2005 Workout #65: The Nidans Ride Again…

Last night Garls-san was ranking nidan, and he got to take point in the abscense of Sensei Brewer and . Thankfully, Oedewaldt was gone last night too, so we got a different take instead of marching basics all night.

We did have a basic intensive first class, but it was done in that special Sensei Garls way that gives you a slightly new tilt on things. After about twenty or thirty minutes, Garls-san had the black belts go and make corrections. One of the things I’m still seeing is a lack of intensity across the board.

After another ten or so minutes, we split up into kata groups and beat on the lower ranks. I got to help Elizabeth-san work on her kata and she did very well. She’s at the age where she’s growing and she’s got the propensity toward small, short techniques because she’s got this extra 6 inches of reach that she didn’t have last year. A few simple corrections and her kata improved its look quite a bit. She still needs to work on intensity and getting a few techniques in the right spot, but she’s coming along. A fun sidenote: some of the brown belts (even the younger ones) helped us to run the white/yellow/red belts through their kata. It worked out very well and was fun for them I think.

Second class we elected to keep the kata groups with those that stayed, and I opted for the purple belts that are doing Tekki. The only ones that stayed were Dobbleaire and Hickman. I was surprised to see that all of the extra effort that Hickman-san is putting in is starting to pay off finally. He’s relaxing a little more and getting away from the marionette stiltedness that he’s been working to eliminate. He’s still got some work to do, but progress is starting to be visible.

Dobbleaire really needs to test, that’s all there is to say about that. Hes tough, he takes correction, and he asks tough questions. He can hang in with the brown and black belts sparring, I hope he goes ahead and tests this next time.

We ended up the last 20 minutes of open swim by letting those that stayed do their own kata and the black belts retreated to the other room and worked on Jitte. Its a fun kata, and its relatively short which means it doesn’t take long to learn. It’s proving to have a lot of intricities though, which is not surprising given the level of the kata. We got through it about 10 times before the end of the class and I was satisfied with the whole night… got to do a little teaching and some training. Fun stuff.