January 8, 2008
Tonight was my first class back after the new year. We didn’t have class on January 1st, we met on the 2nd to talk about goals for the year, and I took the 3rd off to go watch Virginia Tech get spanked in the Orange Bowl (sigh!). Sensei started a policy that the group part of the class won’t start until everyone has done a set of mandatory exercises (push-up, crunches, stepping lunge stretches, and another stepping stretch for which I don’t know the name). We’ve always had a set of mandatory exercises before class, but they often got skipped by people, especially on Tuesdays, when we start class immediately after the Aikido group, so we don’t have the floor to exercise on. Now, we will do them and postpone the start of class until everyone’s done.
So, after exercises, I worked on Bunkai Kumite Godan with Matthew V. and Bunkai Kumite Hachidan with Sempai Dave Trinite. After everyone was done, Sensei ran the class exercises and then we paired up. I worked with Burton on Kata Gekisai Dai San, Bo/Bo Kumite Dai Ichi, and Kihon Kata No Tonfa. To finish the class, we did Randori sparring for the last fifteen minutes.