Monday mornings post-gasshuku, hit different.

I generally do a wee body scan to assess the extent of the damage, then judge the walk to the bathroom to determine how I’m likely to tackle the stairs. Today it was sideways. To be honest, I was only encouraged to accept the stair challenge because of a severe lack of caffeine. In the interest of full disclosure, I had drained the coffee gifted to me at 07:00 this morning and was in savage need of my next hit.

Cats fed, fish fed, I continued with my notes from the weekend. Well… I tried, we covered so much ground during the gasshuku that it was hard to know where to start. So, I stared at a page for a while and then started to realise that whilst it would have been good to note the technical focus, I felt this weekend was more about getting inside the karate. I was further I am now saying things that the young me would roll eyes to heaven on hearing.

I remember the first time that I heard this phrase, we were training in the Olympic Karate Club in Cork maybe 35 years ago and we were working on Tekki Shodan. We were doing all sorts of exercises to increase rotational power and then revisiting the kata. I had no idea what I was doing and could not at all understand the idea that the instructor was aiming to put across. The senior grades did though. I remember going home that night with the feeling of frustration that I had missed out. I think about that night a lot and the promise I made to myself to expose myself to as much learning as possible so that I could stand amongst the guys who ‘got it’. Years later I would learn that they were also searching 🙂

The weekend started on Friday with Sensei Ernie Molyneux. I was lucky to have Sensei Paddy Morrison (my wonderful husband) as partner. I say this in the nicest possible way, he has no issue with attacking strongly. Bad timing, bad block…fail! It was great fun. Sensei Ernie came over a few times and told us where could have some fun with the prescribed techniques, and we were off again. I love this sort of creativity within Karate, somethings worked, some didn’t. This was in line with what Sensei was saying, that it was important to find the techniques that worked for you. Loved every minute.

Saturday was by far the busiest day of the weekend with over 70 folk in the dojo. It was great to see everyone find their groups, work with partners and make new connections. In amongst the sea of black and kyu grades, a smattering of white belts. I cannot applaud these guys enough and I hope they had a great time.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how different instructors approach their sessions. This was on my mind before the gasshuku in Tooting dojo a while back. I went looking for more information and found a heap of papers and comment pieces discussing elements such as instruction, self exploration, questioning and correction. Sensei Larsen started his sessions with questions, something I personally like, causing reflection and for me, oftentimes, exposing knowledge weaknesses. Over the weekend Sensei Larsen moved my shoulder a few millimetres during one technique and totally different feeling. Light bulb moment.

I had some great partners over the weekend (taken out of context that might sound very wrong), but the standout partner was Sensei Kenny Morrison from Scotland. We were in a particularly physical class with Sensei Peter Galer (The Wirral) focused on conditioning (ude-tanren), restraining/moving your partner around, and then continuous punching to the torso. This is a class that love. However, my point here is that with the right partner, it’s fun to push the limits and we did exactly this. We must have looked impressive, as at one stage an instructor from another class stepped in to tell Sensei Kenny he was going too hard. The intervention wasn’t needed — we were both comfortable with the intensity and deliberately pushing the limits. He should have stayed with his own class. Sensei Peter had perfectly set up the intensity levels and I had the best partner. I will write a blog about this another time. <rant>I was annoyed that at 5th Dan level someone would feel I could not advocate for myself, when in fact I had been doing just that all weekend, and that they had the ‘right’ to step into another class. </rant>

This weekend was, for me, all about going inside the Karate, at the very least trying to find that inside feeling. By Sunday we were just the 5th Dan and above grades and therefore a smaller group. Focus went from Saifa through to the second level of Suparempi so the need for notes exponentially increased, there was a lot of information flying about. I do not know where the time went and before long I was on my bike willing my tired legs to get me home.

I won’t lie, I had every intention of going for a short run in the evening, but the couch had my name on it. A willing captive, I struggled to keep my eyes open while watching the Formula 1 and just about rallied in time for the wonderful dinner Paddy cooked. He’d been experimenting again with triple-cooked chips, and I have to say — it was absolutely worth it, although with more work they could be perfect 🙂