Cuts like a butterfly, stabs like a bee

TKD has been okay this week. I've just been so busy that I haven't had much of a chance to write about it this week. I'm still recovering from my cold, but I'm generally better.

Since SW is at Nationals this week in Las Vegas (must be nice!), RA did the Wednesday morning class, which was pretty good. We worked on the form, In-Wha #1 (IW1, for the future), which is the form I did back when I was a camo belt, so this will pretty easy. I know that I will be judged more carefully since I'm a higher rank belt and this form is for a lower belt, but that's okay. Sparring will be the same old, same old. Weapons...aie, there's the rub. Between practicing for the tournaments, and new stuff, I will be keeping plenty busy. So during the Wednesday morning class, RA started teaching me the SWORD. :-) Those of us in leadership who have a sword and want to use it ;-) are going to learn the 2nd form taught in Gumdo, as we learned the basics from the seminar. Easier said than done.

Wednesday night, between school stuff and that many of the instructors are at Nationals, Instructor class was just me, RA, and two other adult guys. A lot of the time was spent talking about the higher ups in the organization cracking down on things with forms, stances, etc. in competition and testing. So we were discussing the implications of that. We also got to work on competition stuff, so RA went over the last form which I'm using for tournament, and we worked on some stronger stance work for it. Once of the things judges are starting to come down on is that you shouldn't be "bobbing up and down" as you do your form, which has to deal with the knee bends in stances. I think once I got that down, I will be doing better with that.

Drew had his first camo-red class, which I was in attendence. Oh, I can't stand taking classes with the little ones now. It goes WAY too slow. Drew was fine through most of class, that is until RA was trying to divide his time between 1st degrees, BB recommendeds and the color belts. One trick is to assign a few kids in the class a single move, and each one has to take turns yelling out what the move should be (in order, of course), and then we practice it while RA would go and check on the higher ups. Well, Drew wanted to be able to do one of those, and he jumped around saying, "Me! Me! Me!" (shows that he had initiative, at least), but because he was jumping around instead of simply raising his hand, RA decided to defer on him. That sent Drew into a angry tizzy. Even when RA offered to have him say, "SET!" at the end of the combination, Drew just refused and didn't cooperate for the rest of that part of class, and was asked to leave. How embarrassing! During weapons, I was using my sword, and Drew was supposed to be working on his Jahng Bang. I decided that being the only sword person, and since I was behind all the JB kids, I should remove myself and not be a distraction to Drew or the other kids having something different, so I went to the back floor to practice. Drew seemed a little better during board breaking time and sparring time, so that helped.

Today, Drew and I went to just forms and weapons class. Drew got through forms class okay, but weapons not so much. Evidentally, he was getting a little goofy during that class that he was asked to sit on the side. And he moped. Oh well. I, on the other hand, had a great class, as crowded as it was. It was just me and another kid, and Gary P., since he helps out on Saturdays (more for the business end, but not many intros coming in during weapons class) and has a 1st degree belt in Gumdo helped us out. He LOVES Gumdo. So, who better to learn from. He gave us a refresher on unsheathing and sheathing our swords, and fixed some of the mistakes I was making so far with the stuff I had learned already. So, I felt pretty good. The only problem, which Gary acknowledged, was that we didn't have much room to practice, because they were jamming all the JBs, BMEs and us all on the same floor, so it was very cramped. Between sword and JBs alone, nobody had much room to work. After class, Drew made his usual declaration that he hated karate, and I asked if he wanted to switch to BME instead of JB, and he said yes. So I think that will help. I may also not take class with him next week, as I might be too much of a distraction for him.

Later in the afternoon, I got to go to a weapons seminar, this time for the sshang nat (kamas). This ended up being a good seminar for me. While I knew a lot of what was being taught, I got some finer points, as well as some new stuff. I really had never had any "formal" lessons on the SN, so I was glad for this. We learned basic stabs and cuts. I got a change to work on the basic finger roll that RA showed me the other day, and I think I'm getting a little better, and there were a few other cool moves that I learned. I think the hardest one for me is where your hands are going in opposite directions rolling up and down. So, while the left hand is rolling up and back, the right is rolling down and forward. I was told that it's easier to get the hang of it with double BMEs, and since I haven't done double BMEs yet, it was extra difficult for me. If I do one at a time, I can do it. The uncooperative hand is the left one. Individually it can do the task, but to do it while doing the right hand, forget it. No dice. I think this is something I'm definitely going to practice. But I got some ideas for stuff to do with my SN routine to tweak for tournament (throw an extra kick in there during one move that I was doing already), so that helped. The time went by very quickly, so I guess that means that I was enjoying it. It would've helped if it had been more teens and adults, or at least more tweens, but no, mostly a bunch of 8-10 year olds. And at least Dean and Jodi were helping to teach the class. They are great at SN, and I like them as people too.

So, mixed bag this past week. While Drew finally got to bump up to the "big leagues", he still has a LOOOOOOONG way to go. I'm hoping that some of it is maturity, as some people have suggested. It's just so difficult. There are times he's fine with TKD, and other times, usually after having a class where things went sour at some point, he'll say he hates it. For now, I'm just still making him go, because I don't think he really hates it deep down. It's one of those things that I think that if I just make him go (but note-- not force him to go--), he'll be glad as he gets older that I didn't make him drop it and that he progressed at a good rate. But if things get to the point that he outright rebels when nothing has gone sour due to his behavior, etc. then I think I'll pull him. I think he does like it-- he just doesn't like to be bossed around and told to do something, or not get picked for something. He's Prince Drew and the world revolves around him. I don't know where he got that idea, because we certainly have not promoted that idea with him, that he can't always win, and he can't always be first, etc. Guess he has to learn the hard way, unfortunately, and this is where he acts up. Maybe with more of these upper level classes, he'll straighten up. I can only do so much, and sometimes I think I'm probably a hinderance being in class with him rather than a help. I guess I just have to give this some time, but stay on top of it...

One week until Interschool Tournament, and two weeks until the A tournament! YIKES!