2005 Workout #160: Fixing a hole where the rain gets in…

Tonight we gave Sensei Hartman his Christmas present at the Mapleton dojo. It was a very small class tonight, only a handful of yellow belts, a smattering of blue belts, , McCabe, Erbe, Garls and myself.

The class got off to a very basic start, we did a few in-place basics focusing on making the proper body movements for various techniques. I was trying to keep the lessons of last Saturday’s workout in mind, but every time I tried to keep my mind in my center my stance started skating around or coming up.

That’s a strange phenominon, I’m going to have to continue working on that.

Shortly after the basics, we broke into kata groups. I elected to work with my Dad, since he’s embarking on a kata that I myself need to give some attention to: Tekki Nidan. We started in, I had to conference with Sensei Hartman a few times in order to ensure I had the proper progressions down.

Tekki Nidan and Tekki Sandan were made requirements for the 2nd and 1st kyu tests respectively after I passed my 1st kyu test. Since they don’t require them for Shodan examinations down in Saint Louis, I was never required to have the extreme focus on those katas that they get when you are forced to test with them. I have a feeling that as I help prepare Dad for his coming rank tests, I will fill this gap in my own training as much as possible.

Dad picked up on things pretty quickly. Tekki Nidan is by no means a basic kata… there’s a lot of intricate and powerful techniques in such a short space. Its a very no-nonsense kata… lots of “break this arm, bust that skull, toss that broken body over there” motions.

The second class we did some sparring drills aimed as an introduction for the yellow belts and a building block for the blue belts. They got an opportunity to progress from one-time sparring, to three-to-five time sparring. The brown/black belts were used as opponents for the lower ranks, and it was good to give them the chance to punch and kick someone in front of them. We got the benefit of being able to slow down our body movements and focus on keeping our technique and timing fluid. We rotated around several times and before we knew it the class was over.