2005 Workout #83: The few, the proud…

Tonight it was a small class in Mapleton. Garls-san and Erbe-san showed up to cover in case Sensei Hartman didn’t make it back, Garls-san told me that it was mine to teach since I had been there before.

I decided to forgo warmups in favor of doing repetitions of kata in a lighter fashion. Luckily, there was only Dad, Kathy-san, Aubrey-san, Arthur-san, and Jesse-san aside from the black belts, so we split up into some informal groups to work on kata in this fashion. I got across from Dad, Erbe got with Kathy-san, and Garls-san floated between Aubrey and the lower ranks.

It went well. We got a LOT of kata done, and everyone got some personalized attention. We took a quick water break before getting into some 3-5 time attack before the first class ended. The second class comprised an introduction to slow sparring for Aubrey-san and Kathy-san, since they were the only ones that stayed.

We put them through their paces first and went through all of their test basics quickly before the sparring. They didn’t have too many concerns about those techniques, so we moved on rather quickly. We had Kathy and Aubrey spar for awhile, making some suggestions for both of them. Kathy has a tendency to not want to hit people, so she punches off target. Through much prodding, she was finally doing it right by the end of the class.

I inadvertantly had a brain fart and lined up class to dismiss at 7:30… none of my compatriots thought to remind me that class went until 8 pm here, so Erbe, Garls, and I decided to spar a little bit to fill up the rest of the time. I would’ve felt much worse had we not gotten through the entire test syllabus, including intense kata and sparring practice.

Sparring with them was good. Garls is still tricky but fun… I managed to whap Erbe a few times. He still would’ve won the war though. Aside from those few things, the sparring went smoothly and much fun was had by all. I still feel a wee bit stupid for not remembering how long the classes go. 😛 Oh well, there’s always next time.