Keeping up with the kids, as usual, and Kareem and Bruce

I went to the odd night of going to class on a Tuesday. I usually don't go on a Tuesday, but since I have a GNO on Thursday, when I'd normally go, I had to switch it to another day. Reports are that I shouldn't been around last night, according to Em and Penna, as Ma'am was cracking jokes the whole night. Man, I could've used that last night, since my anniversary was a disaster yesterday, I'm sure I would've had more fun doing that if it was that good. Oh well.

So tonight, it was me and three boys. One very young Indian boy who kep asking a lot of questions. He was a red belt, but somehow seemed like he was pushing himself to do too much too soon, and didn't seem to know what he was doing of what he was supposed to do. (If that made any sense). The other two were the Joel-lookalike (Joel being my brother, and this kid looks like a taller, skinnier, less geeky version of my brother) who is a brown belt, and Alex V., whom I've mentioned before, who is a red belt as well. And Em and Penna. So, we started out with some drills and stretches, and then we started on the form. I still haven't even gotten it all down of what we had so far, and here we are learning the last section. Crud. Well, it's not hard stuff, but a lot to cram in, so I have some studying to do. So we get through that, and then we work on weapons. So I learn the ssang-jeh-bahng form, which is easy, but I have to practice to make it look beautiful. It's still very awkward for me. It's only a triangle, figure 8, snap out, triangle, switch sides behind your back. That's pretty easy, but again, I just have to practice. It's a review week with board breaks, so I did my elbow break pretty quick again, so I was happy with that. I think I'm starting to GET IT with that. You just have to pummel straight through. Sparring was good today. I was exhausted when I was done, but it was good. I first sparred with the Indian kid, and he was a little easy because all he'd do is duck when I kicked, but then he'd get me good with a few punches. I then sparred with the Joel-lookalike, and that was kinda fun. I kicked him in the tushie at one point by accident, and we actually knocked knees when kicking which hurt, but was funny. After the last few rounds with sparring in tournaments, I'm feeling more confident with that, and that's good. So that was class, and it was fine. Just me and the kids, as usual.

I also paid for my seminar for the 12th, so I'm glad that's out of the way. I'm looking forward to that, as it turns out a few people from my school will be going, so that's cool.

On a totally unrelated thing, but somewhat related, I was watching this program on AMC today that had to do with Bruce Lee. They showed the last part of a movie-- or some sort of footage from a movie called "Game of Death". It was a strange movie, but now that I understand a little bit about martial arts from my TKD exposure, it was more interesting to watch. I think the most interesting scene was Bruce Lee going up against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Now, you have to understand, it turns out that Kareem was a student of Bruce's as well as being the All-star basketball player, and I'm sure because of the way he looked, Kareem was good for the movie part. But man, is KA-J TALL! I mean, I knew he was, but he seemed to make Bruce Lee look so tiny. And to watch him do side kicks and roundkicks, etc. was kinda wild. I have a better appreciation for Bruce Lee movies now, for sure, even if they are still pretty violent. They make some sense, at least from the martial arts perspective.