It’s becoming a bit of a habit now; Sensei John asked Rich to take the warmup again last night.

This was probably the biggest class we’d been in. There were a signficantly large number of white belts, probably due to a whole bunch of new people attending their first class.

Rich took a particularly good warm up, and included everything he needed to in the right order. The interference caused by mirroring the class (as you face them) is a challenge still, understandably as it takes a lot of practise to get right. It’s caused by the person at the front instructing the class to use their right arm, but as that person is facing the class they have to demonstrate using their left arm. It’s a bit like the Stroop effect or patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. Sensei John tends to get this right, but amusingly when he turns round to demonstrate a technique to the class and faces the same way as them, he has to undo this training, and it’s almost possible to see the cogs whirring as he works out that left really is left. GKR certainly tests your mental agility as well as your physical agility.

It was interesting to see the new people in training. We went through Taigyoku Shodan, several times, with arms and without arms. I found this a really useful opportunity to practise my stances as the pace was slow enough to work on making sure my feet were two shoulder widths long, and one shoulder width wide, my back leg straight and my back straight for long fighting stance.

The new folks had a little trouble, after all, the turning in first kata is enough to begin with, let alone learning all the moves, but they all seemed to do really well. Its good to see how we must have been at the start of our training, and how quickly we’ve come along. Although the orange and green belt demonstration of Bassai Dai highlighted just how far there is to go.