Double knee replacement candidate

There is no doubt in my mind that, in time, I will need a double knee replacement. I feel like at the rate things are going, it's probably inevitable.

Last night, class was rather quiet. It was Mr. A., Mr. Dr. Phillips, Dr. Albani, Mr. Uhl, Alex V. and me. Yes, I was the only girl who showed up. Then again, most people weren't there for a reason. One of the young leaders, Tal, was being tested at Master C's for the second time to earn her 3rd degree black belt. She failed the last time as she failed to break her boards. Ma'am couldn't go to the 1st testing, so she and a bunch of others went to support Tal on her second attempt. We did get the phone call in the middle of our class that Tal finally broke her boards, so she passed. This is good, as Ma'am (and I'm sure Tal) had really wanted her to be able to pass before she went off to college this fall, so mission accomplished.

Anyhow, here I was, with these 5 guys. The first exercise that we did was a jump kick, which was a few steps of running, and then a two step kick onto a freestanding punching bag. Well, we worked up to it progressively, but of course, with the exception of Alex who is naturally very athletic and a teenager, they were all 2nd degree black belts, and here I was the lowest ranked there. So there I was, attempting this kick, and FWOP! I fell smack down on both my kneecaps straight to the floor. I shook it off, though, 'cause I'm not going to be the wimpy girl. But they were a little tender for the rest of the night. We learned the beginning of the form. It's easy enough, but I want to get the finer points down ASAP, so Alex was reviewing it with me. OK, got that down. Then we did weapons. And here again, I feel lacking. I have a single bahng-mah-ee, and everyone else is working on doubles or with a bo staff. Mr. A reviewed some defensive moves with the strike lines, which wasn't too bad, but I'm thinking that's not going to do me a heck of a lot of good with tournament in July. I'll talk it over with Ma'am, see what I should be doing, even if that means that I'll be getting a second bahng-mah-ee. Board breaking wasn't too bad. I'm working on a palm-heel break, and I had the right idea, but got a few pointers, and it's coming. I think once I got that momentum with getting the hang of the elbow strike, it started to click for most everything else. So the palm-heel is fairly easy. Instead of regular sparring, Mr. A had us work on reviewing basic footwork, which was actually all new to me. I'd never been shown proper footwork other than shuffling my feet, which came pretty easily to me. This was more the grapevine footwork and learning how to block properly. Mr. A ended up being my partner, which was helpful. I guess I felt a little discouraged and dumb because this is stuff I feel like I should've learned a long time ago, and hadn't, and I'd be more confident and have better form in my sparring if I had learned this a long time ago instead of just being thrown into the fire from day one. Well, at least I got some pointers that were needed.

My knees are still a little out of sort. They aren't sore or too stiff or anything, but they aren't 100% either. (Not that they are ever 100%, but much lower on the scale than usual). I can bend them, go up and down stairs okay, but I'm just feeling a little cautious. I don't want to mess up my already bad knees any worse, so I will take it a little easy tonight. I think taking an Advil before bed last night helped. And staying off my feet most of today should help too. My little one is suddenly sick with a fever and I think he's caught a bad cold out of nowhere, so we are trying to get him well very quickly, as tomorrow is the preschool end of the year picnic at school, and his birthday party is on Saturday. So, no playing outside today, even though it's a lovely day, and he wants to ride his bike and play tennis. Not today, kiddo. Too sick to go to school, too sick to play outside. Need to rest.

I will figure out what to do with my knees tonight. I need to sign Drew and I up for the tournament still, actually, but I have to find out what categories to put Drew in before I go and pay. I don't have the GNO tonight, so I can go to class, and I can go to class tomorrow. Saturday is the first day that we are having the 1/2 hour concentrations on different things. I'd love to go, but with Drew's birthday party, I can't. So I'll go next weekend. Until later...