This is going to be an experience.  🙂

I just get back from the biggest blizzard in recent history, and still there’s more snow to greet me here in Colorado.  I just got done driving in what I can only describe as a Hell scenario… snow was coming down hard, winds blowing, low to no visibility… and I’m trying to drive down US 36.  Luckily we made it!  I’m going to enjoy the rest of the evening, warm and safe in the comfort of my house.  I’m going to vote for at very least a slow start to the workday tomorrow.  Who knows whether or not the Ozzy concert is going to go on or not!

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, just about the only day of the year when I watch football.  So far the game has been pretty good (it’s 21-17 Green Bay at the moment) but the halftime show was appallingly bad.  Slash must have squandered all of his money, because he showed up to play with the Black Eyed Peas… inexcusable!  I don’t really have a favorite, since I don’t follow the rest of the season.  Had the Bears made it this far, it would have been a different situation entirely.

The Super Bowl has had a checkered past with me… I’ve never followed football closely, and football players seem to me generally as low-brained cavemen and I don’t have much interest in their craft.  Watching the game unfold is fairly entertaining, and at least this one has been a close in score.  (Oop, so much for that… it’s 28-17 now.)  The commercials have been so-so this year, with Groupon putting up a fairly offensive ad about Tibet that has the Twitterverse steaming.

Aside from that it has been a quiet evening tonight.  More soon!

Last night I was up late working on some site revisions for my cousin’s business… it was one of those start after karate, blink and all of a sudden it is 4 am.  The changes came out great, and I’m glad to get one of my extra tasks checked off the “To Do” list.  That makes way for some fun today in the form of Tasha’s baby shower, which coincides with a small party that my friends are throwing for me.  I have opted for pizza, Xbox, and male bonding which should fit the bill nicely.

I’d best make this short so I can get some errands done before the festivities begin!  Later on tonight I will be continuing to plow through my weekend “To Do” list, which is comprised largely of two additional coding projects and preparation for a small website design that I am going to do on the side.

That’s all for now!

Tonight was a great workout, we started out with some basic punch/kick combinations to get warmed up, focusing for a brief bit on side snap kick.  After that, we moved on to partner training with the attacking side doing reverse punch, jab, then stepping out with the front leg and doing a backfist strike at the 45 degree angle followed by a reverse punch.  The defending side got to block everything, and then we got to race to the reverse punch at the end.  Talk about fun!

After a few rounds of that, it was kata time!  We got to self-train on a kata (I picked Gankaku since I’m bad at it) and after that I was tapped to work on Empi with one of the Shodans that was visiting the dojo.  After that, we did a few at full speed together and it was time for class to be over.  My Empi kata felt great tonight… snappy and powerful.  I suppose I can thank Kangeiko and a good week of R&R for that.  More soon!

Today was the definition of a snow day. Despite all this, I was able to remain productive by working remotely and tonight has been a very quiet evening of TV and cooking.

So far my flight is still on tomorrow, so it is back to CO for me!

We wrapped up our workshop today, right before the snowstorm set in. The ride that normally took 20 minutes took almost an hour, and I had a few dial-in meetings to attend before my workday was complete.

Now I am debating whether to brave the storm to visit with my cousins. They have a big truck to come pick me up with, so I think I am going to try it. Not going to lie, it is a terrible blizzard out there, but what is life without some adventure?

More soon!

Today was the last day of Kangeiko, which always brings equal parts optimism and complaining about creaky joints and muscles.  After warmups, we headed right into combinations.  Today, it was sanbon-zuki (three punches) done up and down the floor.  After that, Sensei had us perform a shuffle step with a front leg front kick.  First, he counted three reps across the floor, then two, and then we had to cover the distance using only one technique.  I was able to do it fairly well, and it felt comfortable.

Next we transitioned into partner training, which was one-time attack.  The defender could use any block or counterattack.  This went on for quite awhile, and then Sensei had the higher ranking black belts come out to do semi-free one time attack with the same set of techniques as our Shodan test recommends back in the ASKA.  After this, they moved quickly to free sparring, or “house sparring” as Sensei Yaguchi calls it.  It was fun to watch, I keyed in on a couple of things to try to use myself.  Sensei then called our group out, and we did an interesting sparring drill where you were in natural stance, and you could freely punch with either hand but you also had to defend and counter all at once.  He was adamant that no-one move their feet, opting to swivel hips and keep distance with the head but the feet had to stay rooted.

Then it was kata time!  Today it was our individual kata (mine was Sochin).  I really tried hard and Sensei Yaguchi corrected my back knee in the last position and that was it.  Everyone got their turn and Kangeiko was finished!

Immediately after class was a mock kata tournament.  Sensei Yaguchi was not watching the mock tournament, opting to tend to the lunchtime preparations in the basement.

The lower ranks all took their turns, getting scored on a points scale system.  The black belts got to divide up into a men’s and women’s division.  In order to make things go more quickly, they opted for pairs of competitors to come out and do a random kata together and then scored them by flag to determine who would advance on to the points-scored round.  I got across from a very strong, broad looking guy named Brian who I hadn’t met before.  My buddy Paul was in a different pairing, so we were somewhat relieved that we didn’t have to go head-to-head right off the bat.

Paul’s turn was first, they selected Heian Nidan for him.  He did an admirable job, with good speed and power but did not advance.  My turn was shortly after his, the kata that was selected for us was Heian Godan.  The kata went by in a blur, but ultimately I did not advance either.  I can take some solice in the fact that the guy I was up against ended up winning the black belt division with a truly beautiful rendition of Sochin.  After the class was over, the main judge that was scoring my set of people gave me some advice.  It seems my eyes were not fixed on my target and my hips were a bit high as a result.  Sensei Tarrant praised both Paul and I, noting that my kata looked good and I would have been fine if I hadn’t been up against him.  One of the other judges chimed in that my kata looked very strong and was very good and he was on the fence.

I’m not really disappointed that I lost since it was a just-for-fun tournament and I feel like I represented myself well.  I am happy that I got some good advice that I can work on and that Sensei Tarrant seemed happy with my performance.  I am happy that we participated in five of the six workouts this week.  Kangeiko is a good way to reset and get excited about karate again for the coming year.  Even though I have many scheduling problems in February thanks to birthing classes, I’m excited about getting back in the dojo as much as possible.

More soon!

Today was another crowded Kangeiko morning. I began my driving duties this morning, we arrived around 15 minutes early, which is just about perfect.

Class got off to the normal start of warmups, this is the point in the week where things begin aching or tightening up entirely on their own.  Basics consisted of a front hand jab, stepping back into kibadachi to perform a downward block, then turning one’s feet in place to set up for a rear leg front kick followed by another jab.  The usual 15 minutes solid of marching up the floor in groups doing this led us to partner training.  Today’s combination was an interesting one.  The attacking side would lunge punch, the defending side would step back in back stance and perform a rising punch (a la Empi).  Then they would step forward and perform a rising backfist strike followed by reverse punch.

The rising backfist strike is interesting.  Sensei Yaguchi went through a lengthy explanation of the path of the technique.  “If you can, attack with elbow!” he said, performing a standard across-body chest level elbow strike.  He continued “If that not work, strike up under their chin, make head go back.  Not across!” and then he demonstrated this on Sensei Tarrant.  After trying this with several different partners, I have come to one conclusion: it’s hard to unlearn how to execute a backfist strike.

Finally, it was kata time.  Today’s kata was Kanku Dai, and we did a medium speed kata working on technique.  Then for the second time through, Sensei Yaguchi exclaimed “15 seconds! Do kata, train your body for speed and timing!”  So we did.  I got off to a good start, trying to stay relaxed.  When I made the turn right before the dropping technique, Sensei Yaguchi was standing there watching me.  “10 second!” he informed the class.  I was way ahead of the pack.  As I came back around for the double kick at the end, I noticed that Sensei was still watching me.  At the end, he nodded and made no corrections.  My friend Paul said he had watched me pretty much the entire kata, and that I finished a fair margin before everyone else in my group.  That made me feel pretty good, especially that he had no corrections to make in that instance!

More tomorrow!

This morning’s Kangeiko workout went very well.  It was warmups, followed by basics.  Sensei Yaguchi focused on elbow strikes; our basic combination consisted of sliding in with an upward elbow strike with the lead arm, following by a chest level elbow strike with the rear hand.  From there, we stepped forward drawing the arm across the body and performing a knifehand strike to the face and then finishing with a reverse punch.  There were so many people in there we had five rows that had to each take their turn doing 4-5 sets across the floor.

After that it was partner training time again, this time our partners were 6th dan or higher.  The attack was lunge punch, the block and counter was a high level knifehand strike and then step in with a chest level elbow strike.  After about 15 minutes of doing that combination with different partners, it was kata time.  Today it was Empi.  Because of the crowd, there were several groups each taking a turn doing a kata.  The first one that we got to do was a medium speed kata, taking care to spend the time necessary to “make good technique”.  After everyone got done with this, Sensei Yaguchi instructed us simply with “11 second!  Do kata with speed” and we were told to begin.  I finished first in the nidan group of people, which I was pretty proud of.  Sensei Yaguchi praised our group with his usual statement of “No trouble!” and we were done.  I have several things to work on in my training, but speed I can do.

More tomorrow!