2005 Workout #120: Sparring…

Tonight’s workout started with a few quick basics, followed by some interestingly constructed sparring drills. At its heart, it was a block-counter drill using outward block. It evolved into using front kick and downward block as we rotated partners. Everything went pretty well, I felt like something was missing… probably a symptom of the week of training I missed last week.

and I sparred in between classes, I felt somewhat out of sorts and off of timing tonight. My center was up and my body was following it, so I ended up drifting away from my intended goal of moving quickly in with one or two shots and then rolling off to one side to evade the counter.

Second class I got more opportunity… we did 3-5 time attack. Sensei cut our escape route in half by bisecting the room using the blue mats that had appeared since my last Pekin workout. The only person I had a hard time keeping behind the barrier against was Erbe-san. He wanted to back me up against the “wall” of mats and then throw an additional technique. I had Sensei’s office table to the left of me and an evading Dukes-san to the right of me, so the only place for me to go was over the mat-line. Sensei got after me for that.

The following exchange I stood my ground and countered, but Erbe grabbed my fist and threw me into the table. Not a good evasion, I would say. I’ve gotta work out a good way to handle him, since the amount of brute force I can put into an attack seems to only make him give me that confused look. With my escape routes somewhat closed as they were tonight, it was really hard to deal with him. This was probably Sensei’s goal all along: to get us to learn to deal with it.

The end of class was puncuated with singling out the purple and brown belts… allowing them to experience the joy that is the black belt game. It ended up with a dogpile into Raleigh’s line… he’s gotta get ready for Shodan somehow. 🙂

I don’t think I’m going to make it to Mapleton tomorrow night, however I plan on being there Thursday. Saturday is Sensei Hassell in Bloomington, so that’ll make four for the week.