It's here at last

Sunday: kata class
Monday: sick in bed
Tuesday: work
Wednesday: sick at home, but not in bed
Thursday: back to work, general class,sparring class
Friday: annual leave, off to Timaru
Saturday!!! Zoë's shodan grading
Saturday night: party, party, party...

Gut-buster

Saturday - ran a 7.3 hilly gut-buster that my gym organised. Got 2nd in the run/walk section. i did it with Phoebe in a push chair. Whew, haven't run for ages.

Another week slides by

Friday: gym after work.
Saturday: rest day (lollie day!).
Sunday: kata class, stair running with Zoë.
Monday: gym in morning, bag workout pm with Zoë.
Tuesday: general class.
Wednesday: skived off two classes! Took Zoë to optometrist and went home and cooked tea - sat and ate tea with family - a rare treat!
Thursday: general class, sparring class, lasagna at Senpai's.
Friday: gym after work.
Yippee the weekend!

One week to Zoe's shodan grading and we think she has a broken toe! Off to X-ray it on Monday...

Wed - Thurs classes

Wednesday fitness class - no Kyoshi, so a slightly relaxed class with Senpai Laura. Some odd combination that, as usual I just never quite get the hang off.

Wednesday green belt class - just me as usual. Steve and I did self defences, kata etc. Good to get the repitition. I almost have them sorted.

Thursday general class, same old same...then Senpai Gary, from Timaru, took Karl and I for 20 minutes or so and we got to do self defences again - yee haaa! Doing OK too. Senpai had a few suggestions, just got to remember them...Did yokosuko 1,2,3 as well. Got to learn not to jump the foot sweep, just move back and flick the leg up...

Thursday sparring class. Taking it slightly easy for a couple of weeks as the two kyu gradesare in their last weeks of preparation for shodan grading. They did mainly fitness stuff while the rest of us practiced blocks and defenses and then had about 20 minutes of free sparring.

Pizza and chat for supper.

Tuesday beginners class

An hour long beginners class. Good enough fun. Focus on some basic kicks with a little cardio thrown in.

Partner work - YES!

Training today was great! I was honoured to be invited to the dojo to train with the other shodan candidate. It’s kinda cool, because as a ‘slightly older’ woman sometimes I wonder if I’m taken seriously, or if I’m keeping up. I know I occasionally squeal at the wrong moment, my eyes water on occasion – often after a particularly strong impact, or maybe my age (lack of suppleness) just doesn’t always lend itself to a spinning, jumping, sotomawashageri (I imagine I look like a inebriated grasshopper)

So, to be asked by Steve, who is in serious kick ass training mode, three weeks out from his black belt grading, to come down and do some partner work has just made my week. I’m a happy girlie. It was fun too. I’m finally getting to grips with my intermediate self-defenses and learning how to fall a bit better. So, anyway...bag work, kata, self defenses, yakosoku, Steve’s self defenses, kibadachi combinations…an hour of fun on a public holiday.

Twelves weeks (again!)

Jacob's ladder from the top

Time to get my exercise on the up and up. I never really stop, but start to take it a little more seriously as a grading comes closer. I haven't got a date for my brown belt grading but assume it will be late August. That's 12 weeks and time to get serious.

Zoë's Shodan grading is in Timaru, in three weeks! Whew, that's come about really fast. She has been really lucky with; her training partner - the lovely Karl, her brown belt syllabus teacher - Sensei Seán, and of course her mother - the amazing me! I have been watching over her quietly. She doesn't take advice well from a lowly green belt. But I've been making sure she stays healthy, sleeps and eats well. I pick her up from parties when she's drunk(!) only the once, thank goodness. And best of all I go stair running with her each Sunday after kata class.

Jacobs Ladder was our stairs of choice for this training – and what a killer set of stairs they are. Funnily the first time we went to find them we got the wrong stairs and thought we were pretty hot shit making it up and down 5 or 6 times. Later that week we discovered the real Jacobs Ladder…287 stairs of alternating steepness and widths – the last 25 or so are really, really, really steep. I only ‘made’ it up 3 times and if the truth was told I only ran it properly the first time.

Zoë was amazing, having a real goal helps, (your mind is a powerful thing when running stairs) and a mother who yells encouragement from behind for those last hard stairs when your legs are dead. Anyway last week she could run it 5 times, so we thought this week we would head back to our home ground stairs (195), of a nice uniform width and grade.

Man, we powered up those stairs 10 times, talking, chatting, and not having to bend over and almost puke at the top of each set. We rocked!

Anyhoo…Lots exercise, eating well, and refining techniques…12 weeks… here I go again :-)