One Day To Go

Anxiety seems to lead to a lack of sleep, which in turn, allows anxiety to fester.  Not the greatest way to approach the upcoming test, but it’s also not a surprise either.  I usually martial through all of this and do okay, but the nagging lack of energy I’m experiencing is making me frustrated. 

On Monday I went for an epic run (5k, cross country) and did better than my first time on that course, and assumed that I’d sleep like a corpse, but I ended up wide awake only getting minimal sleep.  So getting to class last night took a huge amount of energy on my part.

On top of that Teacher ran a pretty physically demanding class (or maybe I was just so tired it felt that way).  At the end of class I’d completely soaked my gi, but so had the rest of the guys. 

Teacher had me demonstrate my kata/hyung at the end of class and everyone said it looked sharp.  I have to admit I was pleased as well because I did it with a lot of intensity and did it correctly. Teacher had only one suggestion which should be easily installed (slow down in one area). 

If I can do a big carb laden dinner tonight and tomorrow for lunch I’m hoping things will go well in the energy area. 

High Anxiety

I was feeling a lot of tension last night. After the last session and having teacher sit down with me for my "verbal" exam I'm a bit on pins and needles about my upcoming test. The class went well as can be expected, but when a belt test occurs he usually stops class at about 15 minutes before completion and then has everyone sit down leaving the person in question standing the in the middle of the room.

The standard test consists of a demonstration of all blocks, strikes and kicks usually done in repetition. Then a Kata or two. Previous to the test during the class there is usually sparring for a very long time (for me 15 minutes leaves me shaking with exhaustion - probably holding my breath). So after all these years I still can't tell when a test is coming other than the fact that teacher told me to expect it before the end of September.

During the first part of the hour we worked on stances combined with strikes after movement. I'm not sure if this happens to others, but have you noticed when you practice a move on one side that it becomes comical when you try it on the other for the first five times. After all these years it's becoming easier to transfer those skills over, but not much.

We were having one-two punch, block, punch drills and I got partnered with Nutbag again. In our school we praise variety in attack and this is something I'm not great at. I have a tendency to use my elbows because of arm length and distance. So I get a little boring to myself. My antithesis is Nutbad who never does anything the same and never seems to remember the exercise we are supposed to be working on. Pure enthusiasm that guy. After taking numerous hits from him during the exercise many which bordered on loss of control painful and I ended up doing a roundhouse at his head followed by a spinning back kick to the stomach. I swear I only tapped him, but Teacher was looking and Nutbag goes dramatic at that point. Bad timing.

So at the end of class we ended up sitting in seiza for 10 minutes (oh my knees), blood pouring out of a toe, having to listen to the "why we don't go hog wild with karate" speech. I'm still not sure if this was for Nutbag or me, but it certainly could be applied to me. I'm frequently distant from my emotions in class so I don't know if I'm pissed or what - that and the kick may have been poorly applied.