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In General
A Torturific Welcome Back - New Year's Misogi 2005
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#155
 01-04-2005 03:20 PM |
Quote of the Day: "A rolling student gathers no moss," --- Sempai Jeremy
So the prodigal daughter of NWA returns. And more than likely, it's back for good this time. I won't go into the whole spiel about "the best laid plans of mice and men". Suffice it to say that I wanted to make it back into town in time for Misogi day and to surprise the guys. It's funny, but being back almost feels like I had never left...only family would welcome you with open arms like that, month and a half long hiatus be damned.
This year, we were to do mai ukemi as many times as we were able in ten minutes (so long as we try to do at least 100). The object was to push our limits as much as we could. Sensei got us to do it in two different groups to help cheer each other on and to group students who would roll at a similar pace. Garry and Jim rolled together and they made their goal of 110. Ken, Jeremy and I went next at a quicker pace set by Sensei's counting.
Ten minutes felt like eternity. I made a point of inhaling after each roll and exhaling during the roll, which helped considerably to keep me from getting too out of breath. After the first two and a half minutes without a break, I had pushed myself to do ten extra but paid for it the next time around with severe dizziness --- it doesn't take long before your legs start going all rubbery on you. After a bit, I found that if I stayed low and squatted deeper at the beginning and end of each roll, I could maintain better stability --- if you tried to get up much further than that, dizziness and fatigue in the legs would make you wobbly. I just kept focusing on my breathing and staying low and found that I could come up out of the roll in a focused, stable stance quite often.
But well after the halfway point, you found your legs practically useless and would have to push yourself up with your hands to set up for the next roll. The three of us would practically collapse right onto the mat each time Sensei called a brief break. During each break, I kept having to shake the strain out of my legs and slap more circulation back into them. During the last two grueling minutes, we pushed ourselves to get in as many rolls as possible, to the point where your body gets to the point where it stops feeling or rather, knowing how to do a good quality roll --- during the last minute's push, I felt myself rolling all over the place, no longer in the same line as before, scrambling to get up again and again on wobbly legs for another roll, pushing myself up by the arms when I felt I could no longer stand on my own. I felt my mind giving way to this numb, blank state where there was only physical sensation with little bodily control. It was as though my mind was flying away somewhere far from my body without me. Then at the ten minute mark, we all collapsed on the mats in exhaustion, having done just over 150 rolls.
It was great.
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