A Beginner's Point of View 124-125

Day 124:

Today class was cancelled because the organization which owns the dojo property is closed due to inclement weather.

Day 125:

Today was the re-scheduled event of potluck dinner after practice as a holiday tradition of the dojo. I brought in a pasta dish with creamy sauce. But first it was practice.

Sensei actually asked me to lead the class in warm-ups and suburi, even though there was another student much higher-ranking than me. We did a quick, abbreviated warm-up and then all of us higher-ranking students put on full bogu.

We did a kind of mini-advanced class where the higher-ranked people stood on the Dan side and did not rotate. Sensei would call out a drill and the lower-ranking students would rotate through each of us doing whatever drill was called. There was a lot of men strike, kote strike, and doh strike. A few times students would perform kiri-kaeshi. This time the younger students actually did it right instead of two half-runs like they did last time. Everybody is getting better as time goes by.

Afterwards we all shared dinner brought by everyone. Some people brought Japanese food like daifuku, a kind of sweet dessert that’s a rice patty filled with bean paste. Others brought common American food.