Choke Thursday

The weekend has been way to long. I could barely remember how good it felt to train with the clan at honeydew. I behaved myself over the long weekend and trained moderately every chance I got. I kept my diet on the sensible side and felt ready for a good workout. The class was full. Almost everyone was there and it was good to see a couple of regulars keep their commitment.

I kept an eye on a couple of juniors, they were more relaxed and their styles have improved since they started. I could see their confidence building as their strikes became more powerful and accurate. The class was alive and as we finished the warm-ups I felt proud to be part of such a vibrant group of Ninjas. The body conditioning was relentless. My midriff is getting stronger from all the sit-ups and I took the punishment like a fighter.

We got the bags out and dusted them off with a couple of palm-heal strikes. The Sensei spurred us on as we did combination strikes. I had lots of gas in the tank and although I was sweating profusely, I felt strong and constantly changed my stance to train both sides of my body. This caused me to constantly be out of my comfort zone and took a bit more concentration. I also turned my head away while the Sensei used my bag for demonstration and visualised the strikes rather than see them for myself.

I did my push-ups while the rest broke for water. The Sensei put one of the heavy bags on my back. This substantially increased the weight I had to push as I already use a chair to put my feet on while I do the push-ups. My arms ran out of juice before I got winded this time and the sensei taunted me as I squeezed the last bit of energy out with a grunt.

We broke up into our levels and I got my leather belt from my bag. I felt more comfortable with it, but my nemesis had a mouth full of mockery for my choice of weapon. I smiled and nodded. He was violent and aggressive as usual, but I steeled myself and met him head-on. I decided to speed up my punches and be more aggressive myself. It is against my nature, but it’s the only language he seems to understand. It awoke the tiger from a long hibernation…

We trained with the Sensei and swopped the belt between the two of us after each strike. This slowed down the pace quite a bit and focused our attention on technique rather than force. One technique was a back to back choke. I got the belt around his neck and arched my back against his back. Suddenly I felt him tap. With his carotid artery cut off he was near fainting within seconds. He didn’t pass out, but we quickly moved on to the next technique as he joked about how euphoric he was becoming while being at the wrong end of a strangling Ninja…

Embrace the shadows.