12/05/16

After the warm-up Sensei split us purple belts off together and spent some time going over heian godan and tekki shodan with us. I was quite pleased with how things are going there - I've got both kata more or less down in terms of the sequence. It's now just perfecting the moves.

We then did kumite - just the volunteers, which was Jh, D, Ja and I. It was great. Proper good old-fashioned bare-fisted full contact, and we learned a couple of new techniques. One thing Sensei was keen to have us all doing was pushing forward to restrict the opponent's space during a counter - and also doing repeated punches when doing so rather than just the usual gyakutsuki. I got a couple of really nice hits in, but I think probably took more in return. I took quite a sweet punch to my upper forearm, which is starting to swell up good and proper. The other students I was sparring with are a good 10 years younger than me at least, and it shows in the speed they have. I don't particularly mind: it's just a great feeling to actually fight.