2005 Workout #15: The Lighter Side…

This morning’s frozen workout started quickly after a somewhat slippery drive into Mapleton. I woke up feeling somewhat queasy, I think I had a bad Quiznos yesterday. I took some Tums before I left, however it was not enough to stave off the mustard and burning tire gas during the workout. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

McCabe, Erbe, and myself were there. After giving some thought to calling and giving him a hard time, Mike and I started into the Nidan test combinations while Erbe did the Shodan test combinations alongside us.

Sensei Hartman is really trying to get us to feel the techniques instead of being mechanical automatons and I think today’s workout really opened our eyes. We were able to go for an hour and a half workout and barely be winded, let alone out of breath. That included sets of three of Bassai Dai, Jion, and Kanku Dai.

Starting out the workout was the hard part, as I was still feeling Thursday night’s training in my hips and thighs. Things started to loosen up and so did my techniques. By the end I was starting to feel the difference between doing this right and not doing it at all.

By the end of the practice, my stomach had mostly settled. I did let off a few more than detectable bombs, but I don’t think anyone there really cared that much. McCabe got a chuckle out of it, but that was about it. I know I felt better, so I didn’t feel too compelled to apologize. I did anyway, but still. If it stays in it’s 100 times worse.

I’m going to focus for the rest of the month on doing things in this relaxed nature to get my body remembering how to do it, and then I’m going to start adding back the snap and tension in March. By the first week of April, I hope to be in spit-shine mode.