No EXCUSES!!!

Saturday morning, up and early, 6:30 am, am I frigging nuts?? Those were the first thoughts in my head this morning. Downstairs to the downstairs bathroom to take my shower, trying to be quiet as to not wake up my slumbering family. And off I went, hair still wet, and the garage door sliding shut as I pull out of my driveway. No reflection, no preparedness, just trying to get my bearings because I was still sleepy. By the time I reached my destination, it was 7:45, enough time to go to the bathroom quickly and then dawn my gi for my 2.5 hours of Saturday morning bliss.

The first 1.5 hours went by quickly... we worked the bo, doing our warmups with that, did Tsue Sho kata, bo theory for punches and blocks, and switched to sai. Since the last few classes we didn't do sai, Sensei gave us a quick review on theories for blocks, and punches, pretty straight forward and then he had us do Tae Kyo Kyu Ichi, Ni and San... that would be the low block/low punch, mid block/mid punch and high block/high punch versions. Executing all in the I Embusen formation. Then we switched to nunchaku. Warmed up quickly, executing some figure 8 formations, and catching in the weapon under my arm, executing blocks and some strikes, all set to do the nunchaku portion. We went through Kihon Nunchaku as a group 3 times, then each person had to lead the class, so that would be an additional 5 more times. Repeating the movements and asking any questions as we went along, finding out easier ways manoevering the nunchaku. Tom and Karla worked other intermediate forms while Josh and I worked theories and worked out any kinks we had. That was over pretty quickly. Then the mixed class began at 9:30, adults and youth blended.

We have a few more students that joined recently, Josh (who's in my weapons class ) and his daughter, Abby (who's 6 years old), then there's Shawn, a boy of 11 who joined the kids class as well throughout the week. Sensei had the adults pair off and work on Ippons and some blocking drills. Sensei had a more extensive exercise regimen for the kids, something fun but all martial arts based, every once in a while I'd sneak a glance to see what they were doing. I must say, Sensei is very sneaky in his methods. What appears to be child's play is actually useful exercise that targets specific principles used in the martial arts. The kids were doing leap frog over some training gear, then Sensei would move two and pile on top of the other making the jumping height bigger for them, and then he would add more, by the end, little Abby was pretty much as tall as the piled up equipment that the kids were successfully clearing when jumping over. This teaches jumping and of course, training their bodies to clear the obstacle as well as balancing as they landed on the other side... tricky tricky Sensei. Then another one I noticed him doing was having the kids walk with their hands across the dojo floor, having their legs on the cylinder part of a wavemaster (foamy part of a punching/kicking equipment).. developing muscle strength and endurance. Then of course, after we were done our thing, we were invited to do a training exercise with the entire group, Sensei had tied a skipping rope to the dojo bannister and had us use our timing to run under the rope as it turned, each person did their turn and went around to line up to go again. Then of course, Sensei does things in baby steps, so we all had to run into the rope, jump and run out... pretty much like how we would do it as kids in a play ground. As each person did their round, there were personal hurdles to overcome, mine being a gallery of people watching us, when my turn was to come about, I was very self conscious because of being on the heavy side, but as the class progressed, I ignored them and focused on myself and doing the best I could. Little Abby's hurdle was that she was so new to these experiences and didn't really know how to jump rope yet, so with a bit of coaching, and some encouragement from her dad and I, she was able to make it through, get a few jumps in here and there, and we were rewarded with the cutest smile ever. As I mentioned earlier, Sensei does it in baby steps, and likes to challenge his students, so he had use jump once, touch the floor but always keeping our eyes on the rope so that we dont' get hit... yes I was able to do this... shocking huh??? I sure was, it's amazing what you can do when challenged. Then of course, Sensei cranks it up another notch, jumping, touching the floor, jumping again, touching the floor again... end of our turn... we did this until we jumped three times, and bent down to touch the floor 3 times... all of this with the ultimate purpose in mind, being better athletes regardless of our body shapes, physical conditions or limitations. This exercise worked endurance, timing, focus and of course balance.

I have to say, I am truly blessed to have found this dojo. Seven months ago, if someone were to ask me if I would ever get back into the martial arts again, I would have surely laughed at them, saying something negative about myself... but now if someone were to ask me if I wanted to become a black belt in the martial arts, I'd say, I'm well on my way!!!




Inspirational Note: Never use an excuse for not doing something, always challenge yourself to be greater than what you're capable of, always strive for the stars because when you have great expectations, you get great results and gain enlightenment. There is no such thing as failure if you give it an honest try.