I got 15 Sochin in tonight, bringing me a scarce one percentage point away from hitting my goal. It’s so close now that I can taste it!
Class tonight was interesting… the first class was basics, focusing on placement of the center of gravity and changing stances. This was increasingly important during the second class, where we did sparring combinations done while shifting forward and backwards in sparring stance. This immediately reminded me of my time at Western… they used to open every workout with 5-10 minutes of shifting. Many of the sparring combinations were done while shifting, and I had a continuous hard time getting the proper feeling out of this.
Again tonight, I always felt like I ended up off balance or up in the air, two things that make me very uncomfortable when I’m supposed to be throwing combinations. This clearly has to be a focus for me next year, as someone my size should be all about this type of action when sparring. We did many combinations while shifting tonight, and then got the chance to try them out against partners. Without fail, Sensei always seemed to count when I was right in the middle of shifting, which made me feel like I had to rush to get going again and throw my techniques. Maybe my frame of mind is wrong on this one, but it has always struck me that shifting around like that tends to add a lot of wasted motion which is something that we’ve been socialized not to do for so long that trying to do it now feels wrong. I know the intention is to make us light on our feet, springy, and more relaxed and reactive but I just have never gotten to a point in my training where I feel that way when doing this.
My options are very well defined: figure out how to do this correctly, or gain 50 pounds so I can fight the way I’m used to. 🙂 If all the chicken strips and fries in the world haven’t made me a big fat tub, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be stuck learning how to fight while light on my feet.
Anyway, tonight’s post is brought to you by four years of frustration from not getting the most out of this concept of shifting while I was at college.
Sochin Counter
Accomplished / Goal == Percent Complete
1980 / 2000 == 99.00%
Average Kata per Workout: 17.22
Estimated Workouts Remaining: 2
Workouts that gained more than 1%: 42
Workouts that gained more then 5%: 2
Round Kick Challenge: 15 / 1000 == 1.50%
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