with new eyes

Another good class yesterday. After our regular warmup, we went straight to working on our kicks, mainly some crescent kicks and spinning crescent kicks but also some hook kicks and some high round house ones.

From how I started as an ugly duckling trying to not fall down, I improved a lot during the course of the class to end the class quite proud of myself. I was able to whip some pretty good one around the end of class. Again, people will have me believe I know what I'm doing, as some just came to me and ask me how I was doing this of that, or how I was positioning my feet from one kick to another in a sequence. We were doing the kicks as part of a self-defense sequence following a direct punch. While no direct contact occured, our instructor paired us with a partner and I was paired with a very flexible 17yo girl, whom from what I have seen, has practiced some in freestyle forms and open style nunchaku forms, you know the ones where they kick a bit everywhere. Well, I couldn't believe it. The instructor would show us a sequence of kicks to do and then tell us to go ahead and do them in team and she'd turn to me and say "you go first, you're good at getting it down right on the first try". SAY WHAT?!? Maybe I have an eye for learning these things. Yeah, sometimes they were not pretty at first, but I was usually able to nail them by the second of third try. She would then try to mimick what I did and would also nail it, obviously much younger and more energetic that yours truly here... :)

I didn't feel any competition, I was just proud of myself that toward the end of class, I was able to whip my kicks to about face high, with the speed that would have certainly knocked an opponent down cold pretty quick.

One little though. This morning, my 36 year old groin reminded me that it is easy to hurt. Not that I had a huge problem walking but these repeated kicks are sure making themselves felt today. :)

With a little more than 5 minutes left in class, our instructor told me I could get my bo and get warmed up, which I did. There was nobody in the adjoining room, so I just went there to practice. Only a couple of minutes into my warmup, as I was going through the kata, I felt eyes on me . The instructor was watching me intently. Watching me with new eyes, eyes who've not seen my kata very often, he came up with a couple of very good comments on stuff to improve, especially for the end move, where I come back up from being on my knee. I had not realized how much I was leaning forward at that point. I will have to try to work on that.

The kata in itself went very well. I still did it a bit slowed down (but faster than previous times in front of class) to help with control, but I didn't drop it and was more stable in my stances. I got a round of applause from other fellow students and good comments on it afterward and while it's not the only reason why I do it, it sure did feel good. :)

FM