Week 20 under my belt

It’s the end of week 20 of my Black Belt preparation. The weeks are ramping up as we come off the summer timetable. Last week included assisting a class on Monday night, a technical class on Tuesday night, Lean’n'fit on Thursday night and 2 1/2 hours of various training on Saturday morning.

Training in the earlier part of the week wasn’t very strenuous which was useful coming off a particularly hard OXFAM training session last Sunday, and some very hot days heating up the dojoThursday’s lean’n'fit class was hard going. I’m getting back to my level of pushups and situps, but we’ve got a long way to go to the 80 each per day that the 10-week program requires.

Saturday mornings are starting to fill up. At 8:30 we have an hour of technical practice for the Black Belt candidates and we spent a lot of time on kicks. I’m hoping to plan out these sessions a bit better to make sure all material is covered. This class, the Tuesday Brown/Black class, and a proposed Thur night Brown class are key to getting myself technically fit for the grading.

I also attended my first sparring practice class. In the past these classes have been a bit of “get in & go hard”, which is great if your sparring is good. Ando has been analysing the style of sparring that many of us in Bushidokan use, which is a bit linear and based on a “you attack now and I’ll defend, now change” approach. He’s determined to get us more effective at sparring and he plans to use the Sat morning classes to achieve this. This is exactly what I need to get my sparring up to speed. This approach, and having an instructor who takes the time to understand the problem and come up with a plan, is great for the school.

So the plan is coming together; fitness, sparring and technical. Each with their own activities fitting into each week. And the kilo’s are starting to come off. I’m around 87 now.