“Kick! Punch! It’s all in the mind….”

The mighty Master Onion-Head from PaRappa the Rapper certainly knew his stuff.

My instructor returned from a week break to teach our lesson last night, and with him he brought some hard exercises and tasks. My fingertip push-ups didn’t go so well and my little finger made an interesting clicking noise and pointed in an unexpected direction which smarted. Were it not for the class full of people around me (and the young girl in front of me) it’s the sort of thing which would normally have brought a few choice words to my lips. Later in the lesson we were working some full-power reverse punches into kick shields and it hurt so much that I found my kihaps much louder than usual, and although I wasn’t expecting it, it actually helped me perform a little better. After a bit of practise punching by the count, we were told to do fifty more in our own time, and I found myself giving a big kihap on each and every punch, which I’m not sure I normally would. I found it help me in the same way I find listening to music through earphones helps when when I’m running, in so much as I find I can keep going longer if I can’t hear myself gasping. Maybe that sounds a bit weird, I’m not sure, but it’s true for me. It’s obviously psychological and I really noticed it when I stopped – both punching and yelling – and could barely get a breath. It’s almost like mu shin (no mind), although slightly different in my perception. It’s almost a bit trance-like. Maybe it’s something similar to chanting?

We had an hour of continuous full-contact sparring after the main lesson as is quickly becoming the norm, and I remember before my first bout thinking ‘I’m really not sure how much energy I have’. The first fight went reasonably well, but against my brother it’s always very close. As the evening went on the fights seemed to be taking the level of contact up a bit, and although I did much better than I was expecting to in many aspects, I was absolutely out on my feet. I turned my (never healing) toe over again, had my clicky finger taped to its neighbour and was honestly struggling to take a full breath at times, but it was awesome fun and I took so much from it. Attempting to ‘box’ my way through the rounds seems to be the best option for me, and I’ve started to take a kick or two if it means I can get inside and start working with my hands. In some ways I wish I hadn’t, I’m sore all over today and have plenty of ‘ouchy’ spots where I took some heavier kicks, not least of which being the great jump spinning back kick which I didn’t even feel at the time. I only realised how good a kick I’d been tagged with when I heard the others in the hall go ‘oooooh’. By the time we left I was running on empty and my legs were shaking, which brought with it a little satisfaction ;).

Murph’s agility lessons are still going well and he had a go at the dog walk this weekend (picture a sloping plank up, a long plank in mid-air and a sloping plank down) and did brilliantly. Next week we’re having a go at the see-saw and I’m really keen to see how he copes with it. His attention has been tried to its limits over the last four weeks with so many other dogs being there and him having to behave himself and not play with them, but he slowly seems to be getting the hang of it, despite being utterly besotted with a little brown Cocker spaniel who goes. We also went for a good walk in the woods yesterday and it was just glorious. Proper autumnal sunshine, a bit of haze and brown leaves everywhere. The only problem comes with his fur being so long and fine, we tend to end up with half the woods attached to the dog once we get him home! Winter is well on its way now too, it was still pitch black out when the alarm went off this morning. Bring it on I say! All that remains for the next few weeks is to get my pumpkins carved, and somehow try to source a very cheap pinstriped baseball uniform for my Halloween costume. I really hope I manage to find one, I’ve wanted to do the costume for years and I have every intention of doing it this time around. Those Warriors won’t know what’s hit them!

(I promise I’ll try to get around to fixing comments soon!)