End of the Year TKD Musings
Today was the last day of TKD until the new year. Which, granted, is only one extra day off than normal, but still. This week has been somewhat less formal, just because it's the week between holidays, and everyone is a little bit off their usual schedule. We also just had testing, and so we could kind of relax and not push right into our new skills.
Not that we didn't make a start on it, of course. On Wednesday, after getting our new belts, we started working on new kicks, which for the high blue belts is the side whip kick. I really thought I was doing it all wrong, but I was doing it today with Master Paul holding the target, and he says it's actually really good. So go me.
We also did a new self-defense - reverse arm pin. And by reverse, we mean pinned to the ground on your stomach. It is every bit as awesome as it sounds. Which is to say, not. We did it for quite a while on Thursday, and I have the epic bruise on the inside of my right elbow to prove it. (Not sure why that's the part of my body most damaged by the whole thing, but there it is.)
Yesterday Sean came to visit, which he hasn't in quite a while, with school obligations and his own TKD at Master Paul's old school and whatnot. Which led to me spending a very long time (okay, probably not as long as it seemed...) facing off against a teenaged black belt who is built like a brick wall, trying to make him hit the ground.
I guess we tend to be nice to each other when we're practicing. When we know that something is a takedown, we, well, go down. Sean was having none of it, unless I really, REALLY made him fall. Which is a good thing, because that's how you learn. However, you also end up black and blue when you're on the receiving end of the joint lock. My right arm, from elbow to wrist, is a mess.
We ended class by playing games - balance games where you try to push your partner off balance from various different positions, including a push-up position where you try and take the other person's arms out from under them, and also seeing how many times we can kick a balloon back and forth without it hitting the ground. The record was 43. I think my best was 25, which was an improvement on the 14 we got earlier in the week.
I started learning my new form today - Poome Taeguk Oh Jang... or Poomse Whack-a-Mole, as I like to think of it. We only learned the first three counts, and double middle block (or whatever you want to call it) is hard! It's going to be a while before I'm able to do that anything less than awkwardly. But it'll come.
And today Master Paul learned the importance of being specific. We were doing kicks and strikes to the heavy bag, as we often do, and toward the end of class he said, "Okay, we go until someone knocks it over."
So A. did a side kick, and it tipped but didn't fall over. Then D. did the same. Now I have played this game before, although I think last time it was, "Now we go until BriAnne knocks it over." So that when one of my classmates knocked it over, he just said, "You're not BriAnne!", picked it up and we kept going. So I held back a bit, and then ran and did a flying side, and down it went. I think he might have called me a cheater. I said, "You didn't make any rules."
At the end of class, he had us sit quietly and think about our goals for the upcoming year - one training related and one for our outside lives. My training goal is to actually land high section kicks in sparring. Outside of class, my goal is to break my habit of tearing apart my cuticles and making myself bleed. I'm not sure which one will be harder.
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