Fight Tuesday

I was really psyched up about class as I blew the dust of my boxing gloves and packed my mouth guard. My friend came to pick me up so I had some time to think about how I was going to approach class.

I had a bit of time to go through the sword etiquette and nine cuts kata before my Sensei arrived. He commented that I was supposed to know my katas by now... I saw the glint in his eye and I prompted him for a round with the shinai. He accepted and we squared off. He was a bit more aggressive with me than last time and I took a couple of hits on my hand and wrist. He also got my leg and soon it became clear that my blocks weren’t effective. I attacked with more success, but I was concerned about my blocking ability and vowed as the class was called to order to work on my block at home.

We did the plank, bicycle crunches and push-ups before we stretched. I got down a little lower in the splits, my goal is to get my belt touching the floor. I wonder how long till I get that right. We lined up in two files and I was left without a partner, I threw my eye over to the juniors hoping for a soft target, but my Sensei stepped up to the plate and soon we were passing the bag back and forth to each other while the other Sensei showed us combinations. At the end of the session I was a bit winded from him kneeing me in the gut and I only managed 30 push-ups before I had to get some water.

We went over to syllabus works for the second part of the evening and we opted for the knife. Soon we were engaged in a full on knife fight and I felt more comfortable with a compact style rather than swinging my arms around, the knife it a very viable blocking option and I feel that in a real fight I will definitely be the first to inflict injury fighting in the compact amok style. We went on for quite some time before moving on to retention techniques. It’s getting close to the grading and I think we will need to do less bag work and more syllabus work to have a fair chance at success.

After class I grabbed one of the juniors and we put our boxing gloves on. It felt good to box again and afterwards the Sensei told me that he wants to box with me next time as he also wants to get fit again...

Embrace the shadows.