Hit the gym today, ran a mile (all out at 8 min/mile pace for the last ¼ of it) then did a weight circuit. Then hit the open room for a round of kicks and self-defense practice. Did some work on the focus mits, mostly combos and finished up with kata practice. All in all a fast paced 2 hours.
Much needed.
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!
Today’s class was excellent. We worked on kicks, did 100 ½ round kicks on each side, then went through the entire kick chain routine. I did floor routines with kicks for the rest of the 40 minutes of class. My legs were totally given out.
I left class and hit the gym for a 4 round circuit and then hit some kickboxing work for a half hour.
Long day, but I feel stronger.
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.
Today was a long day of class(es). First was noon class like normal. I learned back kick and practiced all the other kicks i’ve learned so far.
Then that evening I went to a 2 hour fight class. The first big fight class for me. It was interesting trading kicks and getting some kick conditioning in just a few hours after the earlier class. All made more difficult by some kind of oncoming cold/flu thing I have.
Great day of learning all around; ranging, landing and targeting kicks is not easy but the practice is so very much fun.