So tonight, I went to train 35 minutes away from home, at the dojo where my sensei’s sensei teaches. Warmups / stretches, kicking drills, calisthenics, sparring, then fighting drills.
Sensei’s sensei has a son who is now 48. Now — I am fast by normal people’s standards. This guy is really fast by my standards. He also has a really positive energy – very friendly eyes, a great disposition.. And he can dislocate your jaw before you can blink or think “oh sh..!”, so don’t piss him off.
Anyway, as much as shihan (sensei’s sensei) is amazing, tall, skilled, talented, dedicated to his art, as much his son inherited many of the traits, has been training under his dad a long time, and has learned a lot from a ton of sparring and tournaments and just .. being there.
So now he imparts his wisdom and skills, and it’s WONDERFUL to watch him in action, and learn from him, and listen to his way of explaining things. Just like in Dune, “A process cannot be understood by stopping it”, he explains action and reaction within the context of a moving match, which is AWESOME.

I breathe hard when I’m in this class. It’s a bit of a work-out, and excellent cardio.
Oh ! So shihan’s son hit me twice, and I managed to shift out of the way of the third strike, like I felt his movement and reacted. It was sweet. Now I only need to make that happen ALL THE TIME.

 

I live on an island. It only took me until last week (10 years and change) to take my dad’s advice to go to the beach when I felt like it. So I did that, last week and today, and went swimming. Good for the muscles, good all-around body work. Great stretching. Different way of using the muscles.

Besides the fact that I could really only swim for 10-15 minutes before I was tired and a part of my arms started to ache (indicating, clearly, that I’d been ignoring it), I noticed on my way home that even just 30 minutes at the beach drained me of energy. The ‘new’ situation was interesting, I was very aware of everything, and I spent a lot of energy on focus which did not need to be spent. It’ll be a learning curve. It’s a shame autumn is upon us.

On another note, I am finding sand in my hair, and am reminded of my childhood. It is a good feeling.

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