Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00753

I took tonight off of work so that I could complete Phase training at America’s Best Defense. This was a three hour training night that went over the entire under-belt curriculum. It is open for those who are brown belt or higher. This training is to get students ready for Boot Camp that prepares them for the black belt test. I’m still over a year away from being able to test for my black belt but I am so excited about earning that rank. I have so much more to learn and do before that day but I feel better about it after going through this training.

There were so many things that we did during the night. I made sure that I never looked at my watch because I wanted to make sure that I got that feeling of being there for 3 hours and it have been 15 minutes. I do have to say that I help up pretty well through the night. My training partner was a second degree black belt and he helped me so much through the night. He was encouraging, challenging and very gracious with his time. That is something that I have noticed time and again with all the students at America’s Best Defense. They immediately give all they can to help other students of all ranks.

When it was all over I was battered and bruise and completely exhausted but at the same time I was so energized that I came home, at dinner and was wired and up till about 1am. Got a pretty good sized blister on my foot that burst so that was no fun but otherwise doing okay. My wrists were sore form all the knife defense drills.

The most challenging part of the night was the very end where we got into groups of 4. One person got in the middle while the three other people attacked that person one at a time using knives, hand guns, sticks, kicks, punches and bear hugs. You had to fight through each on and once you were done another person was on you. I volunteered to go first because I simply wanted to get it over. The anxiety and stress of seeing it done and knowing that my turn was coming was too much. Just get it over with was my strategy. It all worked out pretty well. I was happy to have gone to that training. It felt good. I sweat like crazy but it was all good.