The Point

Tonight was another odd night. We worked on some new things that Mr Saxton learned at a seminar this past weekend. It was mostly systema techniques that involved using relaxed, gentle touches to take someone down or get past them. It's a matter of giving or supporting someone's balance with your own energy and then taking it away without them realizing it. Without exerting any physical force or pressure, you can still guide them to the ground and take the fight out of them.

We did also work some on refining our punches, again with a focus on staying relaxed rather than tensing into it. That way the power of the punch goes only out and through, rather than also reverberating back. This I understood and could feel a definite difference in against a hand-held pad during individual punches. As for putting it into practice to speed up a flurry of punches against a bag, I'm not sure how successful I was. The punching in and of itself is so new to me that such a flurry of them takes all my concentration, and I'm likely tensing subconsciously anyway. I would like to soon have another 'normal' session of punches, kicks, & blocks so that I can get more comfortable with them. Hopefully it'll happen next week.

The best thought I was left with tonight came directly from Mr Saxton: "The point of martial arts is NOT to fight."

One Stripe

I got a stripe on my belt yesterday. I asked after class what it was for, because I didn't know. It basically just means that I've been there a month (not quite accurate, but who am I to complain). It's a visual indicator to instructors how long a student has had a certain belt. That way if someone has three stripes on a white belt, they have a good idea of '(s)he's been here three months, (s)he should know x, y, & z by now.'

Class went well. It was a forms and self defense day. I think I'm making good progress on my first form, but Mr Saxton gave me some crucial corrections that I need to work on. The positive side of this is that at least I now know the series of steps and movements well enough that I actually CAN now focus more intently on mastering the individual techniques within. And I got some clarification on the differences between Basic Form 1 and Basic Form 2, so I actually know 2 forms now! Still foggy on BF3... I know it involves some blocks, but I'm not certain which type and where they occur in the sequence. One thing at a time.

Self defense actually went well. Mr Saxton gave me kudos on a handful of my sequences, which made me feel really good. There are five white belt self defenses that I have to learn for testing, and they haven't seemed to really stick in my head very well. So the fact that I got complimented on some of them really meant a lot to me.

It would be nice to have someone I could practice with outside of class, but I'll make it work. I also feel like I might be ready to start going to the sparring session on Friday evenings. I'll be completely lost, but what else is new? ;-)

Circle of Awkward

Just got home from tonight's class. Instead of the (I presume) usual method of practicing our kicks, punches, and blocks we used a method called rhythmic kicking. It is apparently a Hapkido practice. Once I finally grasped the basic repetitive choreography, I think I did okay. It was then a matter of knowing which kick to use at the end. A major upshot of this rhythmic kicking was that we were working in front of the mirrors, instead of kicking pads. My left foot has only just started feeling normal again in the last day or so, and I wasn't relishing the idea of possibly hurting it all over again.

Then we worked on some self defense moves that all resulted in taking your opponent completely down to the floor. A lot of them rely on pressure points and/or manipulating the wrist or arm into uncomfortable angles. Some I did well one, some not so much.

A note about take-downs: apparently this is one sport/art in which being short is generally an asset. Because I am small, my turning radius is also small. When I take down the maybe not quite 6-foot Mr Saxton, he goes down HARD. This makes me feel bad sometimes. Usually it's at least a sign that I've done the move right, and obviously if I were actually being attacked I probably wouldn't feel nearly so sympathetic, but... it makes me feel guilty sometimes.

With our remaining 15 minutes of class, Mr Saxton polled the students on what they wanted to work on. To my chagrin the chosen exercise was "circle self defense." The idea is that one person at a time goes around the circle using the same attack move against each person in the circle, who must then counter the attack in a different way than anyone else in the circle has used. Sounds kind of fun, right? Except my current problems with this exercise are two-fold: I have only learned very limited white belt self defense sequences, so once those moves have been used by my classmates for a particular attack, I'm left to try to make up something else reasonable. Secondly, when it becomes my turn to attack my classmates I clam up. As a pacifist, I don't exactly stand around thinking of ways to attack people. It's an incredibly awkward thing for me to (even fake) attack someone.

Interesting to note, though, that upon my declaration of being a pacifist, Mr Saxton replied that he is as well. This is a subject I've been thinking about quite a bit recently, and I will eventually post an in-depth examination of pacifism and martial arts.

Ouch

So. Tonight was my fourth class and I have already managed to hurt myself. Given as clumsy I am, I'm not sure whether maybe I ought to be proud I at least made it this far first....

Also, in my defense, it is/was an issue with my left foot which I couldn't have predicted. It's going to be a trial and error thing-learning what limitations I may have with it. My second toe is gone and my third toe appears normal length but is in fact missing the first joint. Which basically means that I cannot flex my left foot much at all. Not generally a problem and my balance is luckily unaffected, but it remains to be seen what effects this may have on my TKD practice.

In today's case, during a particular kicking exercise I must have unconsciously tried to point my toes way too hard and when I made impact with the pad it jammed or otherwise forced the two problem metatarsals back enough to aggravate a nerve. It happened towards the beginning of class and made it very difficult to bear half or all my weight on my left leg. But, I worked through the pain and treated my foot when I got home. Hopefully it'll feel better tomorrow before I go to work to stand on it for 8 hours straight.

Today was a punches, kicks and blocks day BUT we also had a chance to run through our forms briefly. The practice I've done at home to memorize the sequence definitely seems to have helped. I didn't feel nearly as lost this time and I think I made fewer mistakes overall.

I won't get to go to class again this week until Friday, but it'll be at the main studio and I tend to enjoy those classes better. At the class here in town there are usually two junior black belt boys in their teens who can be somewhat distracting. Nice kids, but distracting. Also, there are other adult beginners at the main studio so I don't feel quite so out of my league there.

White Belt Optimism

I have always wanted to study martial arts. During my childhood it was never possible, either due to local (un)availability or cost. Now at the age of 27, I'm finally fulfilling this dream.

The first week of January I attended a local adult Tae Kwon Do class as a spectator on Monday, then returned Wednesday for a free trial class. In my t-shirt and sweats it was glaringly obvious that I was new. The Wednesday class is generally comprised of forms and self defense, so I basically had to just jump in and try to follow along as well as possible. I spent much of the hour feeling incredibly clumsy and awkward but both instructors (Mr & Mrs Saxton) assured me that I was doing well for a beginner. After class was over I got a chance to talk to them briefly about officially signing up, as well as expressing my concern/questions regarding the issue of my left foot. They both seemed to feel that it shouldn't pose much of an issue and that in the few instances where it may, I can easily work around it.

Which brings me to this week when I officially got started. I showed up early to class on Tuesday and was presented with my dobok, or uniform. I changed and everything went smoothly until it came to the belt. Even though I'd previously looked up how to tie it, actually doing so was a different story. Mrs Saxton had to help me get it right. That class was generally spent on punches, kicks & blocks, but it was modified a bit as there were only two of us white belts and an orange belt. Once we'd run through those, we also got to work on forms.

I wonder already if Forms might not end up being the hardest part about TKD for me. They are set patterns of movement that you learn and memorize. I gather that the intent is to build up muscle memory so that these sequences of imaginary battle become naturally ingrained. For each new rank/belt there are at least 1-2 different forms that you are required to learn. Anyone who has spent much time with me knows that my memory (for anything other than music) is spotty at best. I never have done well at rote memorization. Learning/mastering my forms will likely be the biggest task of discipline and patience that I will face.

At any rate, I really enjoyed my classes this week. Each time I leave the dojang, I start looking forward to the next class! It's exciting learning something new and pushing my body to work in ways it never has before.