Tuesday, June 26, 2007

A Week Off

I have this week off from work and all other commitments, which is amazing. So what's my idea of relaxation? Training, of course! I haven't been since May because of work and going to France (yes, I went to France and YES it was AWESOME!) I went to the 1 1/2 hour class yesterday and got a good workout with Ms. Swing. We worked a lot on forms, but spaced it out with some intense kicking drills.
Tonight was 3 1/2 hours of training, which was amazing. I got to the dojang early and showed Mr. Coleman my pictures from France, and gave him a postcard and book about the D-Day Normandy landings (his dad fought in D-Day, so I thought it appropriate to get him something like that). I think he was really pleased and I had a lot of fun showing him my pictures. :)
There were three of us for weapons, and we worked on bo and sai. It took a few minutes to get used to the weapons in my hand again, but it's like riding a bike - it all comes back to you. Self-defense was good - got to review some old techniques and learn a couple of new ones. Injured my toe, though, so I just helped out with sparring/refereed for the ring fights.
I had a private lesson after class, so we continued with self-defense. I love being one-on-one, because we go so much more in-depth than we would in a normal class. It's a little more relaxed, too. Quite a lot of laughs. I was trying to do a compound lock, but it was clear that I couldn't figure it out for that angle, and I kept twisting his arm this way and that and finally just turned away and started cracking up. He really stressed the point that I need to find a few techniques that worked for me in terms of my size and ability, and work on those, keeping in mind the different variables that can change the situation and techniques. It was really interesting and a lot of fun. I'm trying to get as much training out of this week as possible because I won't have another break for quite awhile. Oh, and my 18th birthday is a week from Saturday!! :D