Oishi Sensei

My Achilles tendon is OK. Yesterday I was at Karate for five hours and pressed pretty hard. By the middle of the second class it was starting to protest, but never really got worse than that.

Funny thing. I didn't even think about the rest of my body at all. This morning I'm definitely walking like a thousand-year-old man, but my Achilles has nothing to do with it. All my muscles are trying to punish me for working them so hard. My typical recovery pattern says they are just warming up for a big protest tomorrow.

The big instructor at the training was Oishi Sensei. Back in the day he won the All-Japan Championship 4 times. Since then, he's been the Chief Instructor at Komazawa University. That's the one institution that has produced more All-Japan and World Champions than would seem possible. He has just retired, being 71 years old, and is doing a last few seminars. Through connections, BC made it to the list. He's been here all week.

His helper and translator on this trip is my own teacher, Sakurai Sensei. Sharp Sensei, our group's 6th Dan, was second helper.

The first class was lead by Oishi Sensei and was for Black Belts only. All of it was good, but the best was at the end. He explained the four times when it's best to attack. I really want to retain that part.

It was a little after 10:30am when that session ended. The next class for my rank was not going to start until after lunch. I had registered for a Coloured Belt ONLY class with Sharp Sensei online, but I asked him if it would be OK for me to stay. He smiled and said, "of course".

For an hour-and-a-half we trained, and he explained many of Oishi Sensei's key lessons from the week. It was great. At the end he recapped the four main points of his lesson and of the week so far. I was sure I'd remember, but only have found two of the four in my brain; knee moving and knee kicking. Somebody must have gone into my brain and erased the other two.

The hour lunch break had somehow turned into 15 minutes, but I got to sit down for a bit and chat with an old friend. Back at it again in another Black Belt class with Oishi Sensei.

Sakurai Sensei was off teaching Coloured Belts, so a female Black Belt was playing translator. She had a polite, Japanese-female voice, which meant I couldn't hear much at all. Again, it was superb training.

Helen, after a long hard day of shopping was there to join in the mass photo opp after class. I got changed and we sat down to watch the Black Belt exams. Five Brown Belts were testing to try and become Blacks. Three Blacks were going for Second Dan, and five more were trying for Third Dan.

One of them almost passed out. It was really cool. The results will likely be online soon.

Morning after; in my puffy chair, ice on my Achilles and 375mg of anti-inflammatory drugs in my bloodstream. Nothing today that I must do.

The morning after.