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Thursday night was tough. I felt worse than usual in my ability to remember to relax, stand up-right, not lean into every technique, etc. Then again, every class is tough in the sense that I was never advanced to begin with and I'm a decade out (during which I worked construction) from when I last trained seriously. Also although I'm not exactly old, I'm certainly not 20 any more. I think part of why it was so tough was that no matter how much I tried to relax this or that part of my body, I kept mindlessly re-engaging those muscles and the more tired I got, the more I forgot to pay attention to whatever it was I was trying to do, so most techniques had a lot of herky-jerky start and stop to them. My auto-pilot sucks. It also didn't help that I'm chronically sleep deprived and was fried from too much coffee.
Now that I've described the empty half of the glass...
All in all, despite the mat burns on the tops of my feet, the sore muscles all around my hips and back, and the constant force-feeding of a mild form of humble pie, it was great fun. As usual, we began with the standard Kannagara bokuto practices before moving on to taijutsu. I got to train with the sempai I mentioned last, as well as another who I haven't seen in an even longer time. Yes, the training felt difficult, but it was helpful to focus my efforts in general...a kick in the butt to redouble those efforts.
Well I've been sitting on this post for a couple days and still haven't added anything so it is what it is. I had a lot of fun despite feeling inept and wishing I've been training more consistently than I have.
03-10-2012 08:00 PM 