Burning off Thanksgiving Dinner before it's eaten!

Today's classes were a little bit much, and my asthma is acting up, and my knees, especially my bad knee is absolutely killing me. (I'll have to remember to take a Motrin or Advil before I go to bed for the pain.) But, let me tell you, I really worked up a sweat in both classes that I wouldn't be surprised if I burned off my Thanksgiving dinner before I even have eaten it!

Both classes were small due to the holidays and all, but that's okay. This morning, it was just me, Winnie and Evelyn. We started doing a lot of drills across the floor with front stances, as Ma'am was in a front stance mood. ;-) Then we worked on our forms. Evelyn is a red belt, so at least I had someone else to work on the form with. But I have to tell you, other than spacing out, I know this form SOLID. I really mean it. Tell me to face any direction, and I can do it. Tell me to face Mecca from wherever I am, and I can do this form cold. I think it helps that when I practice, it could be anywhere...in the kitchen, in the living room, at Drew's bus stop. (Yes, I get the stares, but I don't care. It keeps me moving in the cold weather and I gotta pass the time somehow!) Evelyn and I did it several times, especially working on transition points that were weak for me. Well, they shouldn't be weak for me anymore, at least in theory! Worked on the kamas for a little bit, and came up with some more stuff for my freestyle. This is the first time I'm not learning a creative form in whole from anyone. I'm taking elements that I've learned along the way, and getting a few tips from Ma'am now and then, and a few from the kids, and I think I got something together, but there was one element that I wanted to ask Jodi about if she was in Leadership class later. Then - it was great - Ma'am gave Evelyn and I the option to break for testing today or next week. Both of us decided to do it today to get it out of the way. Now, something that I had clarified for me today is that I thought I had an option of which of two break combos I could do either time, but no. You do one option for your stripe, and the other when breaking to test for the next promotion to red belt. So, I took the harder of the two for me, which, to be honest, isn't that hard for me. Now that I'm a brown belt, I have to do two breaks to test, not just one. It's either an elbow and front kick break, or an elbow and side kick break. I did the latter. And the good thing for me is that instead of doing it on plastic boards (which are always harder), I had to do it on wood. I never had to set up for two boards, but having held boards enough times, it wasn't too bad setting up. Then, BAM! Elbow break. And since Ma'am had to run to help hold the other board, I didn't have the big continuity that I would've liked in just going POP! POP!, but I nailed the side kick as well. Hooray! Out of the way!

This evening, it was full, as usual, or 2nd and 3rd degrees, and me. It was the Zimmerman sisters (Michelle was home from college), Rachel C., the Drs. Phillips and me. So, since there really wasn't anyone else there, Ma'am just skipped staff meeting stuff. We started doing a bunch of hook kick drills, and other stuff in between. Then, we split into groups, and just had all of us doing our forms facing all directions so that we knew it, so it was a minimum of 4 sets. Because I had a much shorter form this cycle, it was expected that I had to do mine at least twice on each side for a minimum of 8 times. I swear I did it more than that, and man, I couldn't tell after a while which direction I started from or did last. :-S But I got it done. We then worked on weapons again, and fortunately, before class, Michelle me the cool move that I was going to ask Jodi about, so I was happy about that. And she showed me how to do it, not just show it to me. So, I worked on incorporating that into my routine. So, between a 2nd 4-way cut that's done travelling (meaning I don't stay still and spin as I am travelling on it), and this other cool move (it's looping the blades so one blade spins around the other), I think I have two pretty good razzle-dazzle moves for a first time kama person for graduation. Ma'am was wondering if I was doing it for competition, and I said we'll have to see how good she thinks it is. I wouldn't show her what I was doing. She helped with a few suggestions, but I want the whole thing to be a surprise. I mean, after all, no one has shown me a form, and she gave me some elements, but I put it together myself for the most part, so I want it to be something that the black belts were saying that for a first timer, it was killer! I didn't have to break any boards and no sparring, thankfully, but I was pooped by the time I was done anyway.

I checked the state stats tonight, because in talking to Ma'am, I realized that ATA HQ had called yesterday as they were calculating our interschool tournament scores, and SW didn't remember to put the tournament date in the paperwork. So, from that tournament, since she skewed it to reflect our true rankings, since Sandy and I were color belts going up against 2nd degrees, it ended up that for my rank, I got 1st place in sparring (go figure!), and 2nd place in weapons and forms. Imagine that! I immediately went to check my state ranking, and well, let's just say I've secured my 4th place in weapons. I didn't have enough to rank for the others. I wish, in that respect, that I could go to the regional. I want to go SOOOO badly to "chase points" as SW puts it, but between costs and lack of babysitting resources, I just couldn't do it. So, I'm aiming for the Lincroft tournament in March. It's an "A" tournament, which means that it's bigger, thus bigger point value. I have to truly do well in that one if I want a decent placing, as that's one of my last real chances at a regional before the tournament year is over. I can't make Nationals in February as we can't afford for me to go to Las Vegas. So...at least my 4th place standing at the state level is holding for now. (Crosses fingers)