Special Training
I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I signed up to take winter Special Training. Sure, some of the seniors at the dojo had told us newbies their horror stories: running a barefoot mile in the cold, doing 100 Taikyoku Shodans in a row, and most daunting, having to hold the kiba dachi stance for an hour and a half. But, I thought, how hard could it really be? After all, lots of Shotokan karatekans go through this twice a year, and presumably they aren’t all masochists.
This winter’s training was especially brutal because of the strangely displaced weather– from Friday night, it was brutally cold, and apparentyl Saturday night set the year’s low temperature record here in Pasadena. Since the training gym was about 10 minutes walk from my apartment, I decided to stay at home and just walk back and forth. I learned this was a stupid decision very quickly, when my sore muscles started to complain and the cold made them stiff and extended the walk to closer to 20 minutes.
As for special training itself, it was definitely tougher than I had allowed myself to expect; the practices were intense and came one after another with barely a break inbetween. The first session was Friday night, about 7 to 9pm, the next was Saturday morning 5:30-8; this was the longest time between practices. The next one was 12-1:15pm then 2:30-4pm then 6-8pm, then 12-1am, then 5:30-8am, then 11-1:15pm, then 2:30-3:45pm. That’s the gist of the schedule, anyhow; the exact times may be off by a little. The fact remains, however, that it was a doozie of a schedule.
My worse practice was the second one, where after our run, we held kiba dachi for an hour and a half. I kept coming up and going down– the longest I held the stance straight was by my count still under three minutes– while out of the corner of my eyes, it seems everyone else actually held to their stance the entire time; if anyone bobbed up and down, I didn’t notice it. It both pissed me off and flattered me that several of the seniors supervising the practice singled me out for ‘help’ which consisted of yelling ‘everyone here’s in pain, not just you’ and other such pithy statements and pulling down on my belt or pushing down on my shoulder. One of the black belts was more supportive: he got down in an impossibly low kiba dachi in front of me and stuck to his guns; gave me something to aim for, but alas didn’t really help me ignore my aching and the temptation of bobbing. I was probably also the only person to fall on my ass during the practice.
Now that I’ve been to one, I know what to expect, so this should have been my worse special training. I know now I need a surfeit of practice holding kiba dachi before the next special training, and I need to come up with some system for ensuring I don’t get as sore as I am again– I had to cancel a study session today because I’m having trouble just getting out of bed, much less walking to my door.
Possibly relevant posts:
- BUD/s training (7/1/2002)
- And now… Christmas! (12/25/2004)
- I’m a bad black person too (8/26/2008)