Over half way there and I’ve never felt more motivated to see what i can earn for the rest of the week! This morning was the only class this week that I wasn’t able to make due to work but I’m 100% the afternoon classes put all of us through our paces. No photos tonight as it so full on!

Little Champions Class:

This class is such a fantastic class to figure out the theme of the night and set the basis of how the rest of the night’s focus is going to be. In this class the brown and black belts were taken aside to do some chito ryu bo kata and basics. Last week we had a sai focus and I spent he week learning the basics and beginning to generate power and kime through my body. With the bo we did all of the Chito-Ryu bo Kihon kata sequence and also kumi bo. More of a physical challenge this was because there was one section that we repeated 90x with multiple partners. My knees were weak and my arms were heavy but I knew that if I could switch my mind back to one of the sessions last week about perseverance and getting the job done I knew I could finish it off strong!

Karate Kids class:

The previous class had already made my legs jelly and I was already pretty hot and sweaty. Nothing could prepare any of us for what was about to be presented to us seniors in this class. The blue belts and above were taken over to the side to do some kata. With a twist though! We had to do as many kata as we could pump out, but after each kata we had to do a combination of 10 push ups, 10 sit ups, 10 squat kicks and 10 burpees. The day was extremely hot during the day and I forgot to eat properly… so this was extremely exhausting and it got the better of me after 5 sets. I had to sit out and was immediately beating myself up over it. Was such a fantastic physical and mental challenge though.

The advanced kids class we revisited the bo. We focused on kime and how to use our body to generate it. While sharing our thoughts with each other we concluded that it was to do with the tension (push and pull of out pullback) and generating the power from our hips/the ground. Personally I tried to get the feeling of getting the power from the ground up. I made the illusion of squeezing my thighs and making a ripping the paper feeling with my feet. I got the power and the kime towards the end of the class but I didn’t have consistent speed throughout the entire technique; I started off slow and then finished fast. More to work on tomorrow night!

Adult Class:

Tonights 10 minute break was well deserved as the session was intense from the start. Again we did a lot of speed training and I know that I am not the fastest senior on the dojo but tonight I was the slowest. It didn’t overly bother me as I knew I would just push and finish what I started without any shortcuts. The entire nights training was exhausting so I thought the adult class would be more technical than physical. I was so wrong! Again the seniors in the class were taken to the side and we did the kata/conditioning challenge again. We had half an hr to complete up to shi ho hai. My muscles were aching, my head was telling me negative thoughts because I didn’t complete it the previous class. But I pushed all of that aside and I did it. It was the most amazing feeling knowing that I could turn it around and just do it. Yes I was the slowest, yes there were instances where I did the wrong move in a kata, yes I collapsed a few times during pushups, but nothing stopped me and that’s the attitude I want to retain with me throughout the rest of my training.