Opening day blues

Saturday was the First day back in the dojo for the New Year, but was still struggling with breathing.  My chest infection has cleared, but because of my COPD, am still producing too much mucous. My medication has been changed, but seems  to be taking its time to kick in 😕.

Warm up for the lesson included tag racing, press ups with kicks to the mid section, as well as sit ups with punches to the mid section , as well as the usual stretches.  Then it was time for Mocuso and a welcome back.   Our Sensei went over what was planned for the early part of the year  - Sensei Nohara's visit, open competition, and grading.

Given grading is coming up, it was then onto fundamentals - punches, receiving techniques, and kicks.  I struggled for breath during the latter part of these, but at least managed to get some practice in for most of them.  This was followed by drills, basic ones as far as I can recall, but things were a bit blurry at this stage.

Then we got onto Kata - Naihanchis, Pinanams, Passai - whole class did the katas up to around Pinan Sandan, doing performance of the ones we know and then pad work whilst higher grades did their Kata.  Kata I really enjoy, even when I'm struggling, as in performance I find it helps clear my mind much as Mocuso does.
We did a little work on Stances, specifically Naihanchi dachi, to show how it aids stability, including some basic grappling. This is one bit I left out this time 😕. Normally I quite enjoy kind of thing, but my heart rate felt way up, on top of the breathing.

For the last part of the lesson it was bo kata, followed by the news our Sensei want to start doing full kobudo sessions, Yes Please 😊 Much though I felt I struggled, I still enjoyed the work out, and hopefully can shake off this problem soon 🙂🙂