2005 Workout #14: The Yin and Yang of Mike McCabe…

Last night’s workout was distinctly unique… had that special gleam in his eye that says “don’t do strengthening during warmups tonight!” And I was right not to… the first class was pretty hardcore, even for the hardcore.

We all got to select a youth to torture for the first class, I selected my favorite ball of goo, Crash. We did a front stance drill where you hold your partner’s knee down and aside from some flappy gas, Crash did a pretty good job. We got to do the drills too, and some of them were downright tough.

Kebadachi, three count kicking, squat kicks… the fun just kept coming and coming. At one point, however, in my pain addled state I was irritated by Sensei O. I looked back and saw that Hickman-san had a high kebadachi, which didn’t surprise me much. I told him to bend down and sink his hips, and relax but before I could get the rest of my sentence out Sensei O jumped right up and turned around to help him and cut me right off. This has happened between me and him a few times before, and this time I was just irritated enough to mention it to him in between classes. I was cordial, diplomatic, respectful and nice… I just wanted to tell him that I would appreciate it if he didn’t jump overtop of me in mid-sentence when I was correcting one of the lower ranks. He outranks me, however I framed my request as a personal favor because I believe as black belts we also have a commitment not to undermine each other if we can. He said that he has had this problem before and other people have asked him to watch this and he doesn’t realize that it happens most of the time. So we’re still on good terms.

The second class was kata, only we were to relax to the point of near zero tension. This was done in an effort to remove the years of ingrained basic technique that we usually do, and get more to feeling the kata instead of worrying about technical perfection. I thought it went well and it’s a different feeling that I want to try to apply to basics and further as I prepare for this next test.

This morning, I am Sore. I’m that special kind of sore where muscles I long forgot show back up, and they’ve been beaten severely. The Saturday morning workout should be a treat, that’s for sure.