2006 Workout #7: Red Hot Military Action…

Tonight marked the unexpected return of our very own . I was happy to see him and we engaged in some pre-class slow sparring combat.

Young Mr. Tomms has a very strong sparring style. His backfist strikes are fast and strong (during slow sparring) also, however the control was a little… painful tonight. He whistled one across my chin at a pretty hard clip right as we started slow sparring and it took me by surprise.

I… calmly explained to him that we were friends and he didn’t need to crack my face open. We had a pretty good match for the rest of the time, the small bit of pain kicked us both into high gear and it was a fun exchange. My side kick and hook kick met their mark a few times, so things evened out nicely.

I noticed during warmups that my chin was sporting a roughly dime sized bruise. Its darkening nicely, so it should be a nice war medal by tomorrow. It was a good backfist strike, as I am feeling it in my opposite jaw right now worse than on the impact point.

Class was good tonight… focusing on core strength and kata. We got to work on slow controlled front stance and slow controlled techniques. This is the type of training that I really need to make my Sochin sing. Second class was sparring drills, during which a few people met with the Wrath of Tomm.

He got me again in the ribs with a very close range reverse punch which I was tensed for so it didn’t bother me, but I took the opportunity to remind him about control again. 🙂 It was all in good fun, everyone was laughing about it after class and it was great to see our good buddy again.