James, on the other hand, is getting more and more out of hand. Last night, I had to smack him three times to get him focused on doing two man basics with us. Before that, when we were doing regular basics, I had strained my knee at work. Sensei always tells us that we know our own limitations and not to do anything that would cause us to hurt ourselves. When we were doing the kicks, I did a full speed, full force back kick and it really hurt my knee. For the rest of the reps, I did them slower and about half power. James noticed and started yelling, "Cheater! Cheater!" like a little 5 year old would do. James has been in the dojo longer than any of us. For so long he was the highest ranking student. Now, I've passed him up, and next month Joshua and Barrett will pass him up. He is slipping lower and lower on the totem pole, and he doesn't seem to realize that it's his own fault...
Josh and Barrett were working on their own two man basics when Barrett kneed Josh in the groin. As Josh was rolling around on the floor, we couldn't resist getting in a few digs. "Don't you have a cup?", someone asked. "Yes, it's in my bag," Josh replied. "It's not doing you much good there!" I said. "Well, I wasn't expecting full contact sparring until after class," Josh answered. About that time, I turned to Josh's girlfriend, who had accompanied him to class and said, "I hope you weren't planning on having any children!" The look on her face was priceless.
After class, sensei and I were talking, and he said he wanted to start the black belt class the 16th of this month. I'm excited about that. Then, next month, Josh and Barrett will be able to come as well. I asked sensei if the Greenville dojo had gotten air conditioning yet. There was some talk that they were going to. He said no, they hadn't. Then he said that the more the board thought about it, the more they realized they should have never done our test that way. My test? Yes, sensei said they said that those conditions were intolerable, and they shouldn't have done that to us. I kind of agree, because it must have been at least 120' in there, and that kind of heat just drains all your energy. Still and all, I feel a certain sense of pride that I tested, and did well, under those circumstances.
Oh, and when I entered the dojo, sensei bowed me in. It totally caught me off guard, because he'd only done that once, and that was after I'd fussed at him. I think Blake said something to him, and that's the reason he did it.
Ok, so I always get to bed late on karate nights. Last night was no exception. But I hadn't been asleep long when thunderstorms rolled through, waking me up. I went back to sleep pretty quickly, but was awakened sometime during the night by the cat. Seems a bug of some sort had gotten into the bedroom. My early morning symphony went something like this:
Rustle, rustle, thump!
Skritch, skritch, thump!
Thump, thump, thump, thump, THUMP!
Squeak, jiggle, jiggle, jiggle. (That's when she jumped onto the bed.)
Jiggle, squeak, squeak, THUMP! (That's when she jumped her fat self off of the bed.)
Pat, pat, pat, THUMP!
"CAT!!!! Leave that bug alone and go back to bed!"
A rather battered cardboard box at work, complete with oil stains, fingerprints, and half melted rubber band stuck to the side.
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3 comments:
Thats great that you're finally getting a black belt class! You must be excited.
I like the old cardboard box.
Ha ha ha ha ha. LoL. That was very fun about what you said about the cat. They love to make noise at night and they don't care if you're trying to sleep.
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