A Little Collection Of Notes

I'm still grinding away at my practice and occasionally learning a bit of new stuff, but lately I've been teaching a bit more than practice, but it's all stuff I needed to work on anyway.  

Most of the time I've been working on Ni Pai Po which is modestly long and somewhat challenging.  However, I'm teaching it as I refine it.  I had no idea how difficult it was to pass timing on how rewarding it is to see the other person get it!  

My next big goal is to be lower in stance by the end of every kata than the start.  That goes with the assumption that I'm rising during the middle of the kata.  

I've been working with my new bunkai partner, Reed.  Which is nice as we look better matched than I did with Olivia.  We are simply practicing the basics and haven't amplified the standard stuff we usually use.  Reed usually leaves that to the last couple of weeks.  Stressful to me, but that's how he works.  

Other news:
I'm now using a blood pressure cuff twice a day.  Slightly high blood pressure for three visits in a row means I have to monitor.  Depressing.

I've been back to running after a very long time off.  I thought it was good for you.  It's a perfectly ridiculous way to spend time.  I thought it was going to help me sleep better.  it seems the fitter you get the more you have to work to get exhausted.  Silly!

I'm making knives for my three teachers.  I should have done a video on how not to do it.  However, I'm impressed how sharp these things are.  I'm up to polishing the blades a bit more before I work on the handles.  I want those done before the test this time.

Head So Big

Hey All,

Just another episode of "practice, practice, practice".  It's been tough to get motivated to do my daily practice (the entire test with shadow bunkai), but I'm trying to do a little each day so I don't forget stuff.  Mostly I'm working on two basic stances, cat and long split (Nekoashi Dachi and Zenkutsu Dachi respectively).  

Sensei had told me to video myself as much as possible and it's provided to be a cruel mistress.  Even when I think I'm doing better in practice, review doesn't pull any punches.  I've been doing this for three weeks or so and really trying to do a few things better.  That would include depth of stance and balance.  Two things that are so simple yet equate to the backbone of what everyone is going to see and judge me on.  

As I suppose all men must do, the farther I squat down the more I have a tendency to lean forward.  I've been forcing my back straight for awhile, but it means that I have to struggle with my balance in a new position which is also trying to be very low.  It also means that I have to practice this in every position in my katas.  Ouch.

Last night we had a very small class, just three of us.  So Sensei had Mark watch him and I do Haku Cho and Haku Cho Dai.  He wanted any remarks so I was prepared to take the regular onslaught of commentary following me do a kata.  

These comments aren't verbatim of course, but here's the gist:

• Tater had lower stances
• Tater had better hands

I told Sensei I'd give him a 20 later for making me look so good.  

Of course it wasn't particularly fair since it's all that I work on, but it was a nice feeling after being made to look shabby by doing the same things next to Olivia for the last year and some.  

Working The Basics

It all comes down to the basics - at least when folks are looking at you with a microscopic analysis of your skills.  Each superfluous movement of a foot, every time I look in the incorrect spot, and every stance that makes me appear standing far too tall all add up to make me look less than proficient.  

I mentioned some years back that this style of karate tends to focus deeply on Kata because one of the original guys said that some people are naturally adept at fighting so the only way to see where the skill lays is within kata and bunkai.  

Because of my intermittent history with various martial arts over the course of my life my basics are scattered at best, but has made me flexible when it comes to relearning.   

This all leads to last night.  Somewhere in my head/sub-conscious I decided that I would do all the stances as low as possible.  Just to see where it would go.  I'd stop when my knees couldn't take it or i'd fall over.  Then I'd focus on my hips.  I make them snap for every move with a punch or strike.  

What I didn't take into account was that Daniel was going to run the class and he was okay with working on our cardio.  And part of working of cardio was just trashing the legs.  Squats, sprints and slow kicks.  I mean I loved it, but by the time I got to work on kata I was pretty wrung out.  However, I made sure those stances were fantastic, just hard as heck to keep balance when moving.  

Today's practice felt a tiny bit better and a tiny bit lower.

Painful Review

Or maybe not.

It's taken me a bit to sit down and write about the test and my feelings around how it went.  It's been a week plus now and I have had plenty of time to mull over how it went.  But let me jump back to the test first.  

Reed, MaryAnn and me got to Yakima with about three hours till testing.  We checked in our hotel which was pretty rough as places go, but at least semi-clean.  Lesson learned; don't go for the cheapest place you can find.  

We drove over to the dojo and they hadn't opened up just yet so we sat around outside socializing while everyone collected.  After they opened we went in and changed into our Gis and started warming up.  Strangely, I felt very distanced emotionally and not overly nervous or excited.  

Olivia and I practiced our bunkai lightly and worked through our kata and just chatted until we were told to line up.

The test seemed to take a long time because we were with some other advanced belts and their parts took a very long time.  This gave me ample time to rest which I appreciated.  I also had a great view of their bunkai which impressed me greatly.  There were a lot of complicated throws which we rarely see in karate.  

After we completed we ended up sitting in the lobby for an hour.  Apparently, there was a lot to discuss which was intriguing.   We found out later that the judges were taking the view point that their style was different that what we were presenting.  Reed was politely explaining that our style was what we'd been doing for the last ten years.  So they had to come to terms with a lot of theoretical stuff before they could address the results.  

The higher ranking folks went into to get their results and it took another hour for just three folks.  Finally Olivia, me and another guy that tested for Nidan were ushered in.  They gave Olivia her notes first but they said right away that they all passed her.  They went into a lot of detail about what they liked and what needed to be fixed, which was minimal.  They loved her bunkai because of the way she thrashed me around.  

Then it was my turn.  They all agreed that I need to come back next quarter and do the test again.  I had been fairly hopeful, but it was balanced with everything they had said before and I had a sneaking suspicion that being partnered with Olivia probably wasn't in my best interest.  She looked so good that everything that I did looked mediocre - the differences were really emphasized.  I mean I really needed to do some things better, but you get the idea.  They also didn't like the fact that she was my partner.  They thought I needed someone that I could hit and I clearly was holding back on occasion.  Although she would say that was untrue because she was really sore.  

In the end I got two pages of very detailed notes which makes fixing things way easier when you have a check list.  So I'm burying myself in making my basics way better, but the depth of my stances really weighs against me.  I'm not totally sure how to make them deeper because it doesn't actually feel like I can.  Well shall see.

I have until September 3rd (which is the next test day) to see how far I can go.

One Day To Go - Nidan

Everything is in preparation and everything is practiced.  A few of the bunkai got shifted yesterday, but not in a big way.  Hotel is secured.  Travel is planned.  Details are detailed.  

The adrenaline is pumping and we all feel good.  Three of us are testing (Daniel, Olivia and me) and we've been told we look really good.  Better, in fact, that when Sensei took his Nidan or so he says.  

Last night we aggressively went after our bunkai for several hours.  Unfortunately, I'm feeling pretty bruised, but nothing is impaired.  

I'll do a run through today and call it good.  Tomorrow we leave in the morning and will have a couple of hours before the exam to warm up.  I'm not sure I need that much, but it'll nice to work out some of the adrenaline with a light run through for me.  

Pray to the karate gods that we get good and equitable judges and that we do a great job as well.

The Final Week to Nidan

My wife has been talking to be me about how we as people interpret adrenaline.  Is it fear or is it excitement?  

I've been calling it "a case of the nerves" for years.  In an attempt to frame my upcoming test in the best light possible I'm called it excitement, but tempered with reality.  

For all the practice tests we've been working on we've been given passing grades, but they keep on pointed out that there is a level of precociousness with the judges.  They've identified a few that simply fail people outright with not a lot of reasoning.  Or in the worst case scenarion - no reasoning.  

To put it in the best light- the judge will identify something wrong with the kata and have no way of putting into words that are helpful to the person in the test.  Definitely not helpful and it's occured over the years with no avenue of complaint.  Urgh.  

My fingers are crossed tight that we get some supportive upper ranks to give us objective scoring.  

I leave Friday morning to drive up to Yakima.  Our test is in the evening and isn't surrounded by the normal Kyu level belts or larger ceremony which is a bit of a bummer, but it means we'll be out of there fairly early depending on the amount of testers. Normally, we'd be there till midnight.

During this week we are trying to do as much fine tuning as possible before we take off.  As part of this the regular class time is totally dedicated to test run and bunkai refinement.  In the BB class I ran through the test and noticed all my flaws, but MaryAnn Sensei still thought it was a pass.  Unfortunately, Olivia couldn't be there until the evening class so I ended up going through the test again.  I was completely shot about halfway through which didn't look good with me gasping.  Thankfully I can do one run and look okay, but that stretched me pretty bad.  And then we spent the last 15 minutes working on one bunkai that I'm kinda sketchy on.  No longer!

Two Weeks To Go

Hey all, I apologise for not writing.  I'm sure there is more than enough to talk about, but the test is in two weeks and pretty much the only things I think about are the test and the test.

I kept meaning to write, but composing my thoughts in a cohesive manner has been tough.  I run through the test pretty much every day and last time I wrote I had intense workouts pretty much every day.  I didn't think I could get any more changes or improvements in.  However, last night I was given a few corrections to work on and they seem doable to fix.  A foot there and a fist there and so on.

Probably the biggest deal/change was that we converted the normal bunkai on our last kata into a Oyo.  Oyo is a longer, back and forth demonstration of the techniques in which both sides gets to play at attacking and defending.  The normal bunkai was just a single move and seemed modest compared to the kata; which is very long and complex.

Olivia and me, with the help of Reed and Daniel, contructed an interesting and graphic routine based on 6 self-defense moves.  I don't know about Olivia, but our practice leaves me pretty sore and bruised.  By Saturday of last week I was having problems with my abs and realized that my ribs were bruised.  Nice work Olivia!

Next Friday is the exam and I'll be excited to do it, but I'm a touch nervous because there is always space for failure.  If it occurs I have to wait four to six months for restest, and thankfully don't have repay the test fee.  Each rank goes up another $100.  So my NiDan will be $200.  Poor Daniel is going for his ShiDan which will go for $400.  Ouch.  

If I can get the video practice from Olivia I'll post or link here.  

On a side note, allergy season is here and practicing with a half lung is brutal.  Hopefully things will be clear by next week.  Wheezing at the test will probably be frowned upon.

One Week Straight

The question I pose, is how much karate is too much?  

I've just completed a week of karate.  Normally I try to practice every day, but during the last week I was doing work outs and refinement with other people every day except Friday.  The pinnacle was driving up to Eugene with Sensei's Reed, Daniel, and MaryAnn to meet with Sensei Albert for an intense review.  It ended up lasting 6 hours.  

Both Reed and Albert had Morris Mack as their primary instructor and Reed considers Albert a type of uncle in the complex school relationship.  I think Albert is around my age, but he's been practicing since he's been six.  Unlike many of us,  he never took any time off, so his reserve of information is tremendous.   

Our purpose was to go over our testing material to see what a fresh pair of eyes might see.  At times I thought Albert was skipping looking at basics and just looking at the main areas of interest in each kata, but as time went on he would shift occasionally to pick up errors in my more advanced katas.  This gave me a small sense of pride, assuming that it meant my basics were solid enough to be ignored.  

I left completed wiped out, but no one said that I sucked so bad that I shouldn't test.  In the greater scheme of things I'm only able to fail two Kata to blow the whole test, but I'd rather they all be good/great.  

Perhaps my only area of concern was that I didn't feel any nervousness when I was performing my kata in front of everyone.  I'd rather experience some tension, which would be more like the actual exam.  

I'm looking forward to this week. Only two class nights and time to actually practice on my own.  

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.

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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. 

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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. 

Half A Bubble Off

It was late in the evening and sudden impact of our foreheads connecting was alarming since it was accompanied by that ripe watermelon noise.  Both Reed Sensei and myself stumbled back for a second as my eyes attempted to focus for a bit.  Thankfully neither of us was hurt and that led to some laughter.  

However, that wasn't going to be the end of it and it certainly wasn't the beginning either.
Since it was a Monday we did a Test run through starting in the Black Belt Club (aka Reed's garage).  I felt pretty good going in, but my recent lack of practice started to show.  By the fifth kata the accumulation of mistakes make me stop and start over at one point - a definite low point.  

I will say that part of the distraction is that I'm trying to keep my eyes up.  I practice with my eyes down and that's a no-no for testing.  Through the course of the night I got better, but the first katas were pretty terrible.  

In between each kata is the bunkai.  These are designed to show that we can extract a move from the kata and make a practical defense out it.  The ones that were original to our teachers are often short and a bit boring.  So we've been developing them into some lengthier more elaborate exchanges. Last night we made a rather action packed one that started with me being the aggressor.  I try to do a forward collar grab and Olivia reaches in and grabs mine and pulls me down toward her.  I'm met with a knee to the chest.  This brings me into position for her to swing a leg over and catch the opposite shoulder and drive it down while yanking my other arm up.  The result is that I spin in the air, land on my back and she punches me in the face. After we did this a few times I notices my elbows getting a bit sensitive, but didn't think much about it.  Apparently my new gi is way rougher than I'm used to and removed the skin around my elbows in a couple of places,  ow!

After all the action I'm completely sore this morning.  My back is in knots, my thighs are super sore from knee strikes, but I'm motivated to practice and have already made it half-way through the test by 8am.

Research And Development With Fists

Intermittent poster here. 

I keep forgetting to jot down notes from class and/or training.  Each class has a tendency to blend with another and improvements are small and overall progress is measured by increments.

For instance I know all the patterns all the way through now, and I don't usually have too many errors anymore, but the focus is on timing now.  So we methodically go through each kata and work on fast, slow, rest, speed, etc.  Thankfully I'm getting slightly better while Olivia appears to be squared away already.  Thankfully she's patient with me and can offer constructive criticism and great support.

Due to the schedule, last night was fight night, but Reed was feeling creative so the Black belt club worked back and forth on developing bunkai from some of our kata.  

I was asked to see if I could figure something out of Hakutsuru No Ottoko.  This turned out to be very difficult to do.  The standard bunkai really uses the best that the kata offers, but it's short.  We worked on expanding it which seems fun and more action packed, but I wasn't sure if I needed to have Olivia buy off on it.  

It did serve to get me to understand that our creativity can be put into use when everything seems to be pretty rigidly set out in our style of Karate.  I think the regional group of leadership has started focusing on the fact that we need get outside the box when we are at this level of practice.  It just takes time to rework my brain.

At class we had three point sparring and took it me long time to warm up to.  I only won two matches and it didn't feel great.  I only remembered to use my legs late into the matches and that turned the tide for me.  I don't believe my legs are much longer than anyone else, but their perception is that they are hyper long.  Whatever.  It got me the points.  

Point sparring agitates me.  Knowing exactly what to look for and to do the things are that easy to be witnessed turn the tide in scoring.  So a good block on a kick or punch are disregarded for a few reasons.  I get it and I'm learning, but I don't have to like it.  It's just that my natural competitiveness makes a loss frustrating.  

Timing And Technique

With our Ni Dan test coming up in three months attention to detail is the primary focus.  

I try to be objective about my personality, but the truth is the fact that I'm having some problems motivating myself to do the practice I need to do.  This would be absolutely going over problem spots in katas until they no longer crop up.  However, work at the house and life issues make practice hard to do most days.  I mean, I'm just making excuses at this point, but this leads up to how I do in class.

Last night we met in Sensei's garage and even though the heater was on we could see our breath.  Due to possible snow barely anyone made it to class.  So Sensei, Maia and I just worked on refinement.  In last night's case I worked on Wando for both hours and although I'm concerned that I have a lot of issues we were able to get me to look pretty darn good by the end of the evening.  Timing seemed to be a big issue for me. My sense is that I'm doing a one-two and I'm usually just doing one, one , one.  I'll need to continue to work on that.  

The side notes 
My Mother is nearing the end of life, but seems to be able to make miraculous recoveries each time she goes to the hospital. She has a medical directive in place that indicates that she wants to end life, but my Father is having a problem with this so things get complicated.  So my brother and I wait by the phone.

We are working on yet another part of the house.  This time it's our bedroom.  Since we are pretty good at it now it's gone a lot easier, but it's still a month in.  This time we've elected to put in built in closets and under window seating.  It just means more time till completion.  So we're living in a guest room in mean time.  

We have chickens and we're still learning lessons about them.  We had, through a variety of circumstances, two bantams until the rooster died two days ago.  This means that the hen is by herself because we can't allow her to mix with the regular hens.  So my wife has decided to make her a house chicken.  And my wife is now leaving for a week to take care of a sick friend.  Sigh.  

Hole In Foot

My wife and I are redoing yet another part of the house.  This time it's our bedroom and it should be the last of the massive internal projects.  We opted to pull an old wall out to expand the space and so far so good.  The detail work coming up as we put things together will take a long time, but the major operations have completed nicely. 

This kind of work at the house causes some difficulty though because I work my regular day and then work at night.  My only escape is to go to Karate which is nice, but I'm wiped out pretty quickly by midweek.  It's not so much the exertion, but the constant activity.  It also leaves me in a situation where I don't have enough time to think or process so karate can become a bit more difficult. 

Olivia (my NiDan partner) and me are at the point where we are fine tuning as much as possible so when are being critiqued the amount of notes can get pretty sizable.  The normal process is to be given three items to correct per session because it was the easiest to absorb.  However, now we are given about 6 to 12 depending on how much needs to be addressed.  That being said it's nice to say that I can address a lot of the things given to me, but some things remain elusive.  It kind of depends on the location of the correction in the kata.

During my Saturday practice with Daniel and Olivia I managed to open up the top of my foot.  Due to my frozen toe, I'm unable to go to my right knee and be on the ball of my right foot.  So I go to the top of my foot.  It doesn't slow me too much, but on Saturday, I kept catching the top of my foot on a high spot on the floor.  By the end of the training I had a nice bloody hole.  Here I am on Tuesday still with Band-Aids, hoping that it heals up before tomorrow.  Hah!

Back In The Saddle

It seems like a propitious start to the year to have the class almost immediately after New Years day.  We didn't do anything ceremonial, but it appeared that vacations and very cold weather kept everyone home for our advanced classes.

Black belt club was just me with Sensei's Reed and Daniel.  As per the Monday schedule we did as much of test run through as we could.  Reed's garage is heated by a moderately sized space heater, but when I got there I started warming up with a jacket and hat on.  Once we got going it wasn't bad, but I kept my socks on the whole time.

Before I went to class I was splitting wood and chose not to use my back brace.  This turned out to be a poor choice in the long run.  Splitting is great work, but bending over and over again to pick up the split stuff appears to be the worst thing I can do to my lower back.  To add insult to injury, the Sensei's have really begun to focus on my stance in such away that I'm no long leaning forward.  Boy, is that tough.  Before bed I opted for ibuprofen and realized I should have taken it earlier as a prophylactic.  Just turning in bed was tough.

We were able to get about five kata with their bunkai before time ran out, but the amount of notes were pretty significant.  Nothing horrible, but basic things that have slid out of focus.  Hips, hands, and depth.  I'm so used to Daniel being on an A+ level with his kata that I was caught off guard when Reed give him a few notes here and there.

Regular class consisted of only Sarah, me and the two Sensei's.  When the class is this small Reed reserves the time for R & D.  The semester's kata is SonShein (sp?) which feels very elementary, but I gather it can be used for Blackbelt level tests as a rest kata.  A rest kata, as I'm finding out, is a purposefully short one set in the middle to give yourself some breathing room.

Anyway, the process of R & D is to create Bunkai and test every approach to a move to see how it works. During one of our ideas we moved into a triangle choke (grabbing under one arm and around the neck at the same time).  Unfortunately, I've been dealing with a slight neck issue and totally didn't think of it, but Sarah gave me a shock when she bared down a bit and my neck gave me a red alert.  Strangely on the ride home I noticed that I could turn left way better than I had been in able to for months.  I hope that holds.

Post Vacation Review

My wife and I got invited to our friends house in Mexico and it was the perfect antidote to the cold temperatures and endless darkness of the Thorn city. Even now I'm looking at my cold fingers while I'm typing and wishing I was back down there looking out across the bay in my shorts. 

At the very least I was able to get back in time to get to class last night.  We are going into a tiny bit of shutdown for Xmas and New year so I was anxious to get to class and get some directed practice in.  

At the Black Belt class we jumped right into a test practice.  Since I'd been practicing and fairly well, I thought, I gave off the energy of confidence.  However, the first two kata got somewhat messed up, we missed a kata somehow and then I didn't depend on myself and ended up forgetting where I was in a kata.  Not a great show.  However Reed said that we were ahead of schedule and looking reasonably well.  

We were also told that the blackbelts prepping for testing would be heading up to Eugene for a day in the new year to meet with Albert Sensei for test critique.  I gather this is a special deal since this hasn't been done before.  He's been practicing for 50 years and has an attention to detail that is phenomenal.  Last time we met, a few years ago, he was suffering from some physical issues, but gave as much as he could and had a very good attitude.  

In regular class we completed the test practice because we didn't get the last kata in during the black belt club.  After that, we each got 5 minutes to chose whatever we wanted to work on.  I ended up picking European blocking because I'm mystified by it.  It's not necessarily complicated, but I can't seem to get ahold of it.  Some showed up with as a demonstration at one of the Shudokan schools and the Shihan there said, "oh man, that's cool.  We should add this to the blackbelt test."  Since I didn't do the formal brown to black here I missed out on this bit.  I can't find a video on the youtubes, but it's a east/west north/south drill in four parts.  The four parts are broken into attack and defense and then move to the next position.  Done fast it's very cool and show all the basics in one package.  

My NiDan partner, Olivia, chose to work on our stances  - in this case neko, the cat stance.  To help us out Reed Sensei place a staff in our belts along our back to ensure a proper upright stance.  Very eye opening as I tend to lean forward to look low.  My back was pretty sore by the time we finished that.  So much to learn!

Have a happy holidays!

Daygrinder and Bluetoe

It sounds like the title to a new buddy action comedy set in a dystopic waste land in the future, but in reality it's just two facets of my life from the last week.  

The Bluetoe refers to the color of my toenails last night while we did a run through of the test in Sensei's garage.  Alas, his wife had forgotten to turn the space heater on earlier.  Although we couldn't see our breath, the room felt like it was in the mid 50s (f) the whole time we were there.  We were extra vigorous just to keep warm.  No dilly-dally for us.  I believe we finished in about 45 minutes.  Record time.

About two weeks ago I bit down extra hard and knocked a chunk of tooth off a molar.  The pain was exquisite.  After the dentist had removed the shard and repaired the spot she said that I needed to get a night guard as I showed signs of grinding my teeth.  After making an appointment I realized that I forgotten to mention that I wear retainers and my teeth can't actually touch one another at night.  I was then told that I'm a daygrinder.  Now I'm painfully aware that I do it all the time.  Trying to stop it is a poorly drawn battle line.

Last night after the test run through we did something I can't recall doing in ages - kicking drills!  We ran through front, shove, side, step through and wheel kicks.  I thought I was going to be crippled this morning, plus all the lumps I took from my co-kickers, but I'm delighted to tell you only my pinky toe seems to be giving me any trouble.  I'm going to keep moving around today as much as possible in fear of stiffening up.

The highlight to all that was I was experiencing a lot of anxiety because I wanted to protect my already messed up toes and was concerned that I was unable do the kicks anymore.  To my delight I was still able to do a roundhouse to Kyle's six foot head.  Lucky me.  

We did a lot of self-defense kinds of things and that's when I noticed those of us who were at the garage session had blue toenails.  It was like the march of the living dead karateka.

New Guy Dave

Our text feed was filled with people saying they couldn't make one or both of the classes last night.  Although that's a bummer generally speaking, it means that the class was going to be small or a private lesson.  I used to be frustrated by that, but now I'm definitely down with the attention to detail it provides and the longer periods of time we can spend on single parts of exercises.  

The black belt extra class, which meets at Sensei's house between the general class and the adult class requires a drive to the South which can take anywhere between fifteen to 40 minutes depending on traffic.  For whatever reason I got all green lights and ended up second.  Very unusual for me.  The class ended up being Mya, Mark, Sensei and me.  Perfect class.

We went through as much of the test as we could in forty-five minutes.  By the end we had made it through seven kata and their bunkai.  Not bad, but the slow up was due to Sensei's attention to detail on the bunkai.  It mean lots of restarts and conversation.

I finally got to meet our latest addition to the adult class, Dave.  A silver-haired guy that reminds me of the consummate ex-Californian.  You can practically visualize this guy surfing.  I found out later that he was a student of John Sells who our Sensei studied under from time to time.  Dave lives almost an hour away so he appears to be very invested in the class time.

Because Dave has been out of practice, Reed is taking some extra time to go over the basics.  In my experience this can be trying because the basics are something we do with the kids and can be boring even if you are focusing on your stances and getting things correct.  However, since Dave has been around since back in the day, the basics took on several layers of complexity.  Simple drills became very complex as step and step were added.

We finished the class with a little kata.  I was able to teach Haku Cho to Sarah for a bit which was nice, but we ended up having a discussion about teaching method.  I've definitely got a learning curve there.

Finally! I Get To Teach An Adult

It's not that we aren't helping each other all the time, but acting in the role as a teacher specifically to pass recent knowledge is pretty exciting.  

The two folks that made it through their year of confirmation have both decided as of last night to follow the track to Ni Dan using the Birds package.  

Blocks of Kata and their associated Bunkai/Oyo are called packages in Shudokan parlance.  In my case I'm doing the "bird" package.  At least five of the kata are straight up white crane kata derived from an ancestor of ours that when to China to learn martial arts.  So we have the version that has been filtered through Japanese culture, but it's pretty recognizable by anyone for what it is.  The remaining kata were selected over the years as the default for one reason or the other.

Starting with me (or my skill level in this year) we were given the option to select a different package which contained five Shotokan kata and five Riuryu kata.  I stuck with tradition and the fact that I sort of knew two of the kata (Wando and Rohai) to help me make my choice.

When the two new sho dans (Sarah and Kyle) had the "talk" with Sensei they both went with the traditional, aka "the birds". To me the talk was kind of a big deal.  I was aware that I was making a choice about what I was going to be doing religiously for the next two years and these both gave off the air of nonchalance when they did it.  So much for tense considerations.  I was worried that everyone would blow off the birds because they seem so weird, but so far there are four of us following that path.  Since Olivia and I are a year and half in we get to be close in teachers.  

During class we were able to start the process of teaching Kyle and Sarah.  However, with the both of us saying different things it turned into a hash pretty quickly.  Way too much information for them to absorb.  We found that when we taught them one on one we did way better.  Learning to teach all over again.  

A side note - now that we are getting the bunkai down, Reed and Daniel are adding to the few moves to make them more complex.  Yikes, more to remember when everything seems so tenuous.

A Rat!

Sensei sent out a message on the text chain letting us know that someone had contacted the local code enforcement officer about running a business out of his garage.  Namely our class!  Consequently he didn't want us there to practice between classes until he sorted it out. 

A side effect of this issue is that it has lit a fire under Sensei about finding a place.  However, a brief conversation about rent prices really shocked me.  Just finding a space in an out of the way strip mall costs around $6000 freedom dollars!  How does anyone stay in business?!

We all realize that if we had our own place it would be so much easier to train.  Some of the students train three classes in a row twice a week because that's all that's available.  That's really pushing it for some of the kids in school.  By the time we get out of the last class (8:30) I'm ready to hit the sack and they still have hours of homework.  It doesn't make for a conducive learning environment. 

By yesterday afternoon Sensei finished up with the city and straightened out the code.  Since it's just us coming to work out and no money is being passed around they were cool.  But the question remains, who dropped a dime on Sensei?  We better getting Scooby Doo.

Last night was a lot of detail work on a few of my katas and during the class it was a lot of basics exercise.  My feet and legs are killing me today.  Brutal and made it easy to sleep.