Oval Hand

First squad after the taikai. It is no surprise at all that the "warm-ups" get more intense. By that I mean for the usual 200-hayasuburi + 50 katate-hayasuburi, tonight it went

D O U B L E ...

K sensei points out what we've been doing wrong and we went for it again. It doesn't take too long to realize - hey, I managed 200... and suddenly - whoa, there goes another set...

Then I got dragged to "demonstrate" katate-hayasuburi on the dummy, and turns out to be that my grip is not "oval" enough, hence the tense-up arm and shoulders, leading to a big waste of energy... blah blah. This issue has been up since the very first day I joined the training. Not happy.

My new partner in the Ladies group, Xixi from Beijing, actually hangs on really well. She does great hiki-dou. It's good that she's around my age, and is going to stay for another 1/2 year.

... I, on the other hand, broke down after "jikeiko" is called. Previously taken an elbow-dou cut while daydreaming, and with the throwing-up feeling, I just sat that and watch for the entire 1/2 hour. Apart from another guy with a swollen ankle, everyone was still in there, fighting. I have no idea what I was thinking at that time. Maybe I was just wondering how I would survive in Fukuoka, being not able to withstand 1 hr of keiko here.

No surprise, K sensei gave me the "lecture" after class. "You need to work on your body condition"... Problem is that I've been jumping ropes and stuff over the days, worrying if anything like running along the river side (as suggested) would do any help.