Shock And Sadness

I got to class a bit early and Colette was outside walking her dog.  As we went through our pleasantries she stumbled over "the news".  Keith and his family are moving to Texas in a few months!  What!?  He's off to another job, but I thought he was going to be taking over the school at some point!  

I mean I was shocked, but I kept wondering how much it would affect the school.  Keith teaches several classes a day and his wife has been the stalwart teaching the tiny tigers class for years.  I can only imagine what Andy and Colette must be thinking.  Or they just go along with it and sort out what to do next.  Hard to say; they can be very inscrutable.  

The class was very interesting in that we had a new member via Zoom and Keith brought his son.  So the biggest morning class ever for me.  Hah.  But, as I guessed, because there is more than one person I don't get that private lesson attention that I love so much now.  

I also just realized that Andy might not want to do the early class either.  So many questions!

Class today was basics and forms.  Standard but with a lot less corrections because Keith had to pay attention to the new student.  

Sigh, still processing all this.

Deep Sleep To Kicks In A Half Hour

What a start to the day. For the first time ever I slept through my alarm, I slept through my coffee maker starting and was only starting to wake up when the cat was scratching at the litter box.  My wife finally nudged me and told me to get up.  Let's just say I was disoriented.  At least I didn't fall over while trying to get my underwear on and take the rest of the time just trying to get my knots tied on my gi.

My wife told me later she was worried about me driving over to the school.  Thankfully no one is on the streets, but I managed to do a late break so I wouldn't run over an early morning runner.  Figures.

I did my normally but abbreviated warm up this morning at the school.  I run around the room counting in Korean to get my legs moving better.  I start with very modest exercise at the house just wake everything up.  

Andy wanted to complete our work from yesterday.  We had four more wrist grabs/escapes to complete.  I didn't recall these, but apparently I'd done them with Keith awhile back, so it took a bit to remember them.  These four consist of two side wrist grabs and two back wrist grabs.

The back grabs consist of the bad guy holding your arms behind your by your wrists.  In the two different variations, one pulls down and one pushes up.  The push up one we lean over and give a back kick and then step back and switch grips and cycle your arms into a double arm bar.  Once I relaxed it worked fine, but thinking of two wrist releases at the same made my head ache.  

After than we move to Il soo sik. Il soo sik is one step sparring.  That means your partner, the shoe, throws a punch and you do three or four moves against them. For instance, I front kick into an attack, side kick, knock arm out of the way and then do a spinning inside/outside kick, followed by a punch to the gut.

The ones I can remember:

- Sudo the punch, punch the gut, punch the face, round house the stomach
    - Then do it from the left

- Inside block to block the punch, punch the gut, punch the face and then side kick the body.
    - Then do it to from the left

That's four of them and then the ones I did above.  Boy I need a better memory.

Edit:

On one of the techniques we bring down the edge of the hand on the cheek bone.  It's a unique overhand kinda thing.  Andy got a piece of breaking wood out and held it out approximately in the place where we I would hit during the Il so sik.  Boom first try.  There is something other worldly about breaking wood with a hand.  Very reaffirming.  

Eleven Wrists

After the vigorousness of the day yesterday, Andy moved to something a little less strenuous to start us off.  Wrist locks!  Hin So Shul for the rest of us.  I have eleven learned, but unable to recall fully them. In my case Andy goes first and I can do them with less and less prompting, but can't start them by myself.  

Me and Andy were talking about testing in April after I asked if I would get partnered with a more advanced student as a standard.  I was thinking I could handle it if the other guy went first.  No such luck.  You can never tell who your partner might be.  So I have to learn these inside and out.  

As we got further through the techniques Andy said that speed isn't the essence in the exam.  Showing the technique is what is important.  That helps me slow my horses down.  

My recollection, even after two weeks off, wasn't horrible.  Out of the eleven that I know, I think there was about two that needed a complete relearn. Generally, shown once I could reproduce things fairly well.  I'm trying to give them nicknames so I can remember the first move.  That usually helps me to a degree.  

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As we talked about testing, Andy bought up the April session.  I thought I was going to be in the October group.  I missed the pretest this last testing and thought that had something to do with to process, but Andy went saying that he was going to rely on Keith's report in the next couple of months.  Eek!  

Tenderfoot

Our school got shut down for two weeks due to a Covid outbreak.  Four kids and two adults.  Today was my first day back and I had hoped for a better practice regimen during the off time, but it was about every two days on average.  Good enough that I didn't look like a complete nincompoop, but it could have been better I think.  

Andy is running the classes this week.  He just got back from an eight day test for his 6th degree belt.  It sounded grueling.  7 am to 11 pm for eight days straight.  The cool thing was that Hwang Jang Nim was there and oversees most of the review.  Forty people were testing for high ranks.  One was going for their eight degree.  Impressive.  Andy and Colette won't know about the results for six months.  Huh.

My practice space is in our downstairs family room, which as carpet.  So my practice area is a bit nicer on the feet.  Going back today, and on the hardwood, has left my feet fairly tender.  Ouch.  

I did get a nice compliment from Andy.  He said, "the basics are looking better".  I'll take that!