Day 12(ish) - Makeup Lesson

Last night was an extra long Ninja Training Session because yours truly threw a Ninja Celebration on Friday night, causing him to stay up too late and sleep through Saturday's Ninja Training Session. For those of you that are observant, you might say... wait a sec... don't Ninja Training Sessions start at noon on Saturday and end at 3? And you want us to believe you slept through all of them? To that, I say, yes, your knowledge of what time I am supposed to train is accurate (and kinda creepy), and yes, I did sleep through almost all of them. So to make up for that, I am doing double lessons on Monday and Wednesday of this week. And of course, yesterday was Monday which brings me back to the first sentence of this Ninja Blog entry -- extra long Ninja Training Session.

Ninja Training started at 6:30 yesterday with Ninja Masters class. And with Ninja Masters class comes Ninja Masters Techniques. Ninja Cook apparently missed his first Saturday lesson, so was there with me as well (great minds think alike?). But we were both tossed right into the middle of a set of lessons neither of us knew much about. Keep in mind, Ninja Master leads the Masters lessons, not Ninja Instructor. While similar, Ninja Master tends to instruct quicker than Ninja Instructor (for obvious reasons -- his audience is generally more sophisticated and skilled in the art of Jiu Jitsu). So needless to say, it was a pretty steep learning curve that Ninja Cook and I were facing. The maneuver Ninja Master was trying to teach us was a counter to when our opponent has us in a mount and bear-hug. 30 minutes, and a couple accidental shins/feet/legs to my face later, and we kinda figured it out.

It was then time for sparring round 1. The Ninja Students in this class ranged from all skill levels -- white belt to black belt. And just depends on the luck of the draw (or whoever is standing closest) to see who you pair up against. Ninja Cook and I decided that we should start as opponents. Let me stop for a sec and talk about a life choice I have made for the past couple of days that I think is pretty relevant. Because Finals are coming up, I have been quite a home-body lately, only leaving to go eat. And when I say eat, I generally mean junk food. And soft drinks. So my diet has been less than ideal lately. So when it came time to our first 5 minute round, I was slow and pretty sure I smelt like McDonalds from all the grease and stuff I've consumed. Ninja Cook did not have much difficulty getting me to submit. Several times. And I won't lie... I got a little frustrated there at the end, after getting pinned for the 5th time in as many minutes. So I was happy to move on to somebody else -- unfortunately it was a black belt. I suppose I should say fortunately it was with a black belt because the older Ninja Students tend to be better teachers than the younger ones. So Ninja Black Belt helped me with some basics which is something I am still sorely lacking. At the end of sparring session Round 1, I was ready to call it quits, but still had a whole other lesson to go -- the Ninja Basic Lesson.

Thankfully Ninja Basics was a continuation of last week. In fact, it was just about a mirror image of last week, only instead of learning about what to do if somebody throws a jab instead of a cross. I won't dwell too much on what you're supposed to do, since it's pretty much exactly the same (get the dude close, wrap him up, and drop him). The only thing that made this lesson noteworthy was how ridiculously tired I was. Ninja Cook and I allowed ourselves a pretty liberal amount of time to get up from the mat. I decided that if I had a pillow, I wasn't going to get up at all.

Sparring Round 2 was also kinda interesting. Because I bought the more expensive lesson plan, I have the privilege of being called a Ninja Instructor myself. Nevermind that I don't know what the hell I'm doing, that is still my title. We have also had a significant wave of New Ninja Students coming to sign up for lessons. Several of those students were sparring for the first time last night, so Ninja Instructor (I really should call him Chief NInja Instructor) asked for some of his Ninja Instructor Underlings (present company included) to help teach the first time Ninja Sparrers (or Ninja Spar Virgins, if you prefer) what to do. At this point, I really just wanted to go home. Or lie there while my opponent had his way with me. But I wasn't going to get that luxury just yet. The kid I was supposed to teach thought that the object of sparring is to flail around for as long as you can. Not a bad technique if you are going for 1 or 2 minute rounds. But tough to do for a full 5. And I told him so. But he didn't believe me. So I let him do his thing for about 3 minutes and then put him out of his misery. Tough love? Probably, but that's the only way he's gonna learn. Shoot, I do the same thing and that's the only way I learn.

Listen, I could probably keep going about last night's lesson (a girl totally collapsed and passed out while we were doing announcements at the end), but I've really gotta study. I'll be back on Thursday with some more updated. Either before or after my finals...