Senior Project

This year for my Senior Project I'm going to be learning Martial Arts. I can't tell you exactly what the name of the style is but yea lets just go with that for now. I had taken my second class yesterday and I love it so far. Harry really pushes me to my full potiental. He doesn't allow me or Tony to give up during practice. When we first come in we jog around the dojo for 5 minutes. While jogging we run in a varity of motions. Like he may have us running with or arms straight up in the air, straight out in front of us or straight out to our sides (like wings) either way we can"t stop jogging during that 5 minute warm up. The point of martial arts is survival, not beating the other. If you can survive a fight then you will live. So while we are running it's not a race it's to make sure that we can endure what we go through.

After running yesterday we used a thick pole to loosen up our wrist and shoulders. He gave us instructions to twist the pole in many various ways. Very complex to explain so I will show you if I get the chance.

We also practiced the stances and Harry even taught us a new one. We also worked more on blocking which he also added a new block into there also. Two things that were completely new from last week's session was the punching drills and the last running to finish out. There is this thing called "The MInute Drill" for this you want to put on some boxing gloves and get in front of a punching bag. Since it's two of us (Tony & I) in our private session this drill works perfectly. While Tony is at the punching bad he keeps throwing a 2 punch combo. You need to throw the 2 punches as fast as you can but the key is form. You don't want to become too unbalanced and you need to make sure you are hitting the bag correctly or else you defeat the purpose of it. While Tony tears up the bag it's my job to stand on this platform and throw the same 2 punch combo at Harry. It's difficult for me because this platform that you stand on moves to your movement. It's like a plate with a ball on the bottom so if you don't keep your balance you will fall. But at the same time you have to keep throwing the punches at Harry while trying to balance.

After what seems to be a few minutes Harry says "SWITCH" and I take Tony spot as he takes mine and we finish off each others job. We keep rotating like this until Harry says we are done.

That wasn't even the end of it though. He seen that while we were at the bags we didn't have the punching down pact so he turned on the timer again and made me and Tony get our own bag to punch at, told us to put our hands up and roared "GOOOO"

One, two, one, two, one, two,

"Rotate around the bag, you think he's going to stand there and let you hit him?"

Scrambling my feet, I stumble around the bag, throwing fierce punches.

"Devren, you look like a crazy person attacking, control yourself, Technique"

I felt it, I was loosing control trying to keep up with the pace, "Relax" I told myself, "Shuffle and Punch" I felt my feet gliding around the bag. Boom boom. Boom boom. Finally I got the hang of it a tiny bit.

"Stop moving now, only punch"

I watched Harry come behind my bag as I punched it. He held it in place, I guess that helped a little bit but my arms wanted to give in. I never had to throw punches at someone for 2 or 3 minutes straight and this seemed like 10 mminutes now. He said "Good" and finally walked away from the bag.

You can't believe how much relief I had to hear the words "Done"

Arms were behind tired. Lol. So we did a bunch of stretches after that and a few other things before we left but man we were worked.

The other thign that was enw though was the running at the end. He has us jog around the dojo as we do when we first come in but this time he threw a 13 pound ball at us for us to catch while we ran and then he gave up to a 10 pound weight to hold out as we run, holding it out or straight in front of us with one hand. I never realized how heavy 10 pounds are.

I was sleepy, wish I could've just went to sleep then but I had to walk home.

Overall, Harry said we did great with keeping up and staying with him. SO it was really good. I love that the workout was extreme and not easy. I love to be sore and sweat cause then I know that I'm doing something good for my body. I can't wait until the next session.

(Originally Posted on Sept. 26)