2005 Workout #86: NEWS FLASH — I may not completely suck!

Tonight was a pre-test night. Sensei Brewer came bearing the newest Shotokan Magazine, which features our own ‘s article… those were some AWESOME pictures, I can’t wait to read the whole thing!

We had a pretty good crowd and we had a pretty good first class. Sensei asked and I to take the white and yellow belts to work on kata toward the end of class and my white belts did a pretty good job of it. Liam-san was actually doing a fine job of correcting his stance when you stayed on him about it, Paige-san is ready to go.

Second class started quickly after the first. I had as my partner for some sparring drills. We were getting somewhat… animated in our endeavors to the extent that Sensei Brewer made some offhand comments regarding my recently oft-cited nickname of El Chihuahua Rabioso.

This continued on for a few more minutes, at which time Dukes-san and I collided fists right into my jammed index finger. That smarted quite a good deal. He said that “I was so rabid there was foam coming out.” After a few more rounds went by, Sensei Brewer stopped us all and traded Kevin-san out for me.

He asked me how badly I was hurt, I replied “not at all.” He smiled and we went about our jab-reverse punch combinations.

We went up and down the floor a few times and then something magical happened. I am not entirely sure that this wasn’t the worlds longest chain of luck, but I was able to land a jab-reverse punch combination into Sensei Brewer’s ribs. He gave me The Look and said “ah, you’re too fast for me. Let’s try it again.”

This repeated FOUR TIMES in similar fashion. Then he backed me up with a few counterattacks and gave me a Badge of Honor on my left cheekbone. After class, I got the humbling honor of some praise from Sensei. As I was bowing out, he told me “You’re fast. Too fast for me, and thats really good.”

I actually had to have him repeat it.

After it sank in a bit, I quipped back (somewhat lamely) “Well, you don’t seem to have too much trouble sneaking things in yourself!” He laughed, and I reiterated how much I love sparring like that. I really, REALLY love sparring like that.

The lesson I learned tonight was that I appear to be on the right track with this whole “lets work on my hands more” initiative. The secondary lesson was that you don’t want to catch Sensei’s jab in the region of your skull, but that was only a refresher of a lesson I think we’ve all had at one time or another.