129.5
We have cracked the 120's! Huzzah!
I have been a little worried that my body has seemed reluctant to want to leave the 132-ish vicinity... I've been yo-yoing around that for a little while now. But I have also been a little bit ill this week, and I also took last Friday and Sunday totally off training- which is unusual. I can still make my goal even if I slow down to losing one pound every two weeks instead of one pound per week. I just don't want to get STUCK!
SK weighed himself before and after our class yesterday, and he lost three pounds of sweat in one class! That's a little annoying; if he ever needed to make weight, he could probably just do one class or spend a while in the sauna and make it happen. Not that he needs to lose anything; he seems to be solid muscle.
I skipped Thursday lunchtime class. I didn't want to, but I just had to pay back some sleep debt. I only got 4-ish hours of sleep per day for the previous three, and I was about at the limit of how long I could keep that up.
Thursday night kung fu. Back indoors starting tonight. I forgot how hot it is in the classroom- whew!
Started with some hand strike drills, against pads- I like it when we get the pads out for that. Although JM and I both scraped our knuckles raw doing Southern Mantis triple-strikes.
Then SK asked what we were feeling most deficient around, regarding the little bit of sparring-type stuff we've been doing lately. JB said "Defending against kicks". I'm good with that... I'm still catching myself sometimes reflexively trying to stop a kick with my hands in an unapproved manner (and worse, leaning over at the waist to do it).
So we paired up and kicked each other- front thrust kick and then roundhouse kick only tonight. I kicked (and was kicked by) JB. After each session, SK asked us to share what seemed to be working for us as well as anything that didn't. Roundhouse- my favorite way to deal with those (tonight, anyway) was to just get inside and focus on my own attack, and then I don't have to try to figure out the "correct" response, because the kick doesn't matter any more. Front thrust- that one's a little harder. What I seemed to be most comfortable with there tonight was a Black Crane one-legged shielding pose (touch your elbow to your raised knee and make sort of a wall). Although it meant eating some of the force of the kick, I felt like I could do it quickly without thinking too hard, and then it was easy to drop that leg into a lunge and bulldoze into an immediate close-up counter. Sometimes if the positioning is right, you can get "bonus violence" in the form of a Black Crane dropping-elbow onto the opponent's leg or foot. Man, do those ever hurt.
Amusing interlude when someone mentioned tickling as a defense, and JB volunteered that tickling is technically legal in jiu jitsu. She then qualified that with, "Well, only if they're assholes..... or if they're your friends...." (thoughtful pause) "...and sometimes the assholes *ARE* your friends." Profound. Love it.
DD walked in while we were working on that stuff- twice in one week, surprise! Since we had an odd number of people tonight and thus a leftover student when we paired up for these kick defenses, DD started taking people out into the hall one by one. I placed myself at the end of the line; figured there would be too many of us to get through anyway.
Individual forms time. One good thing about being back indoors now, there are empty classrooms and I can drag a teacher into one of those to give me individual forms help in private. Neither of the teachers was available to help me tonight, though- and JoE was with DD, so I couldn't get him to work on Southern Mantis with me. So I found a distant hallway to hide in and went through some "mirror" forms. So much dust on them from neglect. Five Animals In the Mirror was okay, since I did that one on Tuesday. I got Little Red Dragon In the Mirror out after a couple of minor bobbles. Both of those forms, for the most part, feel almost as natural on the mirror side as on the regular side. That's cool- that's where I really want to get with all of them. Leopard Three In the Mirror was so poor that I had to do the form a few times the normal way first, and then redo the mirror form several times. It did come back, though. The first part of Bung Bo Kuen In the Mirror felt almost as natural as normal Bung Bo- but I still have only worked the mirror version of that form to about the 1/3 point. Then I tried Five Points Of the Star In the Mirror, and it really started falling apart. I am going to have to go back and put in some serious grind on that one. I was running out of time, though, so I wanted to whip through Leopard Fist In the Mirror. Many hesitant parts in that, and the final 1/3 was a disaster. I hope I can find some time soon to work on these- I know I can knock them back into shape, but I shouldn't let them languish long enough to unravel more than they already have.
As we were packing up, DD asked me if I was going to be in class next Tuesday, and said he'd give me some one-on-one "hallway time" then since we didn't get to it today. Whatever- if we must. Sigh. He's like the absentee dad who never calls and isn't even exactly sure what grade you're in- but he'll pop up a few times a year to take you out for ice cream and buy you an expensive new video game, and expect everything to be all buddy-buddy. I might go along with it and take his video game, if I have nothing better to do that day.... or eventually I just get to the point that I feel we are so distant, the video game is not worth having to waste my afternoon making awkward conversation with this stranger, and perpetrating a mutual facade that we are interested in each other's lives.
Every time CK visits, she guilts DD about neglecting me. Immediately after her visits, DD makes some lame token effort to communicate with me and act like he might be thinking about teaching me something or other.... and then he goes back to ignoring me for another eight or nine months till the next time CK visits. It is so predictable- and after several repeats of this pattern, it is positively pissing me off. I no longer rise to this bait. Just forget it; I would be relieved to just donate my obligatory ten minutes of "hallway time" to somebody who still gives a crap.
So I had barely extricated myself from that awkward
exchange when CN appears and asks if I would be up for some one-on-one time on Saturday. What's going on, did I accidentally grab the aphrodesiac deodorant this morning instead of the regular stuff? But okay, YOUR video game is still worth it to me so far. But what about Conditioning Boot Camp? Instead, he says. But I don't want to take away that time from the other people. He shrugged my concern off. Okay, whatever. What does he want? CK may well have given him a dose of the guilt, too, while she was spreading it around. I hope we're not going to have some kind of painful and awkward long Talk. Of course Insecurity Beastie piped up to suggest that since we've been doing a little sparring lately, CN has noticed with horror that my sparring is so epically pathetic that he feels he must give me some
emergency remedial help. I wonder if I can get SK alone for a few moments tomorrow and fish for clues.
No comments:
Post a Comment