2009 Workout #4: Blasted altitude…

Tonight’s workout was taught by Sensei Yaguchi.  He led us through the aforementioned warm up combination, and then into a whole new set of hellacious basics designed to empty out every last ounce of gas that I had.  Tonight’s combination was the following:

1. Step forward into fudo-dachi with opposite side vertical knifehand block (a la Sochin)
2. Two straight punches.
3. Shift the front leg over into back stance, knifehand block.
4. Front leg front kick, stepping all the way back at a 45 degree angle and do another knifehand block.
5. Front leg front kick, shifting into front stance reverse punch.
6. Step backward, angling back so you’re facing the front of the room again, knife hand block.
7. Front leg front kick, reverse punch.
8. Step forward knifehand block.
9. Front leg front kick
10. Reverse punch.

And that’s ONE.  We did these for about fifteen minutes, and about halfway through I started seeing the sparkly motes of light that meant trouble was brewing.  By the end of the fifteen minutes, the sparklies had pervaded so much that I had to bow out and get my breath for a few minutes.  Graciously, Sensei Yaguchi let the class off for some water.  He reminded me again, “Mile high!  You’ll get used to it!”  Yeah, maybe.  But not before I feel like a major wuss AND a bad example of my home dojo! 🙂

Sensei Yaguchi was continually correcting me on cranking my hips, keeping my legs bent correctly (oh, feel the burn), and keeping my hips (mostly my butt) pressing forward.  This meant my legs were just SCREAMING by the time the water break occurred.

The rest of the class was taken up with kata.  We worked on Tekki Shodan, Tekki Nidan, Tekki Sandan, and Chinte.  Sensei Yaguchi took special care to tell us all that Chinte meant “unusual hands” because the kata was very unusual.  That tickled me for some reason. :)  We finished off the workout with our individual kata, once again I did Sochin and got a few reminders about my hips during that as well.  *sigh*

So once again I am spent after the workout, however I felt good for having done it.  I’m getting to know two of the younger people in the dojo (around my age) named Jason and Jessica.  They’re both very good, Jason seems to be this dojo’s naturally talented athletic guy.  I bet he’s good at kumite too, but I’ve not gotten a chance to see that first hand.  Hopefully this will continue and I’ll actually have a bit of a dojo community again, that’s one of the things I miss most of all about being here in Denver… all the guys from the Pekin and Mapleton dojos.

More next week!