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February 03, 2012
February 02, 2012
January 29, 2012
Happy Birthday To Me - 2008
Before he passed in 2009, my father would use his artistic abilities in many ways including drawing cartoons on birthday cards. The drawing below is from 2008 and, in typical fashion, my father customized it to note my jujitsu hobby. You can click on the image to see a large version.
January 24, 2012
A Different Perspective
Despite not being able to train yet due to my recent surgery, I dropped by class tonight to say hello and let folks know that I was doing fine. Sitting on the couch gave me a different perspective and I had three thoughts that I wanted to pass along.
Although this is only my second week away, I already findling it difficult to sit and watch. My body was almost twitching with muscle spasms as it's conditioned to perform the techniques and not to watch them. It's always good to come by and watch instruction without having to perform the techniques. You keep more lots of the nuances and can see the instruction given to all parts of class. That said, it was sort of painful to have to sit by.
Secondly, it was impossible not to comment and try to provide instruction to the students training directly in front of me. On a couple occasions they even looked my way for advice. I'm not sure it's okay to instruct from the couch. My guess is that you should only do that from the mats.
Lastly, during a typical class, I'm located at the far end of the mats near the kamiza. I'm usually paired up with my fellow brown belts and receiving instruction from a black belt. I can see down the mats but only catch an occasional glimpse of action. Watching from the side, I could see all the various pairings working. The wide variety of abilities and level of expertise was pretty amazing. Watching Shihan walk along the mat from group to group, I couldn't help but think of one of those old schoolhouses where the teacher had all level of students crammed into a single room. That's one of the challenges I saw Shihan working with tonight. He had everything from first-graders to college students and, as he walked across the mats, he continually needed to shift gears to provide instructions for each group.
It was fun to watch class but I'm looking forward to my return on 2/2.
January 23, 2012
January 22, 2012
January 20, 2012
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
January 14, 2012
The Road Back (Again)
During today's session, I spent most of class working through charts techniques with Big Dave. He's done a really nice job of augmenting the charts by combining the different levels, ordering the techniques from brown belt to white belt and then writing step-by-step instructions for each. We worked quickly through a number of sections and asked Shihan for clarifications where we had questions. There are days when readiness for a black belt test seems a mile away but, with the help of Dave's notes, the goal seemed a bit more reachable today.
This was my last class for some time as I head to the hospital on Monday for surgery that will keep me on the sidelines for some time. Jujitsu has taught me the road back. When I first joined, jujitsu was the road back from middle-aged malaise. When I talked about quitting after a separated shoulder, I learned that my partners wouldn't allow me to stop training. When I had cancer surgery last year, a return to practicing jujitsu was a goal that urged me forward. Jujitsu was taught me the road back and I'm prepared to walk down it once again.
January 13, 2012
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