Successful day today. Sword and staff plus jump rope in the early morn. Then hit the gym for an hour. Intensive cardio and weight lifting for ~30 minutes. Then slower exercises and forms the rest of the time. Wish it weren't so damn hot so I could practice outdoors more often.
Sorry I haven't journaled lately. Today was karate and sword. Tenshin happo need work, especially the later ones. More success in sword than karate, surprisingly. Sensei David was impressed. Ready to move on to the later batto ho patterns. ETA: also began learning basic sword sparring (all scripted stuff). ETA2 for more complete-ness: Last night-karate and sword. Worked on Tenshin Happo during karate, and I'm seeing some progress. I was the only one at sword class, so I got extra time with Sensei. Forms are coming together and I'm getting tip speed *whoosh* with most swings. Today, spent my gym time working legs and back. Also did some intense cardio while there. Sword fundamentals practice at home-draws and swinging bokken. Planning on doing more jump rope, karate, and weapons after sundown.
Pretty good evening at the dojo. Began learning the ordinal directions in Tenshin Happo and corrected mistakes I made in the ordinal directions. (still needs work :/ ) In sword class, we reviewed kamai and batta ho. Added advanced batta ho patterns and stepping. Almost have enough technique to begin more advanced sparring. More than enough stuff to practice for next week.
Primarily a chest and back workout this morning, though worked on everything-especially weaker muscles like calves, triceps, shoulders. Plenty of cardio as well.
Woke up early to get my weapons practice and jump rope in. Getting too hot to play in daytime. Then hit the gym. Emphasis on legs and back, as well as weaker areas like calves and posterior shoulder. Oodles of cardio too, mostly the elliptical machine sprints-2 or 5 min dashes followed by walking pace for 1-2 min. Most of the pain from my recent injury is gone.
Woke up extra early to practice weapons before the heat set in. About 20 minutes of sword and a bit of staff. Then off to the gym to get my **** kicked by my trainer. Still have a lot of work to do on calves and triceps, but getting better. Progress in general is good. More weapons + karate practice in 30 minutes from now. The summer heat is awful.
Very good karate and sword classes tonight. Sempai demonstrated basic grappling techniques. I need a lot of practice with that because I "muscle" it too much. I will get it one day, I swear! Sempai also pointed out how flawed my tsuki technique is. I will drill it sloow this week to get it right. We also practiced properly executing noto, which I need more practice with. I can't practice at home till next month when I get my own iato. I'll have to make due with my bokken till then. :/
I've had to switch to night training because of the heat-hence lack of recent entries. :/ Today, jump rope and bokken from 10-10:30A. Getting too hot. Will do my tenshin happo and other karate short forms indoors this morning and back to weapons in the evening when it cools down.
Morning-weapons and jump rope. Karate in an hour. More weapons tonight if it cools down properly ouside.
Woke up early to work on sword. Worked all the batta ho patterns and standard cutting exercises-kessa, kiriage, miyoko. Then to the gym to train with my strength coach. We worked on a little of everything, and fortunately we went through plenty of exercises that really help strengthen the shoulders and chest like flyes. Good for sword work. Plenty of cardio as well. This is day 3 of using the Force Factor NO2 supplement. Seems to help recovery and I can get more out of weight training. I'll keep an eye on how it works.
Another morning sword session. Then hit the gym. Emphasis on chest/back, but a little bit of everything. Sore shoulder is still preventing me from doing proper pullups. Everything else seems to be fine and improving.
Pretty good night. We continued work on application of grappling techniques in tenshin happo 1. Sensei David taught sword class tonight. We reviewed basic and advanced batta ho and kamai. Sempai says my relaxation is improving, along with my technique.
Worked with my strength trainer, as usual on Mondays. Improving a lot there. Did sword and karate in the evening because the days are ridiculously hot. Getting pretty consistent tip speed now. Definitely enjoying my new iaido blade. Shihan says I can bring it to sword class. YAY! I like it a lot better than the dojo's bokkens.
Yesterday-worked on application of Tenshin Happo in karate. I discovered I can take a hit to the stomach a lot better than I used to. All that gym work is paying off. Worked on Batta Ho patterns with iaido (nowhere near as well as I would like practice, practice) Also did some basic bokken sparring. Fun stuff, even though I mucked up quite a lot. :/ Today-Focused primarily on legs/back, but did a bit of everything. Left shoulder is not happy with me today for some reason. :/ (Pullups especially were not fun) Plenty of cardio, too. Worked on my trouble areas WRT karate and iaido in the morning and evening.
Today the weather is rainy and unsuitable for weapons practice. I'll be stuck inside doing karate today. :/
Up early this morning for sword practice today. Primarily batta ho patterns. My new obi arrived, which makes practice much easier. Have to have my sempai show me how to tie the hakama, though. :/ Worked with my strength trainer from 10-10:30A. Getting stronger and better cardio capacity. Worked on a little bit of just about everything in the gym.
Sword this morning as usual. Hit the gym after that. I created a template from one of Seiken Steve's workout logs and did that in addition to leg press/curl. My gym doesn't have a barbell So I used the machines with a bar (IDK what they're called) which simulate the barbell experience, lifting 60-70 lbs or so-deadlifts, front squats. Then I did some kettlebell swings. Did a set of 8 pullups or so, vertical grips. Ankle curls with 30 lb dumbell. Did dumbell arm curls leaning against a wall, which was an interesting variation. Also did loads of cardio. The A/C is broken at the gym today, so I was quite uncomfortable. Thanks again to Steve for the ideas. Not bad for a new routine. And of course, I couldn't resist doing a bunch of pushups, even though I banged my left hand yesterday and it still smarts a bit. :/ I'll be trying to eat more from here out.
I'm getting the hang of Tenshin Happo nowadays. Now the application part...which is trickier yet. :O Sword-all bokken today. :/ Started with the batta ho patterns and Happo Giri, and moved on to basic sparring. I'm not pleased with my sparring at all. I felt really clumsy. Took me most of the session to get it to start flowing...now I just need another few hours to get it flowing the way I want it to.
Time to update. Been busy lately. :/ 7/26 Did a routine roughly based on stuff found on Steve's log: Leg press (single and double leg); calf raises (on leg press and on a step); interval dashes on eliptical; hip induction/adbuction machine; leg curl; standard pushups and several variations; more dashes; dumbell shrugs, standing tall and squatting; deadlifts; bicep curls; lat pulldowns; interval cardio-fast high kicks over waist high obstacle; side raises; forward raises; leg press again; kettlebell swings; final 3 minutes of dashes. sword, staff, and karate in the evening 7/27 Staff class at 10. Worked on the old patterns I've been struggling with and started some new ones. Shihan helped me figure out the tricky swings and steps. Practiced karate in the afternoon and a bit of iaito at night. 7/28 So far, I've worked on my staff patterns. Will update this tonight or ASAP.
Worked with my trainer this morning. We did some of everything. I'm really improving. I notice that my dumbell punches need some serious work. :/ The gym finally got a good heavy bag I can practice striking. The only bad thing about it is that the mounting isn't sturdy enough for me to practice tackling/grappling. Also did some kata as a cool-down. Early this morning I worked on sword technique/forms. All my batta ho's in particular. No time for Happo Giri, kamae, etc. Planning on doing that tonight.
