2009 Workout #12: I clearly do not understand the rules.

Tonight I arrived around 5:50 pm, the youth class was in full swing. Sensei Weyant was in the process of corralling around 15 little kids, so I offered to help. He enthusiastically gestured me to come into the dojo, so I got to help him with the youth. He asked me to take the white belts through Heian Shodan, so I did! It was fun, and got my muscles loosened up from weight lifting pretty quickly.

As class was finishing up, Sensei Yaguchi had come in. I bowed out to go get a drink after class had concluded, and he said “Oh! You helping?” I said “Osu!” and he replied “Oh… is good!” and smiled.

Then he proceeded to put us through the wringer for class. The warmup basic for this month is dealing with sliding the body in stance. Honestly, I can’t remember all the techniques from the basics, so I’ll blog it next time. Then we did another drill focusing on sliding in stance, this time with knifehand block. Sliding twice back, knifehand block, then sliding forward two stances, then knifehand block reverse punch. Then we stepped back one full stance to the 45 degree angle, knifehand block, reverse punch, then back at a 45 degree angle, shifting back at a 45 degree angle (so you’re facing the front of the room again) and then knifehand block, front leg front kick, and then reverse punch.

We did that for quite awhile, both legs, and then it was sparring time. Attacking side slid in one front stance, and then did reverse punch. Defending side shifted back one full stance, and then planted the back foot and slid back in with a reverse punch counterattack. We did this about 40 times on each side, I was dogging it pretty badly by the end. We rotated once, and I noticed that if we rotated again I would be across from Sensei Yaguchi. Even though I was tired, I was hoping I would get the chance to spar with him. Ya know, just to say that I had.

Unfortunately, we were done with sparring before I got my shot, and we moved on to kata. All three Tekki kata’s, then our “first and second” individual katas. Mine were Sochin and Empi respectively. I got some corrections on Sochin from Sensei Yaguchi relating to the timing of the last kick and the drawing hand. I tried it a few times and then class was over.

It’s around 50 degrees here in Denver, so I thought I would throw my shoes in my back and walk to my car barefoot to cool off a little before the drive home. I grabbed my shoes and socks, and ran downstairs to throw them in my bag before heading out. I got to the bottom of the stairs and Sensei Yaguchi yelled “no shoes down here!” and up the stairs I was sent AGAIN. I got into the dressing room where my bag was, and Dale remarked that he didn’t think I was doing anything wrong since I wasn’t wearing my shoes. He said that there’s a joke that goes around: “There’s only two rules: always follow the rules, and only Sensei knows the rules.” We shared a laugh (I’ve heard that quote elsewhere with other authorities in place of sensei) and that was all for tonight’s workout.

I feel better for going tonight!