May 3, 2009

Rolling Down the Mountains

This week's heat wave brought with it some major waves on the dojo floor. It seems that whenever the heat rises, the foam flooring seems to rise too. Last Monday night was insane. The bumps and lumps were everywhere and it was difficult to avoid them. Because of the on-going knee issues, I try to avoid them like the plague. There is nothing worse than coming upon one of them when you're not expecting it. On Monday night, they were hard to miss though. One of our Shodans remarked that the body of Jimmy Hoffa had been found.

It was well over 95 degrees when we started working out on Monday night. One of our shodans decided he would do what he could about the rising mountains of foam and started working on his break falls and rolls. Watching him roll and smash out the peaks felt surreal. I remember practicing those rolls exactly once in my training. I had no doubts I would kill myself or enter permanent paralysis if I tried along with him.

I haven't been one to fall in the correct form in the past. Falling can be scary, especially for someone so seemingly injury prone.

On Wednesday night, Big I was attending ju-jutsu class. Although she's getting better with her rolls, they're still not great. She's slamming down on her back with quite a bit of force and that can't be good long term. She's supposed to finish in a side break-fall position. She's just not. Her Sensei and one of his helpers spent quite a bit of time trying to get her to roll the right way. It just wasn't happening.

Over the past few days, she's been wanting to practice at home. It's difficult to tell her how to do something, much easier and more effective to show her, so I figured it was time to get back on the rolling wagon and give it a shot.

Surprisingly, I didn't hurt myself and I actually did it right. I'm not willing to take it from a running start quite yet (doubt I ever will be quite honestly), but I did it well enough to consider myself worthy of helping Big I. The past few days have been full of rolling at our house. Lil C wants to get in on the fun and Big I is slowly but surely getting it. I think that if she could just do one correctly and feel the difference between the crazy business she usually does, she would get it.

The good thing is that her Sensei doesn't let her off the hook. Each week is practicing and reinforcing the skills learned in the weeks prior before moving on to anything new. This building block approach of learning has been good for her and she's been very receptive to it. The skills she learned in the first week are getting really good; the rolls are coming along nicely, and this week they even began working on their first throw.

The bonus for me is that I get to watch class, help her learn what she needs to learn, and I get to learn new things too.

Maybe next time the heat rises, I can help our stellar dojo roller with some haphazard rolling of my own. And hopefully, before too long, Big I will be joining in as well.

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