Tonight was my first night of training for the fall term in Kyokushin Karate. It was an awesome class that will go a long way to getting us all back in shape for the upcoming tournament season and testing in December. We spent a good portion of the class working up a sweat through the warm-up and continued on with some moving basics and sparring. And todays sparring was a special one as this is the last sparring my friend Jose will be doing before she leaves to compete in New York on the 22nd. We have to give her some time to heel from all the hard work and training we did over the summer! It felt great to be sparring again as I've learned a few new things over the summer and I'm looking forward to getting the oppertunity to test them out. And Jose gave me a heck of a fight which tells me she's more then ready for New York and will do very well. She's already made us all quite proud through her dedication and determination!
So it was nice to get back into the swing of things. I feel out of shape, but that's typically how we all feel after summer break.
My Sensei made the comment that I look like I've gained 20 pounds over the summer, and he wasn't far off! But I'll be working hard to get into good tournament shape and I'm feeling positive the extra weight will work to my avantage in my heavily competitve division. I was considered to be on the lower end of the Heavyweight Division but now that I've been able to gain some size I'm more evenly matched, which is definately favorable when you're fighting guys in the 225-250 pound range! I'm setting my sights on the South Okanagan Tournament on November 18th, unless they decide to hold the Cranbrook Tournament before then. It's a nice tournament to get the season going and will be a great place for me to build experience in the Open Division. I'm excited to be back training and I'm looking forward to the new tournament season. And it was really nice to see everyone again. I can hardly wait until Saturday and more in-class training!
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