Today’s class was Kumite/Sparring. Two hours of non-stop workout and rounds of sparring. Started off with a kick-circle, where we exchanged kicks for 30 minutes with each other. Ending with what Sensei calls “challenges”.
For some reason the physical aspect of this all hit me hard tonight. I can take it, I even enjoy it. Pushing myself hard is like a hobby for me now. I just want to get over the hump and be able to do nights like this more often with little recovery or prep time.
Tonight was fight class. Hour long class where we get in a good 5-6 rounds of open sparring. I was trying to focus on being intense so that the other students who were there could work on preparing for their match this coming weekend. I hope I helped in some way.
Good long day back in the saddle. Hit the gym hard with a fast mile and a circuit. Then worked all my kicks and kata for rank test tomorrow night. Then followed up with 1 hour of kick and punch drills.
Later I went to fight class at the Dojo which is an hour of warm ups and at least 6 rounds of fights.
It was a long day but worth it to prepare for tomorrow.
I have missed several days of training in the Dojo, so it had to be made up at the gym. After hitting a fast round of olympic lifting for 45 minutes we hit the open floor to work kicks on our new Hyabusa kick shield and work some fast boxing drills. Practiced/tweaked self-defense moves for my upcoming rank test as well.
Then made it back to the Dojo late in the evening for fight-class. A full hour now and still the best workout you can get. I was pretty slow from the earlier work in the gym so left with a nice split lip and bruised up arms from blocking. We did some fast point sparring and I lost 6-4. Next time!
Tonight was quite special. Sensei took a group of us out to his Sensei’s personal backyard Dojo. He showed us how they trained, which is very hard and fast.
Upon arriving outside the Dojo, we immediately were instructed to run about a half mile around the neighborhood and then after bowing into training did conditioning drills for about 45 minutes. Some of the hardest most high intensity work i’ve done so far in my training (and I like to think I hit it pretty hard.) We then fought for several rounds with each other.
Sensei kicked me off my feet and across the room, it was awesome.
We sat and talked about the nights events after bowing out for a good 30 minutes. After we got back to Columbia we all ate dinner together, we were talking about the part of the evening we enjoyed most and I spoke to everyone about feeling the spirit of Bushido through the walls of this great man’s Dojo. It was palpable in the air and smells of that little building. Some kind of real warrior spirit got inside me tonight.
It will not be a night I will soon forget. I’ll be able to look back on this as a part of the structural integrity of my training and be able to reference it for a long long time to come.
I feel like I got a strong dose of Bushido from my Sensei’s Sensei passed through him and down to me. Priceless indeed.