Karate 62

Tonight’s lesson with Tsumura Shihan was hard work but fun. It was still a little too crowded for my taste. We practiced kicking and sparring again followed by some Bo techniques. The pace was pretty intense. I forgot my belt at home and so I did not wear one. As a joke, Barrau Sensei offered me a white “belt of shame” and I said I would gladly wear it. The only problem was that it was too short and the ends ended up only about 6 inches long by the time I tied them. It fell off during the workout and I was told to just leave it and keep moving.

The other instructors were told to remove their belts and tie them together. The instructors then stretched out the long ribbon of belts and we used that during kicking and sparring practice as a target to go over or under. Hmmm, I guess you had to be there to see the whole picture. Basically the line was stretched out and we were in a line parallel to it and we kicked over the belt line trying not to touch it. Then we practiced moving back and forth across and down the line in sparring mode, punching over and under it as we crossed.

Tsumura Shihan came over to Marilyn and I and asked us what dojo we were with and I told him Devon. Towards the end of the lesson we were given a demonstration of three Bo kata as performed by three different instructors. All in all, it was a tiring but great experience. And we have one more to go to tomorrow! It should be the best one ever due to the much larger venue so there will be ample room to move.

We did lots of push-ups and sit-ups as well, and will probably have another hard workout tomorrow. I hope I am not too sore from it because I have a half-marathon to run on Monday. I’m really glad I canceled my 11 km run today!

It was sort of like what I remember military boot camp was like when I was in the military a long time ago. I’m glad I had this experience. And I am looking forward to tomorrow almost as much as I am looking forward to a rest and a relaxing half-marathon on Monday!