Shihan was in a really bad car accident about 5 months before I joined karate. So for the first six months, I only saw him occasionally and didn't really know him except for the occasional full contact class. Sensei taught just about every class I went to.
Last year, my second dan teacher earned the title of Sensei, and even though she didn't believe she earned it, she really did deserve it. Since then, she had been working on opening her own dojo closer to her house. Six months ago, she got her own students to teach, two brothers, Dylan and Tom. Dylan is a senior in high school, and Tom is his older brother. Both guys are really nice stand-up kind of men that take training seriously.
Sensei Kris worked a deal with a local gym to rent out their aerobics room twice a week to teach karate. She didn't advertise, she just wanted her students and anyone from our dojo, who wanted to, to come join in. Unfortunately, her two students had work and couldn't make it so it was just Sensei's husband, Sempai Tim, and I training. Sempai Tim hasn't been training is a long time.
We went over some basics including some traditional strikes that I usually don't do. We actually did a lot that I am not used to. Sensei has been traveling to many seminars and other dojos so learn more about kyokushin. She wants to implement the things that she has learned, so a lot of what she taught, she has just learned herself, so it is all new to me. I really like learning the new things.
We then did fitness and then kata. Soon we did a few rounds of sparring, my favorite. Then some more katas until we worked on self defense.
Silly as this sounds, because martial arts is all about defense, I hate self-defense. It just doesn't flow like fighting and katas do for me. So it was awkward at first. At my dojo, we occasionally do self defense but usually let the other person succeed. Sempai Tim was making me work for it. At first it was frustrating, because I am just trying to get the moves down. But after I understood what he was doing, I made him work for it. Then it became more fun.
I have to say I like the two hour lesson better than the one hour I am doing at the Norway dojo. Things wern't as rushed becasue there was more time to do everything. We fit a lot into the time we had and I learned a lot.
