Training

So, Sunday night we went to a Gojo Ryu class.

Tough guys, lots of conditioning; their primary kata is Sanchin Kata, which is a slowly performed conditioning kata, plenty of slow and powerful isometric contractions. Gojo Ryu means hard/soft school, and I'll put that kata in the soft area of things (compared to some of the other stuff we did, it was certainly soft); there was some simple strike and defend kumite that was done fairy fast. A little alien to me as it was still form based and there was emphasis on how the body was positioned, where your arms ended up.

A lot more contact in general than the Shiri-te school, don't know if that's a factor in all Naha-te, or just Gojo-Ryu, but we did a fair bit of contact blocking drills. The guy I was with looked somewhere between late thirties and early fifties and was carved from wood. His hands were like slabs of meat crafted from years pounding that maki-wara. We did forearm blocking drills and I got fairly bruised, didn't seem to phase him though. We then did this sort of bicep/tricep conditioning push-pull drill; surprisingly tough but well worth keeping up.

The main teacher was the guy in the picture, Yagi Akihito Sensei, and that's the film he starred in, Kuro-obi. Good film, about Okinawan karate and the trials it went through at the beginning of WWII.

Afterwards we ended up in a bar chatting to him and he's really modest. He said that he ended up in it by accident. They did auditions for guys to teach the actors karate. Then the producers had an idea: what would work better - turning karate practitioners in actors or vice versa?

In the end the karate practitioners won out, so there you go.

Very friendly atmosphere in the club, just like the other club. I never thought it would be this way: relaxed, open and friendly, but I am starting to see that there's a difference between Okinawan martial arts and Japanese martial arts, if nothing else in how they are taught and the class dynamic.

Anyway, in other training news:

Got up on Monday morning, cycled to Budokan, did the following-

Mobility warm up

Pull ups - 7

Dead lifts (no straps, Andy Marshall would be happy)

70k x 5, 70k x 5, 90k x 5, 100k x 5, 110k x 5, 130k x 3, 140k x 3, 150k x 2, 160k x 2

I had more in the tank, but decided to leave it there. Lifting felt easier, grip felt stronger. Previously, my grip would fail after 140k, but here it was fine. I think that all the work I'm doing is letting my muscles work together as opposed to against one another!

Pull ups 7

Biceps 20k x 10 per side

Triceps 17.5k x 10,5 per side

Bicep negs on machine for play around.

Definitely a tight bicep that's causing my recent shoulder issues, so that's nice and fixable.

Then cycled home.

Ate in that restaurant at the bottom of the hill, great food.

Oh, and weighed myself at the gym as finally found a set of scales that goes above 100kg! Weighing in at 104.5, so I've lost about 5k. Arms look bigger, so do legs, so humm...

Jujitsu tonight, I'm taking the class!