This weekend was extremely busy... Well, busy for me and my homebody butt. Saturday was especially so, as I taught for four hours, then went out to see my father's play (he's very involved with a local amateur theatre group). But it was also a very happy day. Let me show you what I mean:
Saturday at training was brilliant for one reason alone. Ready?
I'm not sure when they were put up, but I only noticed them this weekend. With access to the storeroom, in which the heavy bags - ancient and unused for more years than I can count - were stored, I did the only logical thing I could do. I grabbed one, hauled it into the room and set it up.
I was, for no reason in particular, really early on Saturday, so I was able to go a few rounds with the bag before class began. It felt so, so good to be striking a heavy bag again! It had been far too long. Now, the bracket, I found out after three rounds, is not the best. The nut came undone and the bag dropped, so I had to haul it back up again. Listen, the bag was heavy, and doing it alone was not easy, but I problem-solved and got 'er done enough to go one last round before class.
Now, the bag I found was an old-school canvas bag, and I was punching without my gloves on (only wraps). What you quickly learn from that is if the strike isn't true, you will lose some skin. And I did. Warning - badly taken photos of missing skin incoming:
It's less fun now that it's healing. Two days in and it's quite painful to move (though thanks be to Polysporan for their pain-killing ingredients in their anti-bacterial paste).
Not expecting access to this fantastic training tool before Saturday, I quickly shifted my plans for the day's training to include some time for my students at the heavy bag. I'm a little worried that it isn't bolted well enough into the wall, but I'm really glad it's there at the moment. It's going to be great if we still have access to it for the remainder of the training session.
I've really missed going toe to toe with a heavy bag. It's been years since I've been able to. I sorely wish I had my own space where I could set one up and train in my own time. Alas, I'm renting, so I can't do that. But I'm still holding out hope, thin as it is, that I might be able to own a home one day, and have a space just for me and my martial arts training. It's a distant kind of hope. The way things are in the world now, my ability to afford a home is non-existent. But a girl can dream!
That evening was a night of dinner theatre, and then I returned home and got this:
So, thanks to a simple training tool, I had just about the best Saturday I've had in a long time! It was really nice.
I really hope we get to play with the heavy bags more in the coming weeks!
Welp, I have things to do today, so I'm off. Have yourselves a lovely week.
Ciao!