Monday, February 23, 2009

Broken...

Broken...

In three places,
My ankle that is,
Beat up by a skinny little snow shovel,
In collusion with cold-hearted driveway ice.

The x-rays are in,
The surgery's planned,
And I'm not moving much,
I'm laying on the lam.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 02/23/2009

Yep, broke my ankle but good slipping on ice yesterday while snow shoveling. It'll be a week before surgery, then 6-8 weeks before I can put weight on it at all. After that, likely eight months before I can go back to Karate.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Drillin' To The Left, Drillin' To The Right...

...this was a fun class, lots and lots of practice on katas, kicking drills, bag techniques.

One of the Black Belts did a weapons demonstration. I kind of thought the weapons used looked like they'd been adapted from agricultural hand tools, which would make sense.

We started out with katas, and Sensei had various of the higher-ranked belts doing the instructor work - teaching them to teach. One of our Green Belts got most of the load.

We also had a guy I've been helping who was just promoted to Yellow Belt last week - he's the same rank as me now.

There were also a couple of exercises where we had to mirror the moves we're used to from the other side of the body - specifically the fourteen-point hard blocks. It was wierd, but a good teaching tool. I'll have to practice that more often.

Another new thing was doing the eight-point soft blocks while walking in seison stance. Tricky, but a good idea.

All-in-all, a great class, and I got to learn a bit more of Takeoko Kai Go tonight in the last five minutes of class.

Sayonara,

Dan

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Teaching, Learning, Sparring, & Shins...

Tonight was a fun class. I got to learn a bit more of Takeoko Kai Go.

Then I helped a guy who is getting his yellow belt Thursday with Takeoko Kai Shii. For at least 15 minutes.

After that, 25 minutes of sparring. Very good, but I really, really need shin guards. Ouch!

Sayonara,

Dan