Frustrations

I nearly burst into tears at yesterday's upper belt class. I'm not sure what it was that was making me such a weepy puppy. We started class hitting the mits, moving around, working on stances and body placement while punching with the heavy gloves. This is not my favorite thing to do. I would much rather be practicing self-defense techniques. But, this is where Sensei is going right now. It made me incredibly frustrated, mostly because I was so out of breath most of the time. There is this shodan who recently came back to train who intimidates me. He has this air about him that makes me nervous. It think most of it is just now knowing who he is and what he's all about. He seems like a nice man, but to have him correct me really puts up my defenses. When I'm corrected I do not have a problem as long as I know where the person is coming from. Sensei is one thing, a senpai is one thing, but this person, who is senpai to me, has not been training for a while and kept correcting my movements before I had the chance to work on them. Yeah, I know, it's a petty thing, but it was bothering me. At least give me the chance to work and keep your mouth closed. That's how I try to teach. Instead of constantly correcting someone I say a few things and then let it sink in. If after a few attempts the same mistakes are being made I'll say something again. But not over and over and over. That just leads to frustration and nothing is learned. Maybe that was the start of my teary, bleary moment. I could not tell the guy to keep his mouth shut, but did say something to the effect of just let me work this, please. Anyway, not to complain, but it was on my mind. Then we went into seiunchin kata. Sensei came up to me at one point to correct my unbendable arm application in the kata and said some wise words, at which point I nearly lost it. He has this ability to get to the core of you and really see who you are and how you work. What a wonderful teacher to have! I get weepy just thinking about it. Of course there are other factors in my life right now contributing to this weepiness, but I write about those on another blog. My martial arts path right now is working on my balance when sparring, not staying planted to the spot. Though there are times I just feel like I'm chasing the other person down. There is so much time to work on this, but I will get frustrated, it's just my nature. The key is to relax and just let it go.