Hard-core Tuesday

It has been a long day at the office and I felt quite drained by the time I got home. I didn’t get the little shut eye that I was hoping for, but I made sure I ate well during the day in order to keep my energy up. I felt a pang of regret as I dug in my bag for my nunchaku and realised that they were broken. I decided to stretch a little bit on the fare side of the hall. The sensei came over and made fun of my stance and hand movements as I attempted to focus my mind on the task at hand. I smiled at him and told him his was lucky he had a black belt to which he responded that a black belt doesn’t mean I can’t punch him. It was a taste of things to come…

We lined up and started our core exercises. Some complains we voiced as the Sensei asked me how many I wanted to do. I took stretches and after getting each muscle stretched out properly we did a couple of jumping jacks as well as running on the spot. We lined up for body conditioning and I was itching with anticipation. The class was quite full and the Sensei had nothing but smiles all over. But my friends elbow seemed to act up again so the Sensei fell in with me and we engaged in one of the most intense sessions I had in a while.

It started off quite subdued with a couple of hand speed drills, but quickly progressed into a full scale takedown session. He wasn’t holding back much and I followed suit. He took initiative and I tried my best to replay with the same. At one stage we wrestled a bit and I focused on not getting aggressive and just roll with the flow, but we ended up against the wall and had to break up. He was doing all kinds of evasions and threw me on the ground hard, but time after time I got up and came back for more. I was in my element as the sweat ran down my face. We trained well together and I got some good ideas for one armed fighting. It was one of the best work outs I have had since I started and I couldn’t help but look forward to grading the same way.

One of our newly belted Senseis also joined us and he was keen on teaching me some belt techniques. He had a couple of different views on how to use the belt and I enjoyed working with him, but I felt inexperienced with the belt. The belt I used suddenly didn’t wrap around my hands so well and I couldn’t quite get into the rhythm with it. I was completely out of my comfort zone, but he was patient with me and had a lot of good advice to add and together we experimented with variations and I even made a couple of tie-up attempts.

We ended the class like most evenings, tired and bruised and all too happy to go home and for a change I didn’t feel the fire in my belly for more training. I was spent and rid of the day’s stress.

Embrace the shadows.