Monday night training

I wasn't sure I was able to make tonight's class, because I went to a Real Estate seminar in the afternoon and wasn't sure it would end in time. Thankfully, it ended with enough time for me to go home, eat something useful, and relax a little before I went to pick up my training buddy and riding buddy, Don, and then head for the dojo.

There were a few seconds there where some little voice in my mind piped up, worrying I wouldn't get enough relaxation time before going to socialize at karate, and another voice popped up in a soothing voice, trying to convince me I didn't want to go to class tonight... but I quieted them down and shooed them away, with the simple thought that I would have to call Don to cancel picking him up, and I don't like to cancel for whimsical reasons - I already avoid enough classes with legit ones.

It turned out, as it generally does, to be a great workout. I perspired a lot, of course, but didn't get super-winded like I got the last few classes, and I didn't feel like it was me lagging behind who was determining the pace of the class during the last half hour. When Sensei ended the class, I actually had a bunch more energy left and could have gone for the full 1.5 hours by training an extra 10 minutes, quite easily. I'm happy leaving with this positive feeling, however, as I've been feeling a lot of discouragement regarding my endurance over the past couple of years. I'll take any of the good experiences I can get.

We worked on Kanku Sho again today, after going through some basics (hip vibration, then rotation practice in terms of punches, and hip tilting practice for front and side snap kicks), but there were a number of people in the club who didn't know the kata very well, so we never really went through it with much speed or power.

One thing, while doing the basics, that Sensei pointed out to me specifically is that when my right leg is the supporting leg in a side snap kick, the supporting leg caves in. He says my left leg is just fine but my right leg has problems. I need to bring my camcorder in and do some taping so I can see what it is HE sees. It's really hard from above to see the problem and mentally understand how to correct it, and the mirrors just don't cut it.

Anyway, good workout today, and my next workout is on Wednesday, which means tomorrow is a treadmill day.