Workouts #51 and #52 were good, but I’m going to gloss over them for the sake of telling about tonight’s workout. I got to visit the JKA of Colorado dojo, which is a little storefront dojo in an older neighborhood of Denver.
I arrived at the dojo very early. My training got out at 4 pm, and by 4:30 I was parked outside the dojo waiting for someone to show up. I had found a parking meter that still had a little time on it, which was good since I didn’t have any change. I ran into the next door liquor store to get some change, and some ass from the City of Denver was issuing me a ticket when I got back outside, not because the meter was expired but because I had pulled up a little too far and was technically occupying two spaces. So I get my first parking ticket ever waiting for karate, great. The parking meter guy looked like my friend Eric, and when I asked him if there was a problem he said “Nope” and slapped the ticket under my windshield. Grr.
Anyway, on to the workout. They had a kid class that was very reminscent of our old Kid Power classes, taught by a guy in his early thirties named David. David is a Sandan and has very good technique, I got to watch him spar with a junior Shodan prior to the kid class getting underway.
After a few introductions, they offered to let me help out with the kid class, train along with them, or just observe. I opted to take a few pictures (very few, the dojo was small and the class wasn’t all that large), and then I opted to warm up alongside the kids. By the end of the kid class, I had been called out as an example and got to do a few fun drills involving an overly large Century kicking pad.
The advanced class got underway promptly at 6:30. One of their resident godans named Sensei Dale (they go by first names there) was leading class, and there were four others aside from me: a sandan, two shodans, and a brown belt. We did a full fifteen minutes of stretches, a few of which were new to me. Then we moved into some basics and combinations to warm up, including their “warmup combination of the month” which was reverse punch, upward rising elbow strike with the same arm, front leg front kick while drawing with the opposite arm, then reverse punch again. It was a brain teaser, but I think I got it after a few iterations.
We then moved on to doing some combinations that Sensei Dale learned from Sensei Kanazawa at a clinic recently. One guy got in the middle, and the other four of us got around him and each did a certain attack, and the guy in the middle was supposed to apply those blocks and counter attacks. We each got a try, and it was pretty interesting.
We wrapped up the night with some kata: Heian Sandan twice, Jion twice, and then our kata once. We spent a little time talking after the class was done, the group of guys were all very hospitable and nice. They said that I am welcome back there anytime, and I fully intend to take them up on that offer should I end up in this area again soon. Hopefully next time Sensei Yaguchi will be there so I can meet him!
One major takeaway: our karate is universal. I had no problem dropping right into the same training as these guys were doing, and it is very comforting to know that karate is karate no matter where you’re doing it.
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