Camp : Part 4

Third Day :

This schedule continued for the next 3 days. But as some students including myself were to appear for the gradation test on the 5th of June, we were given some relief for this time. We only appeared for the water training only.

On the third day, we went jogging for 2 kilometres and then we were brought at a place, where there were cultivation fields on the both sides of the pitch-road. The soil was very coarse, full of small pebbles. We performed two-knuckles 50 push-ups on these small pebbles. After this performance, our knuckles had developed a unique pattern and were bruised and stiff. The black-belts had performed koken (arc-fist) push ups and tegatana (sword-hand) push-ups and also another interesting one. One person laid down on another so that his bodyweight was almost doubled. Now the person below had to perform two-knuckles push-ups in that position. It was really very entertaining to see these but in reality we were shivering within.

Then another game was performed. People were arranged in partners. One of them took off the belt holding the two-piece dress together. This belt was wound around the waist of a partner. The wound person would try to move forward and the other one would try to hold him back. Whoever failed were punished 50 squats. My partner failed once and I also failed once.

We had quiz on that evening. There were 8 teams consisting of 4 members each. I was in Prashanta sempei’s group. He, who flaunts a know-it-all attitude, let us down disastrously by answering wrongly with great confidence !! My team was one of the four finalists. I’m proud to say that I was the only member of my team who had contributed the points. But we couldn’t answer any question in the final round !! The questions were on martial arts and miscellaneous.

For the first time we had chicken on dinner. Some partiality was done and I got nothing more than bones. I do not regret, I will have chicken many a days at home, but this time won’t come back again.




Fourth Day :

The fourth day’s practice was gradation special. On this day the senior girls and junior belts were appearing for the gradation while the seniors practiced ido-kihons and katas all the day. This day everybody was allowed to ‘bath’ in the sea in casuals. But we were not allowed. All the day we practiced the same thing hundreds of times. In the afternoon, we were taken to that magnificent field and again had the same practice. But this time it was very relaxing….yet very boring. Still we learnt all the small details in techniques. We came home utterly tired and dinner and went to sleep in a hurry waiting for the big next day.

We had a very good night’s sleep on the previous night and we arose a little late in the morning. But my thighs were aching due to the last few days’ strenuous practice. I loosened up, applied some medicine and had some and then did my brush. I hoped the day would pass without any obstructions.