Last night we had a belt exam for the children.  It went really well, I think.  I was actually blow away by how well some of the children did; and likewise frustrated by how well some of them did when compared to their regular class participation.  The little buggers showed us what they can do; and I think the classes are going to start getting a lot harder now.

Missed Monday night class again due to work.  I managed to make it to Thursday's class, but was about 30 minutes late.  When I got there, the class was doing yakusoku kumite drills.  There were an even number of people, so I elected to do kata on my own rather than disrupt the class.  I did 15 bo kata in about 30 minutes with about as much power as I could muster.  It was enough to make me pretty sweaty; not too mention sore the next day.

This week finally marks my first time in the dojo this year.  Monday night Sensei Struchtemeyer returned with a killer circuit training workout that included 5 stations.  Station 1 was kata, station 2 was beating "the big blue bag" with open handed strikes in sets of 3, station 3 was clinch knee strikes on a kicking shield, station 4 was full power palm heel strikes to the shields, and station 5 was continuous striking against 2 heavy bags.  It was a killer workout for the class, and everyone was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the class.Unfortunately, due to my injury, I was unable to participate.  Instead, I did kata for the entire hour and a half at the best pace I could. I think I did about 18 different kata at least 5 times each. I still had a pretty good workout, and it did me some good to review all the kata.Thursday night's class was focused on the kata Ananku.  Not as exciting as Monday night, but a good workout and something the class needed to cover. 

I missed last week entirely, again, due to work.  I plan on going to karate tonight. Hopefully the huge workload at work is over for a while.

On a more positive not; I just got a link from a friend last night, and I thought I'd share them with anyone that is interested.  He trains at Sensei Yaguchi's Shotokan dojo in Denver, Colorado.  Last week was Sensei Yaguchi's annual kangeiko (special winter training).  Apparently, they had training each day last week at 5:30 am.  Even though its a different style of karate, I think you'll find that not much looks different from what we do.  Enjoy.

Sensei Yaguchi's Dojo

This week was bad for karate again. Monday was MLK day, so the armory was closed.

Tuesday I managed to train my paduan and have my small adult class. Tania and Tommy showed up. We had a short class concentrated on using the hips more effectively. After that, I had them do some of the drills on the shodan exam.

Thursday was preempted by work. I went in at about 7:30am and didn't leave till almost 10:30pm. Obviously, I was unable to make it to the dojo.

I'm still here.  Unfortunately, it's been a bad start to the New Year.  The entire family has been very sick since New Year's Eve.  On top of that, I got a killer case of Pink Eye (bacterial) in both my eyes.  I have two days of antibiotics left.  Hopefully it will be gone by then.  Until yesterday, I couldn't walk more than about 100 feet without having to stop and rest.  I honestly don't remember being this sick before.  I should be back to normal, relatively, by next week; hopefully.

The 2008 Columbia Cup was a success for the Pine Forest dojo. There were around 75 competitors from around the state of Missouri. Many thanks to the 30 some black belts attended and helped run rings that day; without whom the tournament wouldn't have been able to run. Sensei Walker had his standard after-tournament barbecue appreciation dinner for the black belts. An unbelievable amount of pork loin was eaten, and many war stories were told.

We'd like to say congratulations to everyone who placed this year, and especially those from Pine Forest Way.

Last night's class was short, as typical for Thursday night classes: about 35 minutes long. We managed to get through our push up workout, and most of the basics by the end of class. It was fast paced, so everyone had a good sweat going by the end. Sometimes, it's good to just do a good basic workout.

After class, we all decided to change the hours of the Thursday class from 7:45-8:30 to 7:45-9:00. By the time the kids class clears out, there's just not enough time to cover a lot of material. So, starting Thursday, September 11, class will go until 9:00pm on Thursday nights.

Tonights class was a rough one. Only two students showed up, and I bet both of them wish they hadn't. We started out with the 100 Push ups workout. After the warm up, it was basics, basics, and more basics. The workout started with basic blocks in front stance up the floor; with block-reverse punch moving backwards down the floor. After doing all the basics, we moved onto front kicks up and front kicks backwards back. Then we did double front kicks up and double front kicks backwards back the length of the dojo.

There were 8 students in last night's class. It started with a brisk warm up, and then went into the subject for the night. We partnered up with hand pads on, and sensei Kuehner proceeded to cover the topic of limb destruction. We worked on some limb destruction techniques that could be present in the most basic kata. At the end of class, we quickly covered what sensei Kuehner refers to as the Thai Smash; what I've seen in other schools practiced as one and two knuckle strikes to the back of the opponents hands and muscles of the forearm.