One part of the belt exam is sparring. It's not much of a big deal to me since I've become accustomed to it over the years. I don't have much of an adrenaline response anymore which makes thinking on my toes a little easier, but I worry about my fitness. The test has two one-minute rounds, but Bill says that it'll be flexible depending on time.
Today in class Colette wanted to introduce us to Moo Do sparring. Instead of point sparring, which is the standard at most tournaments, Soo Bahk Do wanted to focus on a couple things in its version. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get this correct but here are a few items:
- moving out of the way of things means that you respect that attack. When the head of SBD took in regular point sparring, he noticed that folks don't normally take the attack seriously. So, points in MD sparring include taking proper distance and evasion. Knowing that a kick or attack could seriously take you out.
- combinations are key. When I was sparring with Bill, I could do two before his evasion and response. Fun, but planning ahead wasn't great on my part beyond two moves.
- the match is five twenty second rounds. Fantastic speed and a tendency to be linear, but the space was really small.
We watched a few short movies of two of the upper-level practitioners go after it. They definitely have great combos and miss each other by a few inches. Yikes! But I was able to work that into my attacks. But I'm so slow that Bill didn't have any problems dodging me. Hah!
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