Buns O' Steel

Since Andrew's instructor is away in Spain for the WKA Amateur World Championship, there was no class for him, thus no Wednesday night special for me. I was not going to let that go to waste though and I went to a regular class for me.

After our basic warmup, our instructor told us he had some sufferin' for us to do. Two by two, locking right hand together, one of the two was told to take position to do a right round house kick, but not kick it. The exercise was to simply extend the leg full length in the air, as if doing a round house kick in slow motion, keeping muscles contracted at all times, keep the extended position for a count of two, then pull back but not drop the foot to the floor. This can also be done while leaning against a wall instead of having a partner holding your hand. We did a series of 15 and at the 15th, our instructor told us to do 15 quick round house kicks. Dear God, I thought I was gonna cramp and stay jammed up after the 5th one, imagine going up to 15. Both people did the right leg and then the left leg. Strangely enough, I expected to be really sore today, but it's not that bad. I guess my buns were already halfway to steel... :D

We then went on to do the intermediate self-defense techniques in quick succession, i.e. without a partner. I had a few blanks that will need to be worked on but they don't worry me too much. The good thing was what followed. We were asked to go through our advanced self-defense techniques with a partner. I was quite surprised (and happy) at how well they came out for me, much improvement has been made on this in the last few weeks.

After going through these techniques, our instructor told me to find a corner, pick up my bo and work on my kata which I was only too happy to oblige. That gave me a solid 15 minutes to work on putting together the transitions in between strikes and spins and footwork.

Class was given by the same instructor as last Monday, the one who'd told me I could present my kata on every class until the show comes. Through to his word, with maybe 5 minutes left in the class, he got everybody to line up at the back of class and he asked people who would be presenting something at the show to come forward. A 17yo girl presented a nunchaku kata that I found was very impressive. Then I realized, she is younger than half my age!!! Man to have started practicing with the bo when I was 15, there's no telling where I'd be now. Anyway, I was next. I got into very relaxed and while there some kinks that will need to ironed out, like my bo flying sideways after I'd brushed the tip on my knee on a simple figure 8, I was very, very satisfied with how it went. As weird as this may sound, I felt I was going faster by slowing it down a notch. Not so much slowing down but kind of stopped forcing it. That made the whole thing much more fluid.

Once the class was over, I was able to find a whole empty room and got to practice for another 15 minutes, full speed. I tell ya, I was sweating like a pig. I set myself at the end of the 15 minutes and did the kata one last time, nailing it from start to finish. I wish I'd had my camera filming me then, I had the feeling I had just done something beautiful. I knew it wasn't perfect, but it felt good. I left for home with a smile on my face. :)

FM