Last night’s workout was great, one of my favorite so far. Everything started up pre-class, when Paul B and I opted to do some impromptu free sparring. It went pretty well, I tagged him a few times and he tagged me a few times (once in the right ribcage that really stung!) and much fun was had by all. For some reason I was tentative and cautious, fighting with my weight back and mostly off of the rear foot. Not good, but I will work on it.
Sensei Tarrant probably realized we were in a sparring mood, so after warmups he had us do free sparring with the added twist of being able to only use techniques found in each of the Heian katas (and Tekki Shodan), one at a time. He had us precede our sparring with one time through each Heian kata, and then we had to use those techniques when sparring. It was a great brain exercise, I was able to get in with the double punch from Tekki Shodan and the downfist strike from Heian Yondan, much to my surprise.
The rest of the class was spent in doing the remaining 25 Shotokan kata. Obviously, I did fairly well with the different forms that I regularly practice but as we got more advanced I struggled. Among the most difficult for me were Gojyushiho Sho and Gojyushiho Dai, Bassai Sho, Chinte, Wankan, and Meikyo.
We ended the night with Unsu kata, between that and the Gojyushiho katas I was already reminded strongly of halcyon days watching Sensei Hartman and Sensei Jennings work on these katas back when I was a kid. It struck me that all these years later I still hadn’t learned those katas that awestruck me so much back then. I think I’m going to set out at very least to be able to make it through them unassisted. Especially Unsu.
Thanks to Sensei Hartman, who expressed some concern on my Facebook about the lack of karate related posts. I’m training, just not always so diligent about blogging each workout. We did have a few busy weekends where I was out of town and that did contribute to missing a few Friday workouts, but such is life.
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