Conditioning

Busy kids classes on Saturday. T has decided to recruit a couple of the early teens from the second class to help out in the little ones class earlier on. This seems like a good move as it allows us to delegate stuff like holding the kick pads to them so that we can circulate and help the little ones work on technique. It also seems to have fostered a more responsible attitude in the two older kids which then paid off in their class when they're with their peers.

After the class T was keen to go through the new stuff he'd picked up the day before at the headquarters, so we spent a good hour-and-a-half going through bits and pieces - some corrections to the choy li fut 2-person set (which is called "Crane teases Tiger" apparently) and then a host of new wing chun drills including some arm toughening / conditioning ones. Some of the 2-person stuff was quite tough to do for me with a bigger and heavier opponent, which was making me focus really hard on my chi sao and using whole body technique rather than just using my arms - it was the only way to prevent being completely overwhelmed. Most of my body is aching today, so I must have been working hard. I feel like I have made something of an improvement in my wing chun technique of late, and I'd really like to do the conditioning drills with someone every day to really build on my improvements... chance would be a fine thing. Maybe I'll have to build myself a mook jong?

Spent some time with D today discussing the Derby classes, what my longer-term teaching ambitions are and picking up the leaflets and posters for me to distribute - mostly around work to start with. Unfortunately I won't have a lot of time for advertising because I'm off on a 4 day work trip overseas this week which promises to be fairly hostile and unpleasant. (And it means missing 4 classes!)