Weekend report

Friday night practice
Andrew didn't have a private class this week. I still logged in an hour of relaxed bo practice. I think it was even more relaxed this week as the two kids, two brothers actually, who have their own private class in the same room where I practice started working on their show routine as well as their own individual bo kata done with music. These kids are just a joy to look at, and to watch them try to match the strikes with the "booms" and "bams" of the music just had me watch in awe. I didn't simply sit back and watch. The whole hour, I had my bo in my hand and worked on some sequences of my kata, but it was very enjoyable to sometimes take a few seconds of break and watch them.

Saturday morning
We started with a good warmup workout, as usual. I did not realize it during class, but it didn't include pop-corn jumps this week. It did however include the squat on the tiptoes/squat/lunges routine and I've been feeling it ever since I woke up yesterday.

We then went on to do a bit of kicking in the body shields. I like kicking in these, as you can let it go full strength. We went through front ball kick, round house kick, side kick, spinning back kick and a combination spinning back kick to one side/jumping-spinning back to the other side. I felt like I was doing okay, and the groin is holding all right. :) These drills got me sweating quite a bit too.

We then moved on to some jiu-jitsu work, mainly self defense controlled improv. Worked on some neat takedown methods. We were unanmimous after class in the dressing room, it was very interesting to practice that kind of stuff, even though it's not part of our school's curriculum.

Saturday afternoon bo class
Our regular bo instructor could not be there this week so he had asked somebody else to replace him. He had told me in advance, even asking me to help him in case the younger kids in the class got out of hand a bit. See, the kid that replaced him is a 14yo bo whiz kid. And by whiz kid, I mean just that. He passed his black belt in last and has been competing for quite a while. His style of bo handling is a bit more on the flashy side, with lots of rolling of the bo around his shoulders and neck and such. It's not the kind of moves that our instructor likes to do, and me neither for that matter, so it's not the kind of things we work on usually. We started class by working on some strikes and I was able to lead the class through our sequence of 20 strikes we'd put together the previous week. I was kind of proud of that. We then worked separately on our kata as he was watching people two by two perform their kata in front of him. When he called us, Andrew and I, to do our kata in front of him, I felt good, confident. I guess the amount of practice and the fact that I've done it in front of people for the last couple of weeks on Monday nights have both helped me be more relaxed when presenting it. Just a few weeks ago, simply presenting it in front of my regular instructor had me nervous to the point that I would goof up here and there. This time, no goof up, form went quite well. He gave me a few pointers of things to work on. Main one is my left elbow being too high. I asked him to do the strike that causes my elbow to be too high. For the record, I was not disputing the fact that my elbow is too high because I know it is. I simply wanted to see him do the strike and pay attention to how his arm moves. I think I saw something he does that I will try to replicate. To be continued...

After each of us in class doing our kata in front of him twice, we went on to practice some of his signature moves. They included lots of rolling the bo over the shoulders or around the neck. As I said, probably not the kind of strikes I'd feel comfortable incorporating into one of my kata. I have some non fighting moves in my kata, mainly when I spin or throw my bo, but I see rolling the bo around the should or the neck as being just too flashy. The thing I liked about this kid is, he acknowledged that this would be of no use in a fight. I mean, when one of a the 9 year olds in the class pointed out to him that he would not hurt anybody with that move, he just told him that this was part of competing with an open bo form, just like the spinning is.

Some like these moves, I don't really. I had a good time trying to do them though. That, even though I smacked myself in the head more than once trying to get the darn thing to roll over my left shoulder while passing it under my right arm and while doing a quarter turn.. (try picturing that... ;) )

FM