The Judo Rundown: The Warm up

“Just keep your form and you’ll make it. Keep your form.....keep your form....”

Taking a quick glance at my form as I glided past the mirror was encouraging; coupled with the rhythmic motion of Sara’s braid as it went back and forth across her Je (Gee) kept me focused and able to complete the forward running warm up. We then ran backwards a couple laps, sideways (facing in and out), and then continued forward running until Sensei Mark called out to hit the floor for pushups. After twenty of these and a small stretch, we went back to running until the, for me, dreaded word “Crunches” was called out.

“Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, Go, Roku, Shichi, Hachi, Ku, Ju....Ju, Ku, Hachi, Shichi, Roku, Go, Shi, San, Ni, Ichi.”

Eight people right after one another, counted to ten and back while we all crunched away those sit-ups. Needless to say, by the time we finished eighty and were ready for a couple stretches, I had already skipped out on a few. Call me weak if you will, but I’ll take two hundred and sixteen squats over eighty crunches any day.Anyways, after those hideous sit-ups we then went back to joyous running where I decided to lengthen myself out a little by passing a few people up just to keep it fun and it worked. By the time we were ready to stop I was already in the “Marion Jones” mindset and ready for a fast 100m....Well, not quite J. In reality I was leaning against the wall slowly calming my breathing (like everyone else); to busy to realize that I was the second inline for Ukemi (learning to fall) exercises