Post #275

Yes, I've actually posted that many times. Hard to believe, huh?

Anyway, tonight was tough. I am physically wiped out. Now, I admit that I haven't been working out as much, and it shows, but there's a point where you have to say, enough is enough!

Drew skipped this week (well, at least until Saturday) as he's been sick, and while today was his first good day post-illness, I didn't want to chance it with him getting tired in class and then Mr. Hyde coming out (instead of remaining Dr. Jeckyll). In retrospect, he probably would've been okay, but I don't think I was up to it myself, staying there that long and getting 101 things done before getting him to class.

I still went to my double class tonight, however. It was a partial mistake. I should've just taken one. As I mentioned last week, my asthma has been kicking in something fierce for the past two weeks. I had some relief a few days ago when we had a freak spring day that was almost 70F outside, but now it's plunged down again below freezing. Bleeh. Between that affecting my health and some sleep deprivation dealing with a sick child over the long weekend, I went into class quite tired and worn out already. But I figured that if I didn't go to class, that wasn't going to help me since I was starting to feel out of it. A little exercise wasn't going to hurt me. That was until I found out that RA was teaching class, because SW is at Spring Nationals (even though most of the US is in the dead of winter, so I don't know why they call it Spring Nationals). I haven't taken an RA class in a long time, and now I remember why. He's tough. Not that is a bad thing. He's very good with his technique. He just got his 3rd degree black belt last week-- sick, no less, according to him. Well, his thing tonight was that what got him through his testing in his sick condition was endurance. (Personally, if you've ever watched him, and he's studied several forms of martial arts, he's a natural, so to me there was little doubt that he wouldn't get it.) He said that if he didn't torture himself with long practice sessions and such, he wouldn't have made it in his worn out condition. Lemme tell you, his worn out is everyone else's BEST. Nonetheless, he felt that is was his job to start getting everyone else's endurance level up. Oh great. So we had to do all these running drills and exercises in between to get our heart rate up. Crap, between my bad knee, my asthma and just feeling out of shape and worn out, it was brutal. Then, in practicing our forms, he said, "Oh, I'll teach you segment #1 of yours." What? What rock have you been hiding under? I know the whole thing, thank you very much! Well, instead he wanted me to work on the first segment or so. One thing I have to work on is more one handed techniques, as I still tend to do things as if I was a color belt/double handed technique. Well, at least I'm not sloppy like some of the kids! So, it feels a little different, but fine. I worked on my 20 second freestyle that I have to add to my SJB routine. It just needs some practice for one or two catches, but RA liked the releases that I did at the end and felt the main choreography was good. Then we sparred-- forget board breaking. I went up against a green belt dad who hasn't been around in a long time. Turns out he had knee surgery, but he was in good shape, as he was doing the bobbing and weaving a lot more than I would, and since I was pretty wiped, it ended up being a good match, but I SWEAR it was more than a 2 minute round. It felt like an eternity. I was completely wiped out, and had to get a very long drink of water to try to revive myself while I tried to catch my breath-- literally! (Water is liquid oxygen, as far as I am concerned.)

Did I stop there? No. Glutton for punishment that I am, stupid as I am, I stayed for Instructor class. Next to nobody was there. The P family was there, AS and NC were there, and me. That's it. I partnered up with NC, since she admittedly was out of practice herself (she does other sports, but quit her winter sport just near the end of the season), so it seemed like a good idea. Usually she is one of the stars here, but she's out of it too, so it was a good matching up. We started with "pyramid" kicking drills, as RA was still on his endurance kick (no pun intended). YOu know, start with 1 kick, then 2 consecutive kicks, then 3, then 4, all the way to 10, then back down again. Oh, it was tough, but I felt I did a lot better than I expected in myself. And considering that I was the only one who was a holdover from the last class (usually there are more, but not tonight!), I thought that was pretty good. We did a few stretches, then did the same thing again with a different kick, but less of them. We worked on our form, but again just the first section, so I felt like there wasn't much for me to improve once I got my stuff fixed. Then with weapons, same thing-- I just need practice, but I was getting tired, so it was getting harder to do. RA decided in this class to do board breaks. I don't think it was a good night for board breaks for anyone. I tried my upset knifehand again, but used wood just to get used to an open hand. Seems that on a pad, I can do it right with my open hand, but on wood or plastic, it's a different story. Now, I did break my wood, and it appears I did it correctly, or pretty close to correctly. My hand doesn't hurt or feel like I have a potentially hairline-fractured bone this time. But it still stung like hell at the time, and where the board broke was very high. Instead of the board broken pretty close to the middle, it was more like 1/4-3/4 with the leftover pieces it was weird. Oh well. At least it broke, and it was on something a little more plyable than the plastic! The thing that pissed me off the most was that this is normally a 45 minute class. Not that RA remembers that, considering he hasn't been to a instructor/leadership class in ages. Since the new schedule kicked in, he kept us the whole hour, and so we got out at 9:15, which is a half hour later than we normally get out. YUCK. He felt we had a few more minutes to get one round of sparring, and essentially I said NO WAY. I was too worn out, feeling too sick. And he said something blah blah blah it's tough taking two consecutive classes for anyone, blah blah blah, gotta keep working at least so go work on a bag. So as everyone else is getting gear on, I'm working on the bag, but they haven't sparred yet. After a while, I just said screw it. I bowed out, changed, came home and changed into my jammies to collapse! Now that I've had some time to relax and watch Project Runway, I'm still feeling it. I hurt all over. It was too much at once. I really do know my body, and I need to listen. There are times to push, and there are times NOT to push, and I went over the line tonight.

And on that note, I'm going to bed. I'm wiped. So much for MY endurance. :-S