Class was tough.
Many basics and a lot of kicks. We did more kicks than usual for some reason. Doing the kicks was good for me since I wanted to see how my hips were working and although I was able to kick higher, they are not spectacular. I know that it’s going to take some time, since I only had one session with the doctor, but I did feel an improvement and my balance is much better for some reason.
We did rear leg, front snap kick with reverse punch followed up by front leg front snap kick with reverse punch and then the same punches but with roundhouse kicks instead. We also did, from a horse stance, side thrust kick and side snap kicks. My horse stance was down lower than before and my butt was tucked under like it should be for the first time that I can remember. Even Sensei Noia made a comment that my stances looked good.
Sensei Cieplik made a comment when I was doing my side thrust kicks. In the dojo, there is railing on the walls and he made the comment that “the wooden railing is good but it is not going to become stainless steel”. The reason that he said it was because he knows that I cannot kick very high, yet, when doing side thrust kicks but even though the wood (my ability to kick at the height I am kicking) is good but don’t try to force it higher (stainless steel level) if it’s not meant to be. The point is, my kick is good when it’s low so he wants me to realize that it’s good enough even if it’s not at head height.
After that we did some more basics and I was particularly interested in doing back stance with knife hand block. Since my hips were working and I was able to tuck my butt under, the stances felt much lower than before to me. I was able to move much faster when going from one move to the next. Even doing that same move but adding the spear hand strike felt much better.
The “move on” comment from Sensei was really interesting and even though has said it before, it stuck this time. He said, to one of my friends in class, that if you are having a hard time doing something, just “move on”. You can always come back to it again but don’t dwell on it if you just can’t do it at that moment in time. There have been many classes where I felt I didn’t understand anything that day or couldn’t do a certain movement when I should have just moved on not dwell on it for the rest of the class or even longer. The point is, don’t dwell on it, you can always come back to it again.