WEEK 43: Press-up Up And Away

 

Less than a month after Covid, a prickly throat heralded the onset of yet another ailment. What now? A cold, of course. Surely there was enough microscopic residue of Covid and colds in my system to provide adequate protection from further River Trent noses and tickly coughs. Apparently not. I’ve bored myself making excuses for being under-the-weather in 2023 so, while Mrs Gale was suggesting I stay indoors and recuperate, I engaged with hard exercise.

It’s been a funny week, probably caused by uneasy nights coughing allied with train strikes upsetting my normal routine. Maybe this has something to do with why I’ve become slightly obsessed with the perfect press-up. We were told to do ten in the Green Lanes church dojo, making sure that our bodies dipped as low as a partner’s fist that lay on the ground beneath the chest. It was really tough!

I huffed and puffed through my set to the extent where the pain of reaching double figures had me thinking that my technique was wrong. I mean, it can’t purely be that I remain doggedly above 13st and I’ve got more heft to shift than anyone else in the karate class. I’d partnered with Sensei Harris as usual, and his ten press-ups were like watching a well-oiled racing car machine going about its business. I was almost lost for words – in fact, I was: I still couldn’t breath with my exertion. What was I doing wrong?

Later, on a text, I asked if we could be shown how to perform the ideal press-up and was told to practise “negative press-ups”. I thought I was doing negative press-ups already in that they were making me unhappy, but in fact a “neggie” is a press-up lite where you slowly ease yourself to the floor then use your knees to return to the start point. It helps build up shoulder strength. I’ve been set five a day (and yes, that’s a 1990 Cameroon football shirt I’m wearing, see main image).

I attended both sessions this week. Each was centred on combat (as we’re now focusing on our inter-club bout later this month) and kata training. To land a punch or kick on an opponent you have to be lightning quick to get in and get out. But I’m like a building-site bulldozer moving back and forth shifting rubble. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to dance in and out to rack up points – I’m too old and my creaking knee is not up to twisting movement. And therein lies a problem.

There’s one manoeuvre in particular on heian sandan that causes me grief. It needs a thrust with the left leg, a flick-kick with the right and then hold for a second with legs in a horse-rising position while your arms mimic a New Zealand haka. Shards of knee pain are usually the result; and you can’t go in with half measures in karate. If you do, there’s no point being there. The good news is, I get my knee checked at the hospital next week. If it’s just osteoarthritis, I’ll learn to deal with it and I’ll never mention it again.

We were given group drills with heian shodan, nidan and sandan. Now, I practice these quite a lot in my living room and have shifted my furniture accordingly for the trajectory of katas. In the dojo though, with pressure on, I almost lost my way with nidan and was lucky not to get a 20-press-ups penalty for my troubles – and was told as such. With this cold, my weight and lack of technique I might have blacked out on 15.

Feeling like a loser by hometime, I sat back against the dojo wall to put my socks and trainers on – easier said than done these days – when Sensei Harris filled my sails once again by telling me that my katas had improved greatly and I was looking sharper week to week. It was just what I needed to hear. I headed off into the north London night with a smile on my face. Right, shift out of my way, it’s time for my five negative press-ups…