It ain't pretty, but it's not expected to be yet

Yesterday was all about getting back into the swing of things after taking a week (or two) off from classes. It was a little hard, not because I was still recovering from Thanksgiving dinner still, but rather just getting into the swing of things, and both my knees were acting up. I had braces on BOTH knees, and eventually, that didn't help much.

The morning class was rather...dry. We were all cracking our old bones in there from non-use for the last week or so. One missing player was Sandy. Man, I really missed her in there. As I think I've mentioned before, she and I seem to operate in class similarly, insofar as we are not afraid to really kick or hit with some force, and be able to take that force too. I think that's why we are often paired up with each other, as well as pretty much being the same rank as well (I think she's a half cycle ahead of me in most cases these days.) Anyway, I worked with SH yesterday, who I know got her 1BD before either Sandy or I, yet she seems to take her sweet time in getting from rank to rank, midterm to midterm. She is a tiny, petite, skinny woman who is about my age, but I am about twice her weight and at least a foot taller than her. When we did drills together, I told her not to be afraid of really putting some OOMPH into her punches and kicks on the pads I was holding, and well, her OOMPH wasn't too OOMPHy. Like many of the women in class, it was rather passive. You could still get a workout just moving about, but I'm so used to Sandy, and being able to put more muscle into it. I felt like I couldn't put as much force into my hit because I might hurt SH! Oh well.

So SH and I worked on the form next. She is working on the same midterm as I am, namely the first, and she's thinking of skipping this testing. We got the rest of the first half yesterday, and it wasn't so bad, but somehow she felt she couldn't memorize it in two weeks. I dunno. I think I can memorize it easily enough, but I know it's not going to be pretty. I know there are glitches in how I do it, and how well I do it. There is a jump hook kick which I can do, but again, I'm sure it doesn't look good. There's one spot where I didn't know there was a positioning step before going to do a section on the other side (you do a bunch of steps on one side, then the other side), and I know I'm still not getting that right. But it's a minor thing for now. SW said not to worry about it too much right now, as there's plenty of time to tweak things. For once, I'm listening. I usually work fairly hard to make what I've learned so far to be as close to flawless as I possibly can, but this time, since this will be the same form I'll be doing for the next two years or so, I'm not too worried about it. It's just the first half that I need to know at this point, and that's fine.

Drew skipped Monday's class. I agreed to it because I think he has issues with RA, and so do I. The last time he was in class with RA, RA was disciplining him, and said for Drew either to get back in line, or he could leave. That was a big mistake. First, you never give Drew the option of leaving because second, Drew will always take that option to leave. SW knows better, and she told me that herself, that you can't give Drew that option, because she realized that herself. He doesn't give her as many problems because he knows that he can't pull that with her. She'll yell at him all she wants until he complies. But she'll never give him an out. A timeout, perhaps, but not an out from class. Anyway, he seemed to do okay overall yesterday. During his class, she had me help for a little bit, as there was something like 20 kids in his class! And she had three different forms to work on, so after she got the majority of them set up with me, then she could take care of the other kids. All I had to do was make sure that each kid who was assigned a segment, remembered to lead the class in their segment. I didn't have to know the form (I couldn't remember it, since it had been quite a while since I had done Songahm #4), but all I had to do was make sure the kids kept up, didn't cause trouble, keep them in line, make corrections when needed, etc. Hey, it was good instruction training, and I was used as the example at instructor class later. I missed Drew's sparring, as usual, but from an earlier conversation I had with SW, she feels that he's got a lot of power, which is good, but he needs to learn to control it better. She also feels that he's at an age where some movements are still kind of clumsy/gangly because of his age, so she's not worried about his finesse quite yet. Since he's very big for his age (there are kids 3 years older than him in the class, and he's still bigger than them!), she said some of it what comes with the territory of being big for his age and being younger than everyone else that size. Oh well.

The other two classes I took were fine overall. No big whoop. I worked with a 2nd degree teen whom I'll call BB, and he's a little mousy, and not in leadership (most people who are black belts are leadership, but there are still some few that remain in Masters Club), but he's nice enough. Even in my decrepit state, he and I could get our drills done quickly and efficiently, and I could keep up with him, or at least he was being patient with me, perhaps! At least he could pack some OOMPH into his kicks in the drills, so it was nice to be able to work with someone who could handle that. I spent most of the time working on my form, although I have to say, that even with two knee braces on, doing the jump kicks that I have to do in this form thusfar were already starting to take a toll on my knees. Not good. I can only imagine how my knees would have felt today if I hadn't been wearing my braces. (I probably wouldn't be walking today, even though they are still a little achy.) Black Belt Mama has been talking over the past few weeks about how she's doing all this PT so she can avoid surgery. Me, I WANT surgery. I've been plagued with this for years. It isn't as bad as it was a year ago, which was post-accident, but I feel this is something that's been going on for about 10 years now, and even with PT, it never gets 100% better, or even 90% better. After PT, I just had killer quads, but my knee still hurt, and my PT yelled at me for not telling him. Well, he didn't ask! I just did what I was told to do at my sessions. So I wish someone would just fix this, let me to post-operative PT, and get back to where I was a long time ago. I wouldn't be surprised if knee replacement surgery is in my future at some point. Anyhow, I digress. Since my knees were starting to smart from the jumping (oh, and I didn't mention that we had to do all these deep knee lunges in the morning too, did I?), I just would mark the jumps as best as I could. It was hard, because I'd look so lame not doing them, but I have to do what I have to do to preserve my ability to still walk when I can! We didn't do sparring (YAY!), but we did weapons and board breaks. In weapons, JZ told me that I was not doing my handover in the lasso right when I swing it around my neck. I've been doing it that was since time began and no one has ever corrected me! I'm also thinking that for me, my arms were just out of shape and practice from doing it, so that's why I was goofing up. I just have to put the time in again to work on that blasted SJB form. I really am not a big fan of the SJB (numchakas), can you tell? I did watch JZ show MP what the whole 2nd degree SN/kama form looked like, and OH, it is such a beautiful sight to see. Not only because JZ does it well, but I LOVE kamas. I think they are my favorite weapon. And I don't get to use them anymore except if I want to do XMA, so I have to continue to think about that, and learn some more moves from JZ! ;-) Board breaking wasn't bad. I did a knifehand, but it took a few tries because I hadn't done it in a while, but I got it. SW kept holding the board at an angle I'm not used to doing, but whatever. She's the boss.

Instructor class was okay. It was BU and I (the only adults doing this part) and most of the teens working on teaching method stuff, of which I did the actual thing earlier that evening (see the part with Drew's class above). It was just something where the instructor would tell you what order the kids knew the sequence, and you wouldn't have to know the form yourself, and just keep the students going. Well, we used the current set of one-steps to work on this, and we would switch up teens to lead or do student segments. Half the time it was where BU and I had to keep the teens in line, even though we didn't have to lead the group. Part of the problem is some kids are mousier than others, so they need to step it up a notch to have their presence be known, whether it be as an instructor trainee, or just as a student! Even I was reminding the little ones that when they would say what their segment was, they had to say it loud and clear for everyone to hear, because if anyone was forgetting that part of the form, they just had to listen-- provided that segment person was speaking up! Some of the teens also get rowdy, and let me tell you, if I had had another turn being "leader", I would have had them do about 25 pushups for not focusing on what they are supposed to be doing. One of them is a 3rd degree, and he couldn't even be bothered to know the names of his classmates in this class. He'd just snap his fingers, when the assignment was to say who'd come next. I told him to at least say Ma'am or Sir if he didn't know their name, but it was pretty shameful that people who are in his TKD classes were people that he couldn't be bothered to learn their names. And he wants to be an instructor? I didn't know all the names of the little kids earlier, but at least SW wrote them down for me, and after one round of doing the form, I knew who was who! Pretty pitiful.

I was glad to be done at the end, because I don't think my knees could take any more for the night without it getting ugly. But, the good news in all of this is that a)I've got all the parts of my half-form now, so all I need to do is practice it so I at least have the sequence down, and b)as an adult, it's good to know that I know how to command a class and discipline when I need to. The kids in Drew's class seemed to really listen and pay attention when I would talk to them and remind them of what they needed to do. I know I'm famous for being goofy and silly in class myself, but at the same time, when there's work to be done, it still gets done.

So, I think I need to watch the DVD of my form. I'll have to see if there's a YouTube version of it somewhere so you can see it, for those of you who are not ATA'ers. It's different in that where I was used to doing all arm movements in doubles (using both hands), now I'm learning single handed loads and punches, and it's HARD to readjust. Being a newbie black belt really is so much like being a white belt all over again. I've said it before, but it still feels that way right now.

Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

Well, after I got the opportunity to take the week off from work, and I was giving Drew a week's break, I decided I need a break too. Just for the week. Besides, I'm not in that much of a rush with getting my next belt, so if I'm not ready this cycle, I'm not ready. No biggie.

So imagine my surprise this morning as I'm trying to sleep in on a Sunday morning, the day before the craziness of life ensuing again, that I have a dream about TKD. I was back in the do-jahng, and it looked like it was being remodelled or something, but just mildly. It was a weekday daytime class, and for some reason, there was a class for the aikido people or some other group in the back. Usually we have the whole place to ourselves. Again, no biggie, things change. Somehow, the walls were covered with these huge dropcloth like curtains, with the red and blue stripes we currently have on the wall. So it's almost like they are doing the remodelling due to the dropcloth curtains, but at the same time the curtains are decorative in an attempt to make the place still look presentable during repairs. What really got me about it was that there are mirrors in the front set of mats, but not in the back, and the curtains covered up the mirrors. I've worked without mirrors plenty of times before, so that in and of itself didn't bother me, but somehow this bothered me. Then, the other class left, and I could go practice my poom-sae (kata) on the back mats. Somehow, the curtains back there didn't have the stripes, and suddenly, I felt like I was in this all white box with no windows or doors or sense of what was up or down or whatever. It was really disconcerting to not know how close or far away the walls were. I haven't quite learned half my form yet, but having been away, the dream continued where I would practice what I did know already. For some reason, perhaps being in this weird mat/room, I would be struggling with this one load. I was able to do my form, but for some reason the load into a double outer forearm block was proving difficult, and somehow I knew it wasn't as difficult as it was in trying. It was as if my limbs were made of lead, and I just couldn't cross my hands the right way every time, or I'd constantly be getting confused. It was weird.

I woke up at that point, happy to see I wasn't in this mind boggling room, and knowing that while it'll be a little bit of a push to get the ol'brain back into gear to remember my form when I take my next class, I remember a lot more than my dream was purporting.

I wonder what it all means?

Putting things in perspective

You know, I have a few TKD people around me who are too smart for my own good. But thankfully, I have them around to put me in my place, or help me see what really matters.

Yesterday was the usual whirlwind of three classes for the day, plus Drew's class. Drew's classes have been okay for the most part. There's not a lot to report, other than he was asked to leave class for the first time for this year on Monday. I think RA needs to figure out how to get Drew to participate, and not give him the option of "participate or you can go", because Drew will always go. I wasn't happy with him, but he did make a choice. And maybe it was better that we left when we did, rather than have him rebel and meltdown for the rest of class. He was proud of his new roundkick break that he has now, however. ;-)

For me, I was reviewing and learning more for Shim Jun. What I have down isn't too pretty looking at all, but heck, I've only been doing it a couple weeks, after all. And I have to remember that I only have to have the first half for December, and I have, what, a total of 2 years to perfect it once I have the whole thing? So, I'm just trying to make sure that I have the sequence of moves down before I tweak them, and make them look more presentable than they are now. Maybe it's because I've been getting over this sinus infection thingy, but I'm just very tired and worn. I think I might have also pulled something in my good knee in the morning exercises, which doesn't help. So, during the evening classes, yes, I am now up to TWO knee braces, one for each knee. The bad knee still gets the heavy duty one, but the good knee is now needing support as well. Woe is me who is falling apart at the knees! I got through it though. Had a good sparring session, even though I was pretty winded by the end. There's nothing like having to spar two teenage boys who are 3rd degrees and old enough to be your teenage children when you are an old, newly christened 1st degree like myself. I got a few good hits in, so that was good.

I also tried a new board break. Well, it was new in the sense of me doing it on a different side and trying it. One of the board break choices for 1st degrees is doing a front, side and roundkick combination. Sounds easy enough, but the catch is that one of the kicks can't be on your "dominant" side. So, while all through your color belt training, you may have only used one foot for all your foot breaks, at this level, at least one has to be with the opposite foot. I know, I hear you. You already know that I have an opposite break, that left footed roundkick, so the rest is easy peasy. Well, this is true. However, when I would try to figure out the best way to do the break to incorporate that left foot, it just seemed easier if I did a second kick with the left as well. After all, I should be able to do that as a 1st degree now anyway. So, since I still have a lot of time before I have a required break at testing, I figured I'd start playing with some new foot breaks. Last night, I tried a sidekick with my left foot for the first time. And I'm happy to report that it broke on the first try. Go me! :-) Yup, one practice try, and right into an actual break. I was happy about that.

But I think the best part of the night was the conversation I had with NK. Now, for those of you who don't know, NK is one of SW's teen instructors, one of the highest ranked instructors in our school, and a very accomplished competitor. She's ranked in the Top Ten for her rank and age in the WORLD. She also has held several state championships over time. So, you could say she's been around the TKD block a bit. She asked me how the tournament went, and I recounted my story. When she asked who the 2nd degree in my ring was, she was familiar with the woman, and basically said that it was totally unfair for that woman to be in the ring, as a)she had twice as much experience than almost anyone in that ring, and b) she was an instructor at HER school, and practiced and taught every single day, and was in Top Ten, or something like that as well. Man, I was competing against THAT? That definitely put it in perspective. Now, Sandy had also told me about some of these other ladies, as she's one to check out the competition more closely. Sandy pointed out that we were the greenest black belts of our ring, and upon further thought, I really was the newest black belt there. I didn't have a prayer, really! And while NK was saying much of the same things of putting it in perspective as Sandy did, I think she understood on a different level, because she IS competitive like me. NK is not going to go to a tournament unless she thinks she has a chance at placing. And she said that the big "A" tournament last spring was the first time that she hadn't placed in anything for the first time, so she knew how I felt completely. I don't think that it was a matter than Sandy didn't appreciate how I felt, because she did. But I think NK appreciated it more having been in the same circumstance, and looking at it initially the same way, if that makes sense. I felt a little more encouraged, too, because even though NK is young enough to be my daughter, she is still my instructor, and she understands my limits as well as my capabilites better than most people, and how to get there as well. So when one of the World Top Ten tells you about not placing last year in a big local tournament and it being the first time she didn't place at all? Yeah, she understands that feeling of defeat very well.

I'm still debating whether to go in on Saturday just for the early morning forms class. I might go just because that's where I need the most practice. But I'm where I need to be, more or less, in the form. I'll think about it. There aren't any other local tournaments (other than an Interschool that I probably won't be able to go to due to Cub Scouts in December) until at least February or March, so I have time. And maybe I won't do well in that one either, but at least I'll know what the competition is like, and I'll have more time to practice.

All a-buzz

John V always has a very insightful way of looking at all things martial arts. I admire his way of being very practical when it comes to how martial arts-- any discipline-- should be approached and how certain lessons can apply to "real" life.

So, I was rather amused, and educated as usual, with his most recent entry, Got Energy?. The last paragraph is the kicker (no pun intended). A must read! :-) It picked my spirits up, that's for sure.