Went training yesterday for a kiddie session, but instead it was much more like what I'm actually after. Master K took all the kiddies to get ready for their grading next Sunday, and the three black tags and I got to decide and coach ourselves. I really enjoyed this. I got to work a lot on cardio and in general my own things to improve. I sent two black tags off to teach a little girl because neither of them have teaching experience, and they needed it. Master K was happy with that, too. I'm a fan of teaching by working on your own weak points, that way you get some useful practice in too. Obviously you tailor it to your audience, but you get the idea.

Today was a mammoth squad session. 3 hours long. Warm up was average, taken by a 2nd dan, just felt like a normal session to start with. It quickly ramped up. Master Beefy (a rather ironic nickname) took a fair bit, and switched it up with the 2nd dan, Master L and Master K. We worked all sorts, mainly cardio and sparring drills. I've never trained with Master Beefy, so it was cool to show him my skills, and to see his/how he teaches. The man is tall and rather incredible.

A confidence booster was that he was impressed with my power and tendency to just drive forward. We did a few points sparring rounds, and I won all but one of mine. I lost by one point. The annoying thing was that the last point should have been two points to me, as I'd gotten my opponent with a turning kick to the body. Only one ref saw it, the other two counted the punch, and so I lost. I was pretty angry, I lost against a blue belt (my little brobee Boob). I stopped being a hissy fittin' little bitch, though and praised him. He's improved very well. At the end of the session as I shook Master Beefy's hand, he told me I was an 'awesome fighter', which is quite nice.

In other news, my partner managed to convince me to try a lesson of Kyokushinkai out. Massive hall, lots of equipment, and it's run like an actual business, how it should be run. The lesson itself was fun, but simply too similar to what I currently do to be able to practice both at the same time. They were very impressed with my punching skills, and rather impressed with my power also. Shame I can't do both, it seems quite fun! What I did take from that lesson, however, is renewed envigour in sorting my own shit out at the club. Don't do enough cardio? Tell the instructors. Don't want to teach? Don't. Think something would benefit the club? Don't grumble about it, do it. Stop using it as an excuse to bitch, get on with improving things!

On the topic of teaching.. I might actually end up teaching a class myself, ahaha. One of the new girls at the club, a 10 year old white belt, has been given to me to coach. Since I'm there early on a Wednesday I offered to teach her one-on-one in that time (mainly for confidence in sparring. She keeps crying and not wanting to do it). Master K was chatting the other day and talking about a ladies only class, because it's a very female thing to back away/be scared of fighting/not do certain kicks. Obviously, as the only high ranking female there, it'd be down to me to teach it.

Whilst I don't want to teach, this would give me a gateway into improving the club. Certain things can be run the way I want it to, and if it goes down well, the feedback would be passed on to instructors/masters, and possibly implemented. Not too sure yet. All the little girls would be hard work.

Anyway. We'll see how things go!