Big Class

After being off last week I wasn’t really thinking of any surprises when I walked through the door.  The kids class was finishing up and they had about five kids altogether.  My presumption was that we’d have the same, but low and behold 10 people showed up! 

I led the warm-ups and then Teacher took us through the basics (strikes till your arms fall out and kicks until your knees shake).  I realized in the middle of this how sharp his eyes are for quick correction.  There is a constant litany of “turn your foot more, bend your knee more, bring your leg up farther, etc.” during the basics.  I tend to get cocky and he still corrects me on sloppy technique.

I was partnered with a new guy (Swede’s Dad) and warned him about protecting his shoulders during all the Shudo’s and Hammerfist practice.  I explained that it’s like throwing a baseball over and over again with both arms.  It shouldn’t be done at full intensity during practice until thoroughly warmed and then you still have to watch it.  He pulled up his sleeve and showed me the worse surgical site I’ve seen outside of the “Operation” on TV.  He had been bull and bronco rider in the rodeo and ended up being thrown monumentally and then stomped on.  Yikes.

Before class Beard was in an obviously good mood.  When queried he was delighted to share the fact that he had a cortisone shot in his shoulder.  After years of impingement he has a new lease of life.  I now have to watch his left side strikes.

I mentioned the number of attendees because when the class reaches these numbers we work extremely well.  There’s a lot less superfluous time.  Everyone is pretty on task and fairly well focused.  A rarity.

Swede moved up to the adult class.  Her Father promised that he’d attend class as well is she went that far. 

Swede’s Mom always watches the class.  At break Beard asked her why she didn’t want to participate.  She replied, “I have so many other ways to create pain.”  I could see Beard suppress an outward groan.  He appeared to want to look disappointed in her or I could have been projecting my own feelings on him.

Age and wisdom

In the evening after class, I often think of clever titles or themes for the post I’m going to right, but you should know you (the reader) never gets to see any of them.  I’m usually groggy because it’s later in the evening and my internal clock is trying to relax me after getting smacked around by kids half my age. 

The newest theme that has been cropping up is one of aging.  When does a striking/kicking based martial art become no longer appropriate due to the age of the practitioner?  Taking into account that several folks over 40 are in phenomenal shape (not me) I can’t help but wonder if I’m making myself worse off when me and my partner have to stop and message our knees while the teenagers look on in a mixture of humor, disgust, and pity. 

I was partnered for bit with the returning black belt last night.  He’s a really pleasant, nice guy who likes to laugh, but he’s gained a lot weight in the last few years.  So he’s coming back to Karate to get some fitness going.  The perfect guy for me because I perpetually feel the same way.  Although lately it’s more due to fact that the last year had sporadic attendance to class. 

Technically we are both proficient in our strikes and blocks – Teacher is still pushing “in close” fighting techniques – be me and the other guy would only get so far before we’d have to break and take a minute breather.  Shameful really, but we both will endeavor to do less of this in upcoming weeks. 

On the aging front Teacher is experiencing the weirdest physical problem that I know is causing him a lot of anxiety.  He normally struggles with plantar fasciitis, but now his ankles appear to be retaining fluid and appear to be painful.   He’s definitely not one to seek out medical care, but he’s got be close on this one.  Ouch.

Caught a ridge hand across the bridge of my nose with a very large cartilaginous crunch.  Everyone stopped as I knuckled away a manly tear.  No blood after the sensational sound.  Dang.

We practiced diverting knee shots with our knees and elbows – oh god, do my legs hurt today. 

Caught my thumb in Teachers sleeve – snap.  Not pleasant.  No problem today though.

Weather, whether

I may have mentioned in the past that where I live we have rare decent weather.  I’m talking counting on both hands the amount of connected days of nice weather in the last five years.  This is a price we pay living where we do, but something strange happened this year.  We actually have nice weather for once.  And it’s been going on for three weeks.  Weird. 

I’m only mentioning this because the local sport is to determine people’s moods by how bad or how good the weather had been.  The standard mode is that people tend to stay home when it’s really bad out or go play when the weather is nice.  This makes class suffer, but no one complains because we all understand. 

So, at the end of three weeks of sunshine class consisted of me, a sister and one of the old black belts.  The minimal class can be very much like a private lesson, but the intensity is demanding.  I get frustrated being corrected and corrected over and over again on a move that I’d rather use muscle on instead of proper technique.  That, and I feel old and creaky.  At least Teacher and the other BB where in the same place.  The sister probably laughed to herself at our constant litany of discomfort. 

We broke from our standard drills to practice more reality based stuff.  Basically infighting.  Use of elbows and knees with a ridge hand or hammer fist thrown in for fun. 

The 2nd half of class was lock and throw review (aikido).  I was partnered with sister and she is so frustrating to work with.  I just played teacher to her and went over all the basics.  Every time I do the techniques on her there is no effect.   Her flexibility makes 99% of our moves worthless.  When we rotated I went over to Teacher and dropped him in a half second with too much force – we both realized that you try so hard with Sister that you end up overdoing it for everyone else. 

Dang I’m sore.

Pilgrim’s Progress

I’m not sure it’s possible, but I think I did a little better last night.  There wasn’t too much huffing and puffing and certainly no dark spots dancing before my eyes.  I am, however, incredibly sore, but not in spots I figured.  It seems like all my connective tissue had withered and now it fighting to regain some resiliency. 

The worst is the top of the forearms near the elbow.  I don’t know enough of my own physiology to figure out what’s happened here, but I presume that the shudo practice on Tuesday must have done it. 

Without Driver and Beard the class consisted of Teacher, me, India and Giggles.  India and Giggles are teen-age girls.  Teen-age girls drive me batty.  I’m not the first one to thrown stones in that I like to have a good time and joke when I can, but teenagers can have these giggling fits that are unstoppable.  It makes me want to practice a chokehold.  Thankfully Teacher can help them focus.   At half time Beard, Sister 1 and little Brother came in to add size to the class.

Worked on Tuesday with expansion.  Teacher is making nice combos that even the basic students can grasp.  Fun for everyone.  I focused on unwinding the torso for more power generation, but because I baby my knees I can get low and do it properly. 

Ended with knife attack training.  Tried the knuckle punch to the hand and ended up doing the knuckle to knuckle.  Hands hurt today. 

Out of Shape

I knew it’s been some time since I’ve done any type of vigorous exercise, but this was ridiculous.  We were probably 10 minutes into class after warm-ups, doing a block/strike drill.  Teacher wanted me to do an inside crescent kick immediately followed by a side kick.  All of you know you just have to keep your balance and it’s a snap.  Well, after two sets of 20 I could barely breath.  And if I didn’t get my heel pointed all the way around to the target my hips would bind on the side kick.  Grueling. 

Maybe because it’s been so long since I’ve been, but for once the utilization of the hip snap to get the shoulders moving really seemed to work for once.  I didn’t fight myself too much and I was doing pretty good.  My lower back seems tender though. 

We did some katas/hyungs at the end of class and picked up a few pointers that I had forgotten. 

---

After the kids left one of the guys told us that he saw the cops put Nilon on the plane to the big city with handcuffs on!!!.  Apparently three assaults in two months.  This led to a discussion on the schools responsibility, liability and what to do if he came back.  Apparently he’d been asked not to continue at the Judo school.  I hadn’t even realized that he was trying to go there. 

It got me to thinking about our open door policy to accept any students.  Does the Teacher have the right to be selective?  His approach of let them taste and then they move on has always worked, until Nilon.  I guess we were all assuming that he’d “get it” after some point.  Ah well. 

Defense

In my defense:
- She's tall for her age
- She punches without restraint
- She's flexible to the point where locks are not functional
- She's about a foot shorter that me

So the attacker comes in with a punch, you do a cross block into grab (so you end up holding their right hand in lock with your right hand; standing behind the arm standing next to them). Then you hold their locked wrist, and brace their elbow across your chest. You take your left hand palm their jaw. Holding on that annoying pressure point.

Without fail when this is applied to me I'm in so much pain I can't breath. Without fail I haven't been able to apply to this anyone but someone my own height.

So Sister1 and I are partnered practicing this. During the demo I was unable to strike teacher just due to the lockout and position. I get Sister1 in position and ask her to hit me with total conviction that I have her locked up tight.

I end up sitting on the floor groaning, holding my kidney. Nice work Mr. karate man.

--

Beard pulls me aside after class and asks me, "did you hear about Nilon? He got into some fights in the last 6 weeks and got into trouble with the law." Whoa. I couldn't believe it. I thought Beard was joking. He wasn't. I wonder if he'll show up at class...

Time passes slowly and a bit quickly

By my last post I can see that time has gone by a lot faster than I anticipated. If it hasn't been work it's been school work slowly eating at my ability to get to beatings.

My muscles are so flaccid it makes me nervous to go because that's when the injuries seem like they occur (this is a lie - I find they occur when I'm feeling at my best and things get out of hand). Tonight the worst was when I was thrown the newer folks let go my hand and I'd get dropped unceremoniously on the mats. Not cool on the backside. I got partnered with Nilon at one point and missed the block which led me to a punch in the ear - ouch! Later I unintentionally popped him in the jaw -oops. I mean, I felt bad and all, but I'm celebrating now.

I can't believe I let him get to me the way he does - and I know I've ranted about this guy in the past, but he's like a bad penny always showing up. I hate that I have to mentally prepare myself to deal with him. As we put the mats away tonight he keep poking and elbowing me. I had finally had to stop and ask him, "are you okay?" Thinking that might shake him into some semblance of propriety. No go. He said, "I'm so glad your back, you're so fun to pick on."

WTF! How I am the guy? What in my nature or personality makes this guy gravitate to me and spoil my evening? In my heart of hearts I realize that I've got to make a boundary with this guy, but I'm not sure what it is. Do I just say, "you're a massive dick" and hope he gets the point? Or just stop playing at his grab-assery? I think that's the best approach.

What happens in the end is that I'm agitated and my experience is colored by him.

Teacher is off to foreign lands for a month so I can safety get caught up on fitness and school work for awhile and let my petty emotional rants subside.

Strike Again Harmonious Fists

Let's say that everything has a tempo.

I find patterns instructive and powerful tools for learning especially within beatings. For practice, getting a rhythm going just seems to create an expansive, hypnotic feeling. It's where you can let go of what's going on, step outside of yourself and look at what's going on in an objective fashion. Of course, I realize that this same pattern is the direct cause of problems in sparring or other one/two step applications because it builds up an almost neural pattern - a trap of repetitive training.

Last night I realized that without Nilon we established an otherworldly tempo of counting during the warm ups. Even if everyone finished the move at a different time the counting was always on the mark.

Later when we were doing partnered punching and movement drills I noticed the detrimental side of the rhythm. If a person has no rhythm then long-term drilling is subject to constant failure. It wasn't helped by me constantly stopping Older Sister and telling her to step and then punch. She punches with such confidence and vigor that I think she is more experienced than she is. She still makes the mistakes that everyone does...

Douchebag Chronicles

I had to leave class immediately.

I had to leave class immediately or I might have burst into laughter.

I ran up the stairs with a rictus like grin - smiling so hard I thought I'd tear the skin on my face.

Bob from Striking thoughts mentioned that guys like this will eventually have someone rain on their parade.

Tonight the rain came and the only disappointing thing about it was that I didn't get to bring the rain.

Nilon strolled into class a half hour late, but was on task and was fairly focused. But at the very end we had sparring. What a night it was. First, our new teenage girls showed that were tough as nails. Their session started off with a profound smack in the face that sounded like a gun shot. Whoa! Then came Beard and Nilon. It was epic. Nilon tried to bring the fight to Beard - literally trying his half-ass made up Judo moves on a guy with a Blackbelt in Judo; who's had it for over 20 years. I could see this going bad quick, but Teacher never made a move to stop it. Normally he he curbs anything that isn't right out of our book.

Nilon tried some grabs with leg sweeps that only got him punched and eventually knocked down. Beard swiftly got behind him and got his legs all locked up and then choked him out. Teacher finally called that and class was down.

Nilon was silent for the rest of the time and absolutely hermit like in the changing room as Beard and I talked about my adrenaline shaking hands.

I couldn't stand it so I left as soon as I could so I wouldn't burst out laughing.

On another topic I'm feeling a little more like a brown belt. I'm educating with some more comfort and I know in the sparring I look a hell of a lot better than the others. I got a spinning heel kick in on Teacher tonight, but I'm sore as all get out.

Douchebag Analysis

By the calendar it appears that a month has gone by since my last attendance to beatings. After a rich diet of beer and finishing other peoples meals for a month beatings was going to be hard. Thankfully everyone else appeared be doing about the same after the holidays.

Things haven't changed much with the group. Still a plethora of teenage girls with some of our original gang. Teacher is out of a lot of instruction due to a rotator cuff problem - even punching is painful.

Nilon is there of course. I was mentally prepared to see him so it was no surprise when he showed up late and joined the warmups, which I was leading, fouls the count by either shouting extremely loudly or off by a few beats and then precedes to do his own thing during stretching. Nilon is devotee to long distance running, but never figured out how to stretch. He is about the most inflexible person I've ever met and refuses to put time or effort into the process. So he gripes and ends up doing whatever. Although it's not limited to the stretching - if anything can't keep his attention for more than a minute he's off and doing something else. And I thought my ADD was bad.

I'd like to say that I've gotten used to his unintentional douchebaggery after a few years, but that would be a lie. The typical even that drives me nuts is that we have a standard drill (one step sparring) and he immediately starts doing whatever he wants. Teacher normally stops him and refocuses him, but it doesn't last very long. So it always with some trepidation when I get partnered with him. Last night he proved to be gentle and kept telling to relax! What a change. I bet it only lasts a week.

I was nicely tired after the exercise and my legs didn't end up shaking too bad. This morning I'm not a bundle of knots so I count that a good start.

Shaky Legs

I'm not sure I want to count the weeks that have passed since I've last been to beatings. But here I was back and it didn't seem like anytime had passed since I'd been there last. Except for all the new faces. We had six teen age girls! What the heck? Teacher asked me to lead the warm-ups and we broke into lines to do punching and blocking practice. Fairly standard, but I was wheezing already. We were then put into pairs and I got one of the new girls that had a gi from a previous school. Didn't mind hitting there I guess. More bruises for me.

After awhile practicing the shudo strikes we went to wrist locks and my partner had to stop for a second because her legs were shaking. She had gone horseback riding previous to class. No calories and frazzled body.

As I walked up the steps to my house I noticed my legs shaking as well. Months of inactivity have made me the human version of veal.

Life by the hour

I'm in school at night and I work a 40 a week job. My life has come down to a measurement of hours. I tell myself that I can do this or that based on it lasting a hour. So if I go to the gym - only one hour; if I work in the garage - only one hour. This has made me very compartmentalized, but I get a lot done very efficiently.

So it was with some trepidation that I went back to beatings tonight with the one hour rule in mind. Teacher wanted to talk quite a bit to catch up, but we got going and since I was the only person it turned into a 40 minute private lesson.

Part of my trepidation was my fear that I'd forgotten everything. I was surprised when we went into one and two-step exercises and then right to integrating locks and blocks. I actually remembered most of the stuff and could execute it fairly well! Color me shocked.

Training/Boredom Update

Teacher is back in town, but no beatings until November. So out of boredom I'm continuing to work out in the morning whenever I can develop the momentum. It's just so damn cold out that I have to break it up with something different on off days. So today was burpees and some pushups in the kitchen.

- 30+ pushups
- 10+ burpees
- 5 burpees
- 15 burpees
- gasping and retching

I think I'll go back outside tomorrow. Cold is better than burpees.

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.
---

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...

Segue

I was helping my wife prepare her classroom for the new school year last night so I didn't get to beatings. So I've included a video of me on the receiving side of Kotegashi as we do it. Not very smooth, but I find it effective.

I've also, finally, started a drill in the morning that Bob at Striking Thoughts suggested. Taking a wavemaster, doing knee strikes for five minutes intervals with push ups interspersed. In fear that I would go into arrest I started with 2 minutes on the timer and then three. Tomorrow I'll try three three minutes rounds. So far I'm better than I thought, but the wavemaster has a tendency to move away so I'm either chasing it down or pulling it back. I'm hoping to shake off those extra pounds from wine country.

Overcome

I actually counted four or more times that I tried to find an excuse not to go to class last night. I was hoping that my wife was too tired from work and wanted me around to barbecue. I got the barbecue correct, but I was ushered off to beatings while she went back to school.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon for me, and I imagine others, that it literally takes wild horses to get to class, but once there I feel completely at home and totally refreshed and invigorated at the end of class.

Arms of Steel was visiting between semesters so his little sister stayed for both hours of the class. I mention this only because we did a little light sparring and AOS was pretty rusty with the sparring portion, but his sister who probably only ways 100 pounds, literally punched and kicked me with near her full force. I was thinking to myself, "who let this cat out of the bag?" and "Am I allowed to do the same to her?" I was completely discrete and punched and kicked appropriately, but most of it was rendered ineffectual because she kept getting inside my range, so I couldn't set up a good kick or punch. I hate kids.

We ended class with something I think we stole from Aikido classes. Multiple attackers and we could only use aikido to move people around. Awesome fun, but my fat was slowing me down.