Breaking Elbows 101
I can't remember the last time I actually posted about TKD - what I might have said and what I didn't - but I figure it's been a while, so I might as well write something.
I had my test for my high green belt on Saturday, June 23. Earlier in that week, we spent a good part of class practicing breakfalls, and I managed to give myself whiplash, which made life... interesting. When I told Master Paul on Friday, he said to just take it easy, and sort of implied that if I wasn't up to it, he wasn't actually going to make me test to promote me, because he knew that I knew the stuff. But I discovered that the only thing I really couldn't do was sitting up from a prone position. I let Mr. Lesinski, who was conducting our testing, know before we started, and unlike Master Paul the night before, he actually remembered (Master Paul forgot during class on Friday, and was teasing me for being too slow doing the side headlock self-defense, until I gave him a Look), and when we did sit-ups he told me not to, and then when we got to self-defense and we were doing choking on the floor, he had me sit it out.
Somehow during the higher level self-defense, I ended up paired with one of the younger students, who is my same belt level, but comes up to, oh, my shoulder. He managed to hit me in the face during one thing, although not hard.
Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. Since then, it's been brutally hot, although that hasn't really slowed us down much. On Tuesday we did flying side kicks, which resulted in me crash landing and scraping the inside of my foot on the base of the heavy bag (yes, really) but then on my last kick I knocked the heavy bag over, so I felt vindicated. Amusingly, one of the notes on my test evaluation form was that my coordination had improved. Oh, the irony.
On Thursday and Friday I was the only one in class, which I hoped meant I would go to do joong bong, but it was not to be. On Thursday it was relatively cool (Master Paul's words, not mine!) so we did sparring. On Friday it was too hot for that, so we just did some other drills, including the turn kick (which may or may not be a spin roundhouse... not actually sure) ad nauseum. I have a spot on the ball of my left foot where the skin's been worn raw from all of the pivoting. We also did a new self-defense: handshake.
Now, why would you need to defend yourself from a handshake? You really wouldn't, but it's a good lead-in to How To Break Someone's Elbow 101. And it's very effective. We're taught to tap our leg or whatever to indicate when we've had enough, and on the first demonstration, I whacked Master Paul's arm because it HURT. (I probably didn't hit him that hard, but it was harder than usual.)
R. was back on Saturday, so we practiced step sparring #8, which we'd learned earlier in the week. We managed to completely forget #6 in the process, which was both amusing and embarrassing. I also completely failed a drill where we were supposed to see how many times we could draw a circle in the air with our foot around a target. I could do it once, and R. seemed to believe that I should be able to do more, but it just was not happening. Guess that's something I need to work on.
Also, it amuses me when Master Paul starts sounding like me. We were making a line in front of the heavy bag, and instead of getting in front of him, I went to the end, even though I was right there and there was space. He looked at me and said, "Really?" But I'm always first!
It's good to be learning new things. I assume we'll probably start our new form soon. Hopefully it'll be more different from the last two than green belt was from yellow, or I'm going to start getting really confused.
This entry was originally posted at http://eternaleponine.dreamwidth.org/7351.html. Comments can be left on either site.
I had my test for my high green belt on Saturday, June 23. Earlier in that week, we spent a good part of class practicing breakfalls, and I managed to give myself whiplash, which made life... interesting. When I told Master Paul on Friday, he said to just take it easy, and sort of implied that if I wasn't up to it, he wasn't actually going to make me test to promote me, because he knew that I knew the stuff. But I discovered that the only thing I really couldn't do was sitting up from a prone position. I let Mr. Lesinski, who was conducting our testing, know before we started, and unlike Master Paul the night before, he actually remembered (Master Paul forgot during class on Friday, and was teasing me for being too slow doing the side headlock self-defense, until I gave him a Look), and when we did sit-ups he told me not to, and then when we got to self-defense and we were doing choking on the floor, he had me sit it out.
Somehow during the higher level self-defense, I ended up paired with one of the younger students, who is my same belt level, but comes up to, oh, my shoulder. He managed to hit me in the face during one thing, although not hard.
Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. Since then, it's been brutally hot, although that hasn't really slowed us down much. On Tuesday we did flying side kicks, which resulted in me crash landing and scraping the inside of my foot on the base of the heavy bag (yes, really) but then on my last kick I knocked the heavy bag over, so I felt vindicated. Amusingly, one of the notes on my test evaluation form was that my coordination had improved. Oh, the irony.
On Thursday and Friday I was the only one in class, which I hoped meant I would go to do joong bong, but it was not to be. On Thursday it was relatively cool (Master Paul's words, not mine!) so we did sparring. On Friday it was too hot for that, so we just did some other drills, including the turn kick (which may or may not be a spin roundhouse... not actually sure) ad nauseum. I have a spot on the ball of my left foot where the skin's been worn raw from all of the pivoting. We also did a new self-defense: handshake.
Now, why would you need to defend yourself from a handshake? You really wouldn't, but it's a good lead-in to How To Break Someone's Elbow 101. And it's very effective. We're taught to tap our leg or whatever to indicate when we've had enough, and on the first demonstration, I whacked Master Paul's arm because it HURT. (I probably didn't hit him that hard, but it was harder than usual.)
R. was back on Saturday, so we practiced step sparring #8, which we'd learned earlier in the week. We managed to completely forget #6 in the process, which was both amusing and embarrassing. I also completely failed a drill where we were supposed to see how many times we could draw a circle in the air with our foot around a target. I could do it once, and R. seemed to believe that I should be able to do more, but it just was not happening. Guess that's something I need to work on.
Also, it amuses me when Master Paul starts sounding like me. We were making a line in front of the heavy bag, and instead of getting in front of him, I went to the end, even though I was right there and there was space. He looked at me and said, "Really?" But I'm always first!
It's good to be learning new things. I assume we'll probably start our new form soon. Hopefully it'll be more different from the last two than green belt was from yellow, or I'm going to start getting really confused.
This entry was originally posted at http://eternaleponine.dreamwidth.org/7351.html. Comments can be left on either site.