Getting some color (hopefully)

I found out yesterday during class that I'm testing in a week. On the 16th, to be specific. Okay, yes, I knew I was on the list to test this month but I guess I thought it would be toward the end of the month. Now I'm already nervous. It doesn't help that I once again had issues today with two of my more troublesome self defenses. I thought I FINALLY had them down. I also choked when I was asked to perform my form alone. I couldn't help but be annoyed with myself because I KNOW the form. I just get so nervous at being the center of attention! Still, I have to just get over myself and do it. If they believe I'm ready, then I trust their opinion. Now I just gotta remember to find out what break I'm doing. And this time I'm prepared for counting in Korean!

Start Your Weekend Right

Okay, so I teased my mom that the next post would be entitled 'Wooden Spoons and Foam Balls' but I changed my mind.  I will explain that title though, since they were some fun training bits and pieces. 

The wooden spoon bit happened at home when my mom asked me to help her run through the white belt self defenses.  Since I had no interest in holding a real knife (even of the butter variety) at my mother, I grabbed a wooden spoon and held it by the business end so that the handle jutted out like a knife blade.  Of course, being who we are, we both ended up dissolving into laughter several times at my choice of fake 'knife.'  (It could also be the fake scaredy cat face she makes whilst DOING the knife defense that was causing the larger part of my own laughter...)

As for the foam balls, that was a blocking exercise courtesy of Mr Saxton.  It was a little like dodge ball, TKD style!  We each took turns standing basically against or very close to the wall while two foam balls were thrown at us in strategic places.  Ideally, we were meant to use our blocking techniques to deflect the balls as though they were fists.  I believe the exercise was meant to not only improve technique, but also speed.  I particularly enjoyed this drill!  Then again, I always enjoyed regular dodge ball as well.

Friday evenings are our weekly sparring sessions.  According to Mr Saxton, he thinks getting beaten up is the best way to start one's weekend.  I'm inclined to agree, even though these sessions actually fall in the middle of my own work week.  It's nice to go and sweat/work off any lingering frustrations and tire myself out in a good way.  I might have mentioned it before, but I'm really pleasantly surprised at just how much I actually enjoy sparring now.  I can even tell that I'm slowly but surely improving!  I got some nice compliments last night, which was awesome.  Even my stamina seemed vastly better than the last sparring session I went to.

Later today, we're going to march in a local parade.  We're going to be representing the school; wearing our uniforms and practicing punches, kicks, and blocks.  It should be fun.  I'm glad to be able to do it, since I missed our big picnic event on Memorial Day due to work.  Now I just have to figure out when I'm going to get some sleep... :-/

Most Dangerous

I'm sitting here still coming down from one of the most awesome natural highs I've ever had. Why so chipper? Tonight was my first sparring session! It was SO MUCH fun!! I felt like a slow and flail-y dork, but that in no way diminished the fun factor. I even got a few compliments from total strangers at how well I did for it being my first night. One boy, a junior blue belt, just couldn't believe it was my first time and that I'd only even WATCHED sparring once before... that made me feel pretty good.

I wondered if being all bundled up in the gear would be uncomfortable but it really wasn't. Once we actually began the matches, I didn't give it a second thought. I had way too many other things to think about. The hardest thing for me tonight was knowing where, and how, to look. Relatively speaking I'm supposed to be looking in my opponent's eyes or maybe their upper chest. But even then, I'm not really supposed to focus on that. 'Looking, but not focusing.' That way I'm able to pick up his/her motions coming from most any direction. Okay, way easier said than done for me right now!

Even so, I managed to pull out some pretty decent blocks and even score a few points of my own. Some points I think I actually managed to come by honestly and some others were kinda left open to me as gimmes. Most of the people I sparred with were really helpful, which I appreciate.

Right before we got started, Mr Saxton mentioned that the two most dangerous types of sparring opponents are white belts (because they don't know their own strength and even when they think they're hitting lightly hit too hard) and black belts (because eventually they'll hit you back just as hard). I found this to be true because I KNOW I managed contact and even points a couple times quite harder than I meant to. I also missed contact a good handful of times when I wasn't adequately blocked and SHOULD have touched for the point. I gather this is the sort of control you have to learn with time and repetition. Still, I felt especially bad when I hit a junior green belt girl on the headgear harder than I should have. All I could do was apologize and be more careful, but I still felt like a big jerk.

Each match lasts 3 minutes and I think I did maybe 5-6 matches. It's definitely a good work-out because you never let up the whole time, even rotating between partners. I was sweaty and red faced, and I think it's possibly some of the most fun I've ever had exercising! Looking at the whole class, every single one of us looked exhausted but happy. Not a bad way to start a weekend, indeed.

My noon class today also went really well. It was just the two of us adult white belts again, which meant plenty of personalized instruction. I can feel that my forms and most of my self defenses are improving slowly but steadily. The only major issue I'm having is my final white belt self defense, which is a defense for when you're being held at knife-point. Mentally I know all the steps, but when it comes to physically carrying them out correctly... no. I'll fix one issue, and then suddenly I'll be doing something new wrong, that I had just done correctly the last time. I certainly hope I can sort it out before testing in March.

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.