General Notes

Teacher called me up and told me that he pulled a muscle in his neck or shoulder and could barely move his neck, so I told him I'd lead as much of the class as he needed. When I got home from work I hurriedly wrote an outline of the class that we barely even used. He was able to set up the hour and only used a smidgen of my stuff for the second. I was going with the advanced stuff too much, but he liked all the kicking things I laid out.

I didn't get around to posting last week because I couldn't think of anything of note the next day. If work gets too busy in the morning then I can't think of things later in the day. I guess blogging in the evening is as good as it gets for me.

The constant stream of new people constantly impresses me. Teacher absolutely does not advertise at all and yet by word of mouth we have two or three new people every couple of months. Our current hardcore membership consists of the Wonder Twins, Robot, Little Sister and once a week, Beard and Trucker. The new folks are High School aged folks and the newest is guy works on a boat so he'll be an occasional.

The reason I mention this is that I often get placed with the new people so I can teach them or be generally helpful. The latest batch of folks is fairly physically adept so they are pleasant to teach or correct. I used to get bitter because I was so worried that I wasn't working on advance skills that I'd end up forgetting them. Now that the Twins are up to speed I get to show them all the stuff I learned which in turn helps me iron those exact moves out in myself.

I'll be going on vacation in June - how will they get along without me?

Niiiicce

My feet were well above my face and I hadn't even started falling yet. The execution was so smooth that the Wonder twin hadn't even started moving me into the throw. When I did land it was like coming out of a hip throw and I did it like a rockstar.

Both twins were laughing. Apparently when I'm in the moment and the moment is great I say, "niiice." In this case I was still in the air when it happened.

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Teacher has this move that is totally not in the manual at all. I'm not even sure what it is attributed to, but it's effective - I call it the elvis. It's a leg hook - where you are calf to calf, but you are standing on your tip toes as far into the stance as you can get - then you plant your foot quickly and your opponent has to do a deep split or in my case roll back into a slap.

As class progressed Teacher would pull half the class out to work on realistic attacks - in this case stairs. While he did that I would would work on the elvis. As he left the room for the stairs he said and do whatever would go after that. I was able to squeeze in a progression from the manual and worked in a throw. I am awesome.

The final move was a block followed by a roundhouse to the gut. Instead of going back to the original stance you moved in to the leg hook and do an elvis followed by a slight torso throw. It turned out great.

I was all aglow when I got home tonight. I had to give a credit to my wife since I had approached her earlier on some one-step sparring ideas. She promptly punched me in the face. Smooth as always.

Heat

There is this moment of sickness.

It's usually followed a moment of physical weakness.

And then it's go time. Over the years I've developed a love hate relationship with the adrenaline shock that accompanies the few moments before sparring. It used to be fear straight up and then it turned into excitement, but along the way it contained all kinds of combinations of both. Where am I now? Hard to say, but tonight I feel like I have a fire lit inside my torso. I presume it's the long, lingering effects of hormones, adrenaline, cortisone and whatever the body generates when it's firing on all cylinders.

Needless to say, this evening was a good class. Trucker was going to get tested on his green belt and there was no new folks in class so Teacher started us off on long complicated sequences to warm us up. We ended up the first hour kicking three ways and trying to find power on that third one is very difficult when you try to be fast.

The second hour started with a few drills and went into multiple attacks. I love these, and not because I'm good at them. I think they represent the most realistic venue for testing skills and thinking on the fly. And that's even with "rules" put in place to slow things down. So we did a 3 on 1 drill and that migrated over to sparring.

I volunteered to go first and started with one Wonder twin and set the pace at high speed. That was a poor choice because although he can move that quick he isn't that polished. We started off with a brutal double shin kick and almost immediately followed it with a fist to fist contact. Ouch!

I took a break and then had to fight the other twin. We had a more stately pace, but I ended that with a crescent to his head.

Finally I got to spar with Teacher, but it was a specific one. It was where we only use elbows. I can't get beyond his defense, but I've got more muscle and height on him. This never helps me out though. He slid in three big punches that made me grunt and squeak at the same time. The class was left laughing.

Along time ago I feared being the subject of Teacher's attention. I was afraid of the pain involved in demonstrations. Then I was proud because I thought he looked at me and thought I could take it. Then I realized I was a good example because I am so much bigger than him. Then I realized he wants he techniques to look crisp and he knows I will make him look good. After sparring I realized it all these things, plus I am just plain fun to take a beating to.

Not Right

There is a simple shoulder lock that we teach the new folks to get them used to the idea that muscle is a poor substitute for technique.  Basically you capture the wrist, rotate the arm and as the person passes by you move the locked arm into the upright position forcing that person to bend over or experience pain in the shoulder and wrist. 

I’m in the middle of “monkey in the middle” at the tail end of class where we’ve been reviewing our locks.  The idea is that you try it with everyone giving you an idea of what works with different heights, lengths of arms and skill levels. 

Everybody gets a chance to be the Monkey and eventually I get up to the head of the line and one of my first people is Little Sister.  Little Sister is notorious in that no lock can be put on her.  Everybody has a spot that locks them out of course, but she’s only got one and it’s difficult to get her there.  She is a veritable rubber man.  I can’t believe how easy this is to forget, yet I do it over and over.  On this occasion I presumed that a shoulder lock would work just fine.  I actually knew the wrist lock was a failure as soon as I got a hold of her arm, but I went through the motions smoothly.  Little Sister looked up at me when I confidently had her in position – which is to say that she was bent at the waist and her arm was pointed up at 45 degree position behind her – and then stood up straight while her arm rotated in the socket even farther up.  The only thing that ran through my mind was my old G.I. Joe doll.  Somehow when they designed it they left out any possibility of normal shoulder rotation, giving the children of America an unrealistic idea of the limitations of the body (not to mention the lack of genitals). 

Long story short  - I thought I for a second that I was going to be sick and since I wasn’t I immediately made fake retching sounds and dropped her arm like a hot iron.  My discomfort made the class piddle themselves in hilarity.  I actually had the Wonder Twins on the floor laughing. 

Another incident of fine teaching.

Mini Revelation

I was reading Mat's Way this afternoon and left a comment how sometimes I felt it was hard to express things in class when there is only small revelations every once in a while. Those are interspersed with hours of labor perfecting technique and trying to learn new things.

I remember when everything was new and it was a tremendous effort to sift through everything I was learning in order get to settle in my brain. Now so much of it is rote so I can focus on the nuances. I was struggling to describe in posts past, but tonight I got a metaphor pop in my brain.

I realized that every night that I go to class it's like the first time learning technique, but I have all the skills and didn't realize it. It's like now I'm the first time natural will all the gifts, but I also have the gift to see what's wrong in others and myself without being critical.

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Teacher asked me to teach our sixth Kata/Hyung tonight. I must say that it went very well and as a class with had a beautiful synchronisity to our movements. At one point during our kicking drills we all knew that we in synch and balanced as well. You could feel it extending to the new students and it seemed to carry on throughout the class.

Sweet.

PPT

Piss Poor Teaching.

I talked with Teacher before class and reminded myself of to work on the slowness I needed and focus on fundamentals.  However, after mentoring a new guy (Hippie) for the first hour I was feeling unusually good about my segment in the 2nd hour. 

My part was on the Cat stance.  I reviewed all of our stances in Japanese (because I can’t remember the chases – Hu Gul in this case).  I gave a brief introduction foot placement, weight placement, etc.  We practiced movement back and forth and everyone looked pretty good doing it.  I threw in front snaps kicks and finally got to the double knife hand (Mahk ki something something) over the lead leg.  We got so good at this I started cracking jokes.  As soon as I did this I started mentally cursing myself for making said jokes.  Not that they were bad, but I told myself I wouldn’t, but as soon as I did it the mental cursing messed me up. 

I didn’t have the heart to talk to teacher afterwards.  So last night I had terrible nightmares of teaching, messing things up and never really get lessons started because I was bogged down in all the little things.  Damn, I’m neurotic. 

The Soreness

I’m so sore that moving my arms makes it feel as if I’m tearing scabs off my biceps.  The combination of beatings and the gym is absolutely punishing me to the core.  Ironically I think it’s the beatings that causing me the most anguish.  If I sit for more than an hour my legs completely stiffen up and make walking an awkward drunkards stumble until my hips loosen up. 

As usual the internal griping and whining disappears after we have warmed up and started moving.  I was actually dreading leading the warm ups because of this, but Teacher chose Little Sister to run that portion.  I was never so thankful.  Of course later in class we did side kicks for a half hour and I almost barfed from the agony of keeping the ground leg bent and kicking slowly. 

For some reason the class moved very slowly in time and we were able to pack in a huge amount of content.  Teacher continued to drill on the beginning techniques for the benefit of the new students, but I found a great deal of comfort in focusing on the basics.  I’m finding that I’m pleased that I can remember the odds and ends that he normally teaches and then apply them to myself.

The 2nd hour was dedicated to kata/hyungs.  That really beat the legs up.  He stopped us at one point and had us practice our kihap.  We all sounded pretty lame in the beginning, but we sounded great after we got going again.  There is nothing like everyone being in unison and belting out, “Hai!”

The last 15 minutes was dedicated to a bit of slow sparring.  I say slow because that’s all I was capable of.  I got paired with Robot and the sure signs of Rust were on both of us.  He has a horrible habit of catching my kicks which is nice when we are slow, but leaves him open in all sorts of ways.  Last night he did the same thing, but when I started to say something he kept his balance and planted a nice kick in my crotch.  I guess I need to amend my opinion or move a bit quicker. 

In the last bout Teacher brought me up and give some pointers to the class with me as the dummy.  When we did get going I was able to keep moving fairly well, but I noticed that my eyes were closed more often than not.  Too many fingers and elbows were making me nervous.  Beard complimented me on my technical acumen, but then chided me for taking it easy with Robot.  I guess I can’t win! 

Rust and Nails

After 6 weeks of no class (ha ha) last night was a welcome diversion from lazy evenings at home.  Not that I’m opposed to that, but the sofa and I have a long relationship and I need my space. 

During the time Teacher has been gone I’ve been diligent about working out regularly assuming that I’d been in reasonable shape for this week.  This assumption has proven to be incorrect more often than not and last night was no exception to that rule.  We were practicing simple punch and block with movement and after three or four runs up and down the hall I was getting more and more out of breath.  Due to the numbers I was able to step out of rotation and help correct form and stance in the others and catch my breath.  Teacher came up to me and I whispered in his ear, “man, we look really rusty!”  He laughed because it was true.  There was not even an ounce of smoothness in any of us.  Our class looked like absolute beginners. 

So we struggled through the basics for two hours.  Mostly bad balance and shaking legs betraying the fact that none of us had practiced this specifically. 

After working on basic movement for awhile Teacher asked who had the lowest stance.  I looked around and pointed out two students who looked pretty good.  He said nope.  It was the two guys that had already turned around and headed back in our direction.  I screamed, “cheaters!” 

To finish the class Teacher decided to do a little knife defense.  I assume this was to show off a bit to the new students.  He took a different approach and let us suffer a bit, by letting us try to recall our moves on our own.  I was really pleased to learn that I could recall the few very important lessons from just before break and thought I was pretty smooth considering the shakes.

Just before the end of class Teacher asked me to the front for demo time.  He then showed the class what their options were from the variety of attacks one could expect from a knife wielder.  I’ve never been in a knife fight and nor do I want to be so I’m sure hopeful that the stuff we are practicing has some semblance to what we could expect.  So while Teacher is throwing me around, locking me out, and otherwise abusing me in front of the class he told us the story of the police officer here in town that got stabbed 13 times.  The officer thought he got punched and almost bled out because the attacker didn’t slash – he just punched with the blade. 

While letting that soak in he demonstrated an arm capture with spinning back fist.  As he spun around his heel peeled up my big toe nail.  Not wanting to look any worse a weenie than I normally do I just pursed my lips and gritted my teeth for the rest of class.  Ouch.  Bloody toe again. 

Dance fool

Teacher got back from vacation last week and aside from the tan was pretty much the same as always. I guess I thought he was going to be brimming with philosophy after laying on the beach for a month. He had me over for dinner and had pretty much picked where he left off.

So he settled in and had me come in for an early workout. He had some ideas about how to improve my transitional movements. I realize that I'm clunky most of the time so I was intrigued with what he come up with. While I warmed up he started playing with the stereo for a bit. I thought that was a intriguing way to start things off, but he demonstrated using the music's tempo to dictate the pace or beat of the movement.

So it wasn't exactly kata/hyung, or dancing, but it was fun jumping around to the beat of the drum as it were. I was hoping, "everyone was kung fu fighting" would come on.

After 20 minutes of looking we were background players in a rock video from the 90s we started sparring using soft method. I find this difficult after years of hard style. It feels like being back in wing chun and doing chi sao drills. However this was great exercise and time flew by. The only problem was that I was prodigiously sore the next day. The combo of gym and beatings takes its toll.

Teaching the knife.

“How do you deal with a knife attack?” Teacher asked the class.  He then broke us up into groups and directed me to three of the up and coming guys, Robot and the Wonder Twins. 

I inwardly gulped because this is definitely not one of my strong points.  I keep running the moves realistically in my head and became very anxious about confronting a knife-wielder.   This comes from practical practice.  I usually get poked in the belly or sliced somewhere sensitive when we practice with our wood knives.  Tuesday was no exception for a few of our students.  Pin point bruises and a scalp laceration were the definite highlights. 

So there I am trying to run through all the techniques and the guys I’m with are pointing out everything wrong with what I’m doing.  Thankfully Teacher came up and cleared up some basic things for me.  I was teaching them out right wrist captures – which I think we can all agree on is pretty close to impossible in most instances.  Teacher showed us the bigger block on the forearm that lead to a capture a second later.  Obviously something that needs pictures to explain, but as soon as we did it everybody in my group went, “ahhhh.”  The universal sign of understanding concept and action all at once. 

Even though my teaching was sub par I did feel a moment of pride in being able to remember 90% of the basic techniques –even Teacher did a small ahhh over things he’d forgotten. 

Robots and Movies

Teacher leans over to me at half time and whispers, “I’m going to test the Wonder Twins tonight, but first we’re going to do some sparring to tire them out.”  While they get put through their paces Teacher leans over to me and whispers again, “I’m going to put you with Robot.  Just take it easy because he’s never done this kind of thing before.” 

The class theme before sparring was infighting and developing some comfort with elbows and targets up close. 

Robot and I bow to each other and he immediately gets inside my arms and legs and begins to thrash me.  Since we were in hugging distance he kept throwing knees into my thighs – unfortunately for me, they were accurate and effective.  I tried to step into him to throw him off his pace and his knee painfully collided with mine. 

The reason I call him Robot is that he had his knee replaced with a titanium one about 15 years ago due to cancer. 

What this meant to me is that his knee strikes are incredibly effective because he doesn’t have pain there whereas the next day I have a bruise on the knee cap.  Ouch.

Not to be outdone I decided to back out and use my kicks.  I tried a roundhouse and he caught it (beginners mistake) so I twisted my hips over farther and gently slapped him on the face with the top of my foot.  Awesome!  I got a lot of laughs and some respect with that one. 
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While basking in the glow of a nice sparring session I noticed that the students were really doing a great job at blocking and kicking.  Much to my chagrin I realized considering their time in and level that they were much better than I was. 

I go through this occasionally – a moment where I see new folks performing so much better than I ever could and realize that I’m not gifted athletically; that everything I ever learned was hard won and never a natural feeling. 

I saw this boxing movie a long time ago which may have starred Wesley Snipes, where a young white guy and young black guy apprentice to a Russian drunk guy.  We find out that the Russian was an incredibly gifted boxer that had dreams, but they played out when he defected to the states.  So he teaches the guys – living his dreams though them.  Anyway Wesley is incredibly gifted and the white guy brings nothing to the table, but always has the will to do better.  They both end up getting close to the Olympics and Wesley gets cut in a street fight.  So white boy gets on the team (because we knew he wouldn’t make it originally) and, of course, wins the gold. 

I can’t help drawing comparisons to myself.  Not that I’m going to the Olympics or anything, but I know I’m not gifted in any sense – I just happen to be the guy that goes to class forever.  That’s not even saying much either.  I’m the guy that goes to class forever because I have an unencumbered life. 

I don’t mean to have a pity party, because I’m proud of the things I have achieved, but to see people that will easily surpass my dreams of physical achievement sometimes stings.  

Jumping

I normally like to start my posts with a humorous anecdote about some aspect of class, but I’m so sleepy I don’t have it in me.  I’m on day four of heavily interrupted sleep.  Long story short – life with geriatric, stroke-addled cats is brutal.

I haven’t been posting much lately because I either keep forgetting what we did the night before or I can’t think of pithy things to write about.  However, last night had a brief change in the regular goings on.  One of the Wonder Twins asked about jumping kicks which progressed from the crescent kicks we were practicing to a whole room of uncoordinated jumping, twisting and groaning. 

I usually leave this kind of analysis to Colin or Mark, but trying to sort out the body dynamics for this kick was dizzying. The kick is a jumping outside crescent, by that I mean that the right foot (in this case) comes in from the right and the striking surface is the bottom/arch of the foot.  With the jump added we pump the left knee into the air to launch before we perform the kick.  We could all do that via a huge twist in the torso (leaving my back incredibly sore this morning).  Teacher added a level of complexity to this – coming down from the landing with spinning back fist.  To do this the left leg had to not only pump into the air but also in the direction you needed you body to move (in this case up and to the left).  This was to mitigate the need to twist the torso in mid air.  We were horrible.  It was the proverbial bunch of monkeys humping a football.  Something to practice obviously since we never practice jumping kicks, even though they are part of the TSD curriculum.  Teacher is very uncomfortable teaching the techniques because they leave the floor and source of power. 

The rest of the night was practicing wrist-twist, four corners throw and various locks and basic throws.  Lots of fun now that I can teach a bit better and have the Wonder Twins to utilize as ukes. 

At the end of class we have one student stand while the rest us get in line and present as the uke. The student practices what they learned that evening.  I saw the frustration in everyone’s faces and even I would lock up when folks would offer a left hand. 

Teacher had everyone sit down and had me demonstrate Neihanshi Cho Dan before bow out.  Not sure why, but it was a nice treat to show everyone what I was working on.

Throat Punches and Child Beatings

Throat punching, unlike its cousin throat singing, is neither relaxing or melodic with zen-like sparseness.  I found this out while sparring with one of the wonder twins.  Apparently, I thought it was technically proficient to block with my adam’s apple.  As with many of my technical failure’s in combat I felt a sudden desire to sit down right in the middle of everything because my throat had become the center of the universe. 

Somehow I managed to keep it together and push my eyes back into my head and regurgitate the important parts of my throat back into their relative places. 

By the next class I was able to make noises similar to an old cat that simply doesn’t have enough lung capacity to meow coupled with a honking squeak. 
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I ended up not having to teach a full kids class after all.  Teacher was able to get back, but when I showed up later he looked completely asleep and couldn’t count to save his life. 
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Last night was a big blocking night.  My forearms look like a rough stretch of road and I can’t set them on anything due to the tenderness.
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The computer guy from down the hall poked his head in my office and said, “so I hear a 16 year old girl kicked you ass.”  Why is this a repetitive theme in my life?  Then he says, “I hear your going to be testing for your Black Belt soon.”  How is it that everyone knows this before me?

I take solace in the fact that the I heard that kind of thing for my Brown for a really long time before the test occurred.  I’m just not anxious to take that kind of beating anytime soon.

You know things are desperate when there is absolutely no pretense in how you try to control your breathing – just sucking huge breaths, gi completely disheveled, belt around to the side, etc.  Not very elegant – that’s me in testing.

Kids 2 / Lessons Learned

I literally have too much too write about.   I learned so much in one evening that I think it would take several hours to get it all down.

Last night was my 2nd evening with the kids class and it went fairly well.  Teacher made an effort to remove himself from the class frequently so see how I’d handle the normal escalation of energy the kids normally exhibit.  It seemed to go pretty good!  I would take a second to stop someone off task or just get back to exercises – it wasn’t exhausting and I never lost patience and the hour went by very fast. 

Adult class was extremely small.  Just the wonder twins and Little Sister.  The first hour was mostly discussion and a small amount of practical work.  Teacher was introducing “verbal karate” which is always a neat approach.  He applies physical technique to verbal and tries to guide us to a place where we never get into a fight; or, at least, tries to keep us farther away. 

Normally I find that a bit too long to listen to, but it was pretty interesting and his pacing was right on.

Second hour was only sparring!  We definitely haven’t done this in a while, but it was brutal fun.  We all got to spar with each person in class – which is a rarity, but a blast.  As usual I took a lot of very solid shots and gave a few (by mistake) as well.  My best shot was an inside crescent on Little Sister.  She has actually gotten so good that she analyzed my technique and started to take advantage of it!  She would get close and just beat the crap out of me.  However, the crescent always throws a false message to the other guy and she walked right into it.  Bang.  Later on I did a spinning back kick and did the spin in with a hook punch right to my kidney.  Beautiful timing, but I think I’m pissing blood today. 

Afterwards I met with Teacher for a beer and discussion.  He complimented my progress and we reviewed everyone’s progress.  The twins will get tested in the next couple of weeks.  

Kids

Something I’ve been avoiding has come to pass. 

I’d like to say that it’s because I don’t have children and that I’m not used to being around them, but I think it’s really that I don’t know how to be an adult.  I instantly try to be a buddy.  This inherently not productive as a martial arts teacher.

Teacher has to go out of town and finally gave me the “call.”  He knows that I’m uncomfortable around the kids, but he wants class to move on consistently and has asked me to help out when he can’t be there.  Unfortunately, his father has late stage cancer combined with other health problems.

So I started coming early to help out with the kids so they can, 1. see who I am, and 2. I can see who they are. 

The last time I had to work with the kids was over 3 years ago and I pretty much liked keeping that distance.  I was so traumatized after the one class I had to “teach” that I would steer any conversation about taking over to anything I could fit in. 

So it was with considerable trepidation that I got to class early to man up and do some teaching. The reason I’m doing this?  I kind of feel that it’s germane to my next rank.  Becoming more comfortable in the teaching/leading role to demonstrate proper assertiveness, etc. 

Anywho, the class went well, and the few interactions I had with the kids went fairly well.  This time I’m very aware that this is how it went until I showed up in class and the kids ran amok.  We shall see. 
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In regular class it was all cat stance all the time.  Since we’d all been around enough he made us sit in the lowest stance we could.  I actually started laughing at one point because he went on with a story to illustrate a point while we stuck our low, static pose.  He threw a queried look at me and I said, “I can’t hold this more than a couple of minutes!”  We all laughed and moved on.

Teaching moment – Realizing I know how to do the move, but have no idea how to translate it into steps, example #6.  After all is said and done, Teacher brings up a critical point to make it all easy and my group looks at me glaringly.  How do you explain that all the work you just did allowed them to understand that last point and correctly do the technique? 

Balance

I was about 50 reps in to a spinning back kick and as time went on I noticed that I kept losing my balance.  Mind you  - I’m the one teaching the class so I was a bit red-faced at this point. 

Thankfully Teacher came in for a simple correction.  “Just look at my face all the way through.”  Bam – just like that I’m perfect again.  As the exercises had progressed I started doing the beginner – looking at the floor, mirrors, whatever it takes to savage balance. 

Teacher is going out of town and wants me to run the class a few days.  This means that I have to run the kids class as well as the adult class.  Talk about anxiety.  Little kids freak me out.  So to maybe help myself out I’m going to a few kids classes before he goes to gear myself up.  Yikes.  It’s like knowing a test is coming up. 

I think in the adult classes we are going to work on jumping kicks.  Something we never do, but they are part of the TSD songbook so I think it’s worthwhile.  I also want to work on them for the simple fact that I can’t remember doing them very well in the past. 

One-step continued

I hurriedly grabbed some time with the internets before class and spotted a move we hadn’t done in ages – the simultaneous block and strike.  I’d actually learned this when I took Wing Chun in High School ages ago and was surprised when it came up in class since TSD seems so static with punch, block, kick, block. 

Anyway, it appeared to be well received and actually kind of challenging for our newer members.  I gather even after a few months of punch then block changing the pattern is very difficult.  Thankfully teaching it made it fairly easy, but Teacher had me constantly slow the pace so everyone could catch up.  Another lesson in teaching.  Do a lot of rote work so people can get comfortable.  I’m teaching to a lot of new folks.  Ugh.  I have a huge desire to skip to the practical demo and I need to slow way down.

The two sisters were tested during the last hour and did pretty good so we have two new Greens.  Tonight one will have to redo her hyung/kata due to a couple of missteps.  I think they’ll be doing some sparring as well since we ran out of time.  Being the Sempai means I’m going to have to take some lumps from their poor power control.  Sigh.

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I’ve restarted my self education and have started relearning Neihanchi Cho Dan.  Anything Teacher learned in the past beyond his 1st Dan has long since been forgotten and he doesn’t appear interested in learning so I’m taking the initiative to learn it.  It doesn’t feel beyond my current level of education, but because of the repetitive hook punches I can easily get confused.  I’m beyond half way and just need to finish up in the next week before I go on vacation.

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Tonight I ask to teach some more advanced kicks like the hook, spinning back and jumping front.  Teacher hasn’t done anything like that in a long time, so I feel like I’m rummaging through the history closet.

X block

In some attempt to provide fresh and interesting grist for the class mill, I dug back in my memory to find something that might grab the classes attention.  After reviewing even more videos on one-step sparring I got a memory jog!  For a very limited time in the very distant past we were taught the X-block.  Basically making a scissors with your arms to stop an overhead strike or front snap kick. 

We haven’t practiced this block in years and it didn’t dawn upon me as to why until I was teaching the evolution.  I went from high blocks and low blocks to x blocks.  Here’s what I found was bad.  You block your line of sight, both hands are occupied and unless you are following up with a technique to take the wrist or heel it doesn’t leave you in a good spot to riposte. 

I’m definitely learning the critical lesson in teaching – deeper understanding of technique by teaching and demonstrating. 

I reviewed the lesson with Teacher and Beard after class, feeling that it went poorly.  Beard said that he really enjoys my lessons just because they are different than Teacher’s – not better or worse.  In my mind I thought I spent the whole time telling everyone what was wrong about the technique and why they shouldn’t do it. 

Applause

I’m already planning for tonight’s lesson after studying some online one-step sparring videos.  I can’t believe the wide variety of style differences purported to be all TSD.  Never the less, I found a lot of ideas and grabbed one I like.

During Tuesday’s class Teacher and I hastily pulled together a lesson for the second hour during the rest break.  I threw out a couple of ideas and we ran through the evolution of exercises that would lead up the final execution.

I’ve always enjoyed how he takes a few basics moves and tied them together.  We tried that with a wrist grab into a lock and submission.  We broke it into small parts and tried to tie that together.  Only this time I was explaining everything and using Teacher as the Uke.  Sweet.

After the lesson everyone applauded. 
---

1 minute Judo

This was from way back, but I wanted to show it again. Keep up if you can.

glumbert - 1 Minute Judo Lesson

Pre-Thanksgiving

Somewhere around the 10th punch to my chest and palm-strike to my face I started to think I better concentrate on blocking.

We have a lot of different folks show up for class, no doubt for a wide variety of reasons, but our latest iconoclasts are the two sisters and their brother. They’ve been coming off and on for the last 6 months. Although I can’t get a lot of details out of them it appears that they are home schooled, are very active and come from a huge family. The two girls have taken Karate in the past and it must have been fairly hard style. Their blocks are definitely strikes.

The older of the two, Strong Hand, Got placed with me in the first hour to work on one and two step sparring. Within minutes of some simple one-two punches I was splattered by her blood and inwardly groaning about the bruises I was going to be sporting tomorrow.

We ended up stopping periodically so she could put some more band-aids on. What a mess. I hope it all comes out in the wash.

_____

During the 2nd hour I got the do the lesson on side kicks. I really tried hard to modulate my voice and pace. I’m still really nervous about cracking jokes since it derails me, but I got a few out without being disruptive.
- intro to side kicks – lateral defense and attack
- practice the move “knee up and foot turn” before kick.
- standing side-kicks 10 on both sides
- step through side kicks 10 on both sides
- heavy bag drills for strength and distance
- partner drill for distance and balance

After that we did katas/hyungs for the last 10 minutes.
- 4 keicho hyung Ill Boo
- 3 keicho hyung Eee Boo
- 2 keicho hyung Sam Boo

I was tired the hell out by the end of class. I got home just as my wife got home and barely got into bed before I passed out.

Notes

I wasn’t much of a teacher last night; more of giggler.  Whether it was the flu or an external confluence of events, our class was down to eight.  Even that sounds funny because that used to be such a big number to us.  However, it’s the perfect number for rotation so that was pretty great.  By the end of the night we were having such a good time everyone was laughing.  I wasn’t helping the level of seriousness.

Giant got his gi last night.  Size 7 and still a bit tight.  Dang.  I taught him a take down – capture a punch and pull the arm across the chest, take your other hand and do a jaw strike continue to twist the head and turn your hips.  Uke goes down easy.  He’s so big that he doesn't have to use any effort.  The strength in his torso far exceeds all of us together. 

The 2nd part of class started with some mats out, but we never really went far with that.  However during the warm up I was showing the students how to roll and then slap to arrest the movement and also to practice for taking a throw.  We usually have two lanes of rollers and I missed the lane on one role and had to slap on the floor – bang!  My leg still still hurts today.  Smooth.

Post class note

Class Tuesday was fine and went quick.  I didn’t develop any particular insight into my own skills, but settled in and just participated and taught when asked to.  The newest folks don’t hesitate to ask me on technical matters which I kind of like.

So Teacher calls me up yesterday and tells me that he thought I was doing better with Teaching.  We went into a long discussion about the various students and their skills. 

Unfortunately I still have a long way to go when it comes to teaching.  Teacher has a spontaneous approach to what the lesson might consist of, but he’s been doing it so long a majority of his work is pretty flawless and everything dovetails nicely with the theme of the night.  Mine stuff is pretty basic and pretty bite-sized. 

He ended the conversation with, “I noticed that you seem more relaxed when you’re teaching.”  And that I need to count with more authority.  I guess my quiet wheezing doesn’t motivate the class very well.

Teaching 3

Somewhere between yelping in pain and standing on my toes for the umpteenth time I began to grin.  I had just experienced something naturally without thinking about it.  In our 2nd hour I was teaching one our newest students, Cop, wrist locks and was being constantly interrupted by other students with questions about technique.  It was then I realized I felt comfortable with educating someone else. 

Normally my mental experience is something on par with, “what if they ask me this A – I don’t know A!” and so on, but last night I was able follow my own track so I knew exactly where I was going and just stick to those things.

In retrospect I wish I had a laminated card so I could go over the techniques (wrist and shoulder locks) in some semblance of order.  I feel like I confuse the students because I’m often dredging up memories instead of focusing on the technique at hand. 
---

Another class with 15 folks!  The room is packed.  Grinding the basics in is very tiring mentally and physically.  The mental part is just focusing on the weak points in my technique and trying to correct all the new bad habits I’ve picked up.  The physical is that we are trying to slow the technique down and it’s brutal after about 40 reps.  All of the older folks (above 40) were groaning pretty quickly. 

I got paired with this new guy – clearly a giant awkward in his own skin.  I’ve never seen such a big guy with absolutely no physical comfort.  I figured the football team would be absolutely peeing their pants if they met this guy.  We worked on blocking kicks and he seemed comfortable and interested, but jut a horrible stance and no insight into his own body mechanics.  It reminds me of me.

My main partner for exercises for most of the night was Cop.  He showed up in uniform, but before that we had no idea.  Vigorous and inflexible, but with a great attitude.  Phenomenal balance on top of that!  I could block his kicks and he could go back to zenkutsu with no problem. Bastard!  I still struggle with that.

I slept like a log. 

Speech and Teach

Teacher took an unexpected turn Thursday by starting a long speech about Karate/Tang Soo Do.  I’m not sure what spurred that on, but it was nice to see everyone pay attention and try to absorb a bit of history on the art. 

The second half of class included my lesson on crescent kicks.  Thankfully I had talked to teacher for a bit before I started because my normal “get faster as I get stressed” technique appeared to be in check. 

I started everyone off with some front kicks to warm up and then move to a quick speech on the inside crescent.  I keep in same position while they got used to that and then had them move forward with the kick.  Since then they seemed so comfortable we went to outside crescents and I could see right away that that was a more difficult skill to absorb.  I ended up using a pad so they could see where to bring the power in that kick and noticed that several people, although low, could generate a lot of force without losing balance.  Cool!

We ended the class with an advanced technique that required a mat.  It led from our earlier exercises with elbow deflection and attack.  Teacher has us working on moving into an attack quite a bit which is tough for us to learn, but oh so effective.  This time we lead in with an elbow and go to a trip/throw.  Very fun, but my back sure complained about it all night.  I forgot the Ibuprofin.

Lesson 2

Last night was my second attempt at a lesson.  I only had the vaguest idea of what I was going to do, because I figured Teacher was going to keep things basic.  When he split the class in the 2nd hour and placed me with Teacher Slim I definitely didn’t do well.

Teacher Slim, who rarely comes to class anymore, has a very eclectic teaching style.  Basically, whatever comes to him he will teach.  So super advanced technique will be taught hand in hand with some basic skill. 

Teacher Slim also has 4 black belts and is probably pushing 60, but he can snap me like a wet towel so I find “teaching” with him to be very intimidating.  Plus, my teaching style is very methodic and poorly timed.  So together the students in our group has a constant questioning look on their faces. 

-segue-
Teacher asked us a question, “what’s the difference between a professional and a Master?”  I was about to spout out, “the pay,” but held my tongue. 
He said, “the professional will practice the move until he gets it right and the Master practices the move until he never gets it wrong.”  Awesome.

Teacher Slim’s specialties are locks, painful locks, and brutal take downs.  Whereas my specialty is nothing.  Great teaching combo.  Anyway we started with kotegashi (wrist twist) which is fun, but when you work with younger folks with flexible wrists it becomes very difficult.  In steps Teacher Slim.  He introduces the concept of “softening” the opponent.   After locking the wrist up and bringing to your abdomen while turning, bring up your elbow into the face of the Uke and that will help he/she fall down easier.  Needless to say there was a lot of elbow-cheekbone contact, but the Uke does go down.

As the endless hour moved on I realized my anxiety to make a good lesson was being channeled into talking faster and moving faster which translated into a crappy teaching experience.  I really need to breath more and slow up.  Hell, even Teacher will stop and think and no one even blinks about that.

Back to the beginning - again

I can't believe that so much time has gone by since the last post. At least I'm going to class regularly again, but (I'm having a hard time remembering to post the next day and then class comes up again and I forgot what I was going to write about.

After I got back from vacation I was in for a surprise. Teacher warned me, but I still couldn't believe it. Our class ranks have swelled unbelievably. For the first time our class has a consistent number of members (around 14). In repsonse Teacher has stepped up his game on teaching. He's become more concise, more timely and impressive in his ability to match the class to the general skill level of everyone. I find myself a bit bored and then force myself to focus on my form and movement. The classes are flying bye at incredible speed.

Now that I'm trying to teach segments I'm finding that matching to the class is incredibly difficult. I came somewhat prepared to work on breakfalls and basic slaps, but Teacher looked at the class that was big as hell and filled with too many new folks and said maybe next week. I realized then that until the bulk of folks get the handle on blocks and kicks taking falls is going to be a ways off. There isn't going to be any sparring for awhile either. Sad face.

So it appears to me that I'll be working on the basics with everyone else and also teaching the same as well.

After Teacher and I had our discussion about being more assertive I've taking a more forward approach to the class. Having mostly new folks makes this easy and that makes correcting my long-time classmates a lot easier too. Maybe this growth will come along after all. I still find myself going over incidents and wondering if I would have handled it differently. Being assertive in real life is a significant change in the way I've handled myself so I see this as a long term project.

Lessons

I’m very behind in writing because life is complicated, but I just wanted to jot down a few notes about my last class.  I talked with Teacher about doing a section in class as he had suggested.  I picked side-kicks and told him what I’d be doing.  I took up a majority of the 2nd hour, but it felt like a longer time.  It’s tiring to do all the thinking as well as the work.

The lesson:
- side kicks
- side kick with step behind
- water dummy practice
- partner drills

The first three were pretty good, but the partner drills were pretty crappy.  We really needed folks of similar height and flexibility to start off, but it didn’t go that way.   Short, tall, flexible, not – argh!

Stance

Crick, crack.  Crick Crack.  “Jeeze,” I thought to myself.  “Is this what my wife heard over the years?” 

With the plethora of new students Teacher is making a very solid beginners lesson plan which requires endless repetition of the kicks and work on stances.  In our discussions last year before my Brown Belt exam he was emphasizing that I needed to be an example in form and so on.   The primary example is that I present the stance in it’s most traditional form (Japanese not Korean).  Let’s just say that I have a very difficult time having the top of my leg in parallel to the ground. 

So he explains to the class that because of my age some the things that should be done and emulated aren’t going to happen. 

Well, pride goeth before the fall.  I forced myself in a lower stance (still not the parallel) and felt pretty good about it because it wasn’t too uncomfortable on my knees – and then noticed the clicking noise.  That just doesn’t sound healthy. 

Long story short – I’m back on the glucosamine and cutting back on jogging. 

After class back to Teachers place for beer and therapy.  Then called into work at midnight.  Tough morning the next day.

A Well Executed Day

I normally jot down my notes either the night of class or the next day before work gets started,  so this is a bit behind since we have class tonight and I’m writing about something that has happened almost five days ago.

The class was invigorated with some more new students so we actually started fairly early and has a small rest break making our class closer to the 2 hours that I say we do, but normally don’t. 

Teacher is still on the formula, so I was able to apply a few things after our talk to the class.  When I was leading the warm-ups I simply didn’t ask permission and told people what to do.  I led people in counting and did some corrections and hints through out the class. 

The hardest thing to do for me is to consciously get my mind in the correct place.  I’m doing a lot of self checking and stopping myself from placing the way I speak and think in the pejorative.  I find this exhausting and distracting.  However, it keeps my mouth shut more often.  Probably a nice break for my friends. 

The Big Talk

I think I may have mentioned that Teacher and I talked briefly about what’s next in my development.  After class last night we met for an hour and half on what’s expected of me for my Black Belt. 

I don’t think I can put everything into a nutshell, but it felt like a particularly intensive therapy session.  I came in thinking that we’d be talking about physical requirements and how to figure that out based on my age, but Teacher wants to focus on these things:

- be assertive (without being a dick)
- teach portions of the class in a more formal manner
- be more situationally aware

I left thinking I rather have a hard physical test (which he assured me I would) than the above.  Situational awareness can be worked on all the time, but the other things are going to require to me face aspects of myself that are a struggle.  By my very nature I’m easy going to a fault and avoid all conflict.  However I’ll do this to the nth degree; so much so that it creates conflict in other areas. 

Unfortunately there isn’t a syllabus that outlines how do this, but when I started my campaign to stop apologizing all the time it was a very small component.  Next stop – stop with all the self depreciation, and then figure out how to accept that I know some stuff. 

I know that in class I have asked the students if they want to do something instead of telling them.  How’s does one retool one aspect of their personality without changing who they are?  I don’t think I can do a major change, but Teacher says that I will do this without any problem.  Interesting times ahead.

---

Two new kids in class.  Several out on injury (not from class).  So a good time that went by quickly.

Fat On One Side

I was blabbing with Teacher last week and he had mentioned in passing that Beard would be testing.  I had forgotten that and was wondering why Teacher was dragging his feet about starting class last night. 

Teacher has either become formulaic or stuck in a rut; either way I’m enjoying it.  This is the formula:

- Run through all strikes
- Run through all kicks
- drills using above
- variation drills
- break
- kata/hyungs
- light sparring
- testing (last night anyway)

My concern is that this will go by the wayside now that testing is done for a bit.  Even though I’ve been back for a week I’m enjoying the regularity and consistency.

Little Sister and Beard both tested for their rank last night.  It’s interesting to see them both do something similar with their decades of age difference.  Beard, at 50 plus, was pulling some super low stances, but was shaky on basic kicks. 

I have never perspired that much in one setting.  It was a bit better than Tuesday.  When we were stretching I asked if it was possible to be fat one on one side.  Teacher quickly replied, “only if you have a swollen liver.”  The laughter didn’t die down for about five minutes. 

Panic and Pain

I was talking to Teacher before class telling him how I felt.  It felt like the day before tournament.  A mini panic attack induced by adrenaline.  Lots of shallow, rapid breathing.  Of course, as soon as I talked about it I could breath fine.  What a head case I’ve been.  I’m not even sure what’s kept me away for this long, but I’ve been generated plenty of excuses or finding any reason not to go. 

The standard is my wife saying the weather is nice and that we should do something special.  My first impulse is to blow off beatings and hang out in the lawn with her.  Let’s just say that I followed that impulse a lot this summer.

Class is more of the same from the past, but it was awesome to come back and get moving again.  I think I’d been psychologically and physically preparing for the last month or so.  I’ve been back to the gym working out and running more to get my heart squared away.  I found out that it really doesn’t.  Something about waving your hands and feet in the air doesn’t correspond with running a mile every couple of days. 

I had to lay down at the break.  Too much great exercise.

The 2nd hour was katas/hyungs.  The last 15 minutes was sparring.  I love sparring and when I’m doing good I have a hard time describing the feeling of euphoria that overcomes me.  It destroys a good night of sleep because of the adrenaline.  I think it must be the fact that I think I can “handle” myself in a physical situation.  After all the years of class feel like they pay off as it were.

So I’m sparring with older sister and she kicks into my kick and breaks my little toe and then in the next exchange she kicks a divot out of my shin.  

I was immediately angry because this girl has been coming consistently for a year and still doesn’t know how to control her punches and kicks.  We, the class, are guilty of subtly encouraging this because give her nods every time she does something “tough.”  This was meant as an encouragement to the others to be tougher, but we’ve all forgotten that everyone has to develop their inner tough-guy in their own way. 

I’m such a moody bastard.

Big Class

After being off last week I wasn’t really thinking of any surprises when I walked through the door.  The kids class was finishing up and they had about five kids altogether.  My presumption was that we’d have the same, but low and behold 10 people showed up! 

I led the warm-ups and then Teacher took us through the basics (strikes till your arms fall out and kicks until your knees shake).  I realized in the middle of this how sharp his eyes are for quick correction.  There is a constant litany of “turn your foot more, bend your knee more, bring your leg up farther, etc.” during the basics.  I tend to get cocky and he still corrects me on sloppy technique.

I was partnered with a new guy (Swede’s Dad) and warned him about protecting his shoulders during all the Shudo’s and Hammerfist practice.  I explained that it’s like throwing a baseball over and over again with both arms.  It shouldn’t be done at full intensity during practice until thoroughly warmed and then you still have to watch it.  He pulled up his sleeve and showed me the worse surgical site I’ve seen outside of the “Operation” on TV.  He had been bull and bronco rider in the rodeo and ended up being thrown monumentally and then stomped on.  Yikes.

Before class Beard was in an obviously good mood.  When queried he was delighted to share the fact that he had a cortisone shot in his shoulder.  After years of impingement he has a new lease of life.  I now have to watch his left side strikes.

I mentioned the number of attendees because when the class reaches these numbers we work extremely well.  There’s a lot less superfluous time.  Everyone is pretty on task and fairly well focused.  A rarity.

Swede moved up to the adult class.  Her Father promised that he’d attend class as well is she went that far. 

Swede’s Mom always watches the class.  At break Beard asked her why she didn’t want to participate.  She replied, “I have so many other ways to create pain.”  I could see Beard suppress an outward groan.  He appeared to want to look disappointed in her or I could have been projecting my own feelings on him.

Age and wisdom

In the evening after class, I often think of clever titles or themes for the post I’m going to right, but you should know you (the reader) never gets to see any of them.  I’m usually groggy because it’s later in the evening and my internal clock is trying to relax me after getting smacked around by kids half my age. 

The newest theme that has been cropping up is one of aging.  When does a striking/kicking based martial art become no longer appropriate due to the age of the practitioner?  Taking into account that several folks over 40 are in phenomenal shape (not me) I can’t help but wonder if I’m making myself worse off when me and my partner have to stop and message our knees while the teenagers look on in a mixture of humor, disgust, and pity. 

I was partnered for bit with the returning black belt last night.  He’s a really pleasant, nice guy who likes to laugh, but he’s gained a lot weight in the last few years.  So he’s coming back to Karate to get some fitness going.  The perfect guy for me because I perpetually feel the same way.  Although lately it’s more due to fact that the last year had sporadic attendance to class. 

Technically we are both proficient in our strikes and blocks – Teacher is still pushing “in close” fighting techniques – be me and the other guy would only get so far before we’d have to break and take a minute breather.  Shameful really, but we both will endeavor to do less of this in upcoming weeks. 

On the aging front Teacher is experiencing the weirdest physical problem that I know is causing him a lot of anxiety.  He normally struggles with plantar fasciitis, but now his ankles appear to be retaining fluid and appear to be painful.   He’s definitely not one to seek out medical care, but he’s got be close on this one.  Ouch.

Caught a ridge hand across the bridge of my nose with a very large cartilaginous crunch.  Everyone stopped as I knuckled away a manly tear.  No blood after the sensational sound.  Dang.

We practiced diverting knee shots with our knees and elbows – oh god, do my legs hurt today. 

Caught my thumb in Teachers sleeve – snap.  Not pleasant.  No problem today though.

Weather, whether

I may have mentioned in the past that where I live we have rare decent weather.  I’m talking counting on both hands the amount of connected days of nice weather in the last five years.  This is a price we pay living where we do, but something strange happened this year.  We actually have nice weather for once.  And it’s been going on for three weeks.  Weird. 

I’m only mentioning this because the local sport is to determine people’s moods by how bad or how good the weather had been.  The standard mode is that people tend to stay home when it’s really bad out or go play when the weather is nice.  This makes class suffer, but no one complains because we all understand. 

So, at the end of three weeks of sunshine class consisted of me, a sister and one of the old black belts.  The minimal class can be very much like a private lesson, but the intensity is demanding.  I get frustrated being corrected and corrected over and over again on a move that I’d rather use muscle on instead of proper technique.  That, and I feel old and creaky.  At least Teacher and the other BB where in the same place.  The sister probably laughed to herself at our constant litany of discomfort. 

We broke from our standard drills to practice more reality based stuff.  Basically infighting.  Use of elbows and knees with a ridge hand or hammer fist thrown in for fun. 

The 2nd half of class was lock and throw review (aikido).  I was partnered with sister and she is so frustrating to work with.  I just played teacher to her and went over all the basics.  Every time I do the techniques on her there is no effect.   Her flexibility makes 99% of our moves worthless.  When we rotated I went over to Teacher and dropped him in a half second with too much force – we both realized that you try so hard with Sister that you end up overdoing it for everyone else. 

Dang I’m sore.

Pilgrim’s Progress

I’m not sure it’s possible, but I think I did a little better last night.  There wasn’t too much huffing and puffing and certainly no dark spots dancing before my eyes.  I am, however, incredibly sore, but not in spots I figured.  It seems like all my connective tissue had withered and now it fighting to regain some resiliency. 

The worst is the top of the forearms near the elbow.  I don’t know enough of my own physiology to figure out what’s happened here, but I presume that the shudo practice on Tuesday must have done it. 

Without Driver and Beard the class consisted of Teacher, me, India and Giggles.  India and Giggles are teen-age girls.  Teen-age girls drive me batty.  I’m not the first one to thrown stones in that I like to have a good time and joke when I can, but teenagers can have these giggling fits that are unstoppable.  It makes me want to practice a chokehold.  Thankfully Teacher can help them focus.   At half time Beard, Sister 1 and little Brother came in to add size to the class.

Worked on Tuesday with expansion.  Teacher is making nice combos that even the basic students can grasp.  Fun for everyone.  I focused on unwinding the torso for more power generation, but because I baby my knees I can get low and do it properly. 

Ended with knife attack training.  Tried the knuckle punch to the hand and ended up doing the knuckle to knuckle.  Hands hurt today. 

Out of Shape

I knew it’s been some time since I’ve done any type of vigorous exercise, but this was ridiculous.  We were probably 10 minutes into class after warm-ups, doing a block/strike drill.  Teacher wanted me to do an inside crescent kick immediately followed by a side kick.  All of you know you just have to keep your balance and it’s a snap.  Well, after two sets of 20 I could barely breath.  And if I didn’t get my heel pointed all the way around to the target my hips would bind on the side kick.  Grueling. 

Maybe because it’s been so long since I’ve been, but for once the utilization of the hip snap to get the shoulders moving really seemed to work for once.  I didn’t fight myself too much and I was doing pretty good.  My lower back seems tender though. 

We did some katas/hyungs at the end of class and picked up a few pointers that I had forgotten. 

---

After the kids left one of the guys told us that he saw the cops put Nilon on the plane to the big city with handcuffs on!!!.  Apparently three assaults in two months.  This led to a discussion on the schools responsibility, liability and what to do if he came back.  Apparently he’d been asked not to continue at the Judo school.  I hadn’t even realized that he was trying to go there. 

It got me to thinking about our open door policy to accept any students.  Does the Teacher have the right to be selective?  His approach of let them taste and then they move on has always worked, until Nilon.  I guess we were all assuming that he’d “get it” after some point.  Ah well. 

Defense

In my defense:
- She's tall for her age
- She punches without restraint
- She's flexible to the point where locks are not functional
- She's about a foot shorter that me

So the attacker comes in with a punch, you do a cross block into grab (so you end up holding their right hand in lock with your right hand; standing behind the arm standing next to them). Then you hold their locked wrist, and brace their elbow across your chest. You take your left hand palm their jaw. Holding on that annoying pressure point.

Without fail when this is applied to me I'm in so much pain I can't breath. Without fail I haven't been able to apply to this anyone but someone my own height.

So Sister1 and I are partnered practicing this. During the demo I was unable to strike teacher just due to the lockout and position. I get Sister1 in position and ask her to hit me with total conviction that I have her locked up tight.

I end up sitting on the floor groaning, holding my kidney. Nice work Mr. karate man.

--

Beard pulls me aside after class and asks me, "did you hear about Nilon? He got into some fights in the last 6 weeks and got into trouble with the law." Whoa. I couldn't believe it. I thought Beard was joking. He wasn't. I wonder if he'll show up at class...

Time passes slowly and a bit quickly

By my last post I can see that time has gone by a lot faster than I anticipated. If it hasn't been work it's been school work slowly eating at my ability to get to beatings.

My muscles are so flaccid it makes me nervous to go because that's when the injuries seem like they occur (this is a lie - I find they occur when I'm feeling at my best and things get out of hand). Tonight the worst was when I was thrown the newer folks let go my hand and I'd get dropped unceremoniously on the mats. Not cool on the backside. I got partnered with Nilon at one point and missed the block which led me to a punch in the ear - ouch! Later I unintentionally popped him in the jaw -oops. I mean, I felt bad and all, but I'm celebrating now.

I can't believe I let him get to me the way he does - and I know I've ranted about this guy in the past, but he's like a bad penny always showing up. I hate that I have to mentally prepare myself to deal with him. As we put the mats away tonight he keep poking and elbowing me. I had finally had to stop and ask him, "are you okay?" Thinking that might shake him into some semblance of propriety. No go. He said, "I'm so glad your back, you're so fun to pick on."

WTF! How I am the guy? What in my nature or personality makes this guy gravitate to me and spoil my evening? In my heart of hearts I realize that I've got to make a boundary with this guy, but I'm not sure what it is. Do I just say, "you're a massive dick" and hope he gets the point? Or just stop playing at his grab-assery? I think that's the best approach.

What happens in the end is that I'm agitated and my experience is colored by him.

Teacher is off to foreign lands for a month so I can safety get caught up on fitness and school work for awhile and let my petty emotional rants subside.

Strike Again Harmonious Fists

Let's say that everything has a tempo.

I find patterns instructive and powerful tools for learning especially within beatings. For practice, getting a rhythm going just seems to create an expansive, hypnotic feeling. It's where you can let go of what's going on, step outside of yourself and look at what's going on in an objective fashion. Of course, I realize that this same pattern is the direct cause of problems in sparring or other one/two step applications because it builds up an almost neural pattern - a trap of repetitive training.

Last night I realized that without Nilon we established an otherworldly tempo of counting during the warm ups. Even if everyone finished the move at a different time the counting was always on the mark.

Later when we were doing partnered punching and movement drills I noticed the detrimental side of the rhythm. If a person has no rhythm then long-term drilling is subject to constant failure. It wasn't helped by me constantly stopping Older Sister and telling her to step and then punch. She punches with such confidence and vigor that I think she is more experienced than she is. She still makes the mistakes that everyone does...

Douchebag Chronicles

I had to leave class immediately.

I had to leave class immediately or I might have burst into laughter.

I ran up the stairs with a rictus like grin - smiling so hard I thought I'd tear the skin on my face.

Bob from Striking thoughts mentioned that guys like this will eventually have someone rain on their parade.

Tonight the rain came and the only disappointing thing about it was that I didn't get to bring the rain.

Nilon strolled into class a half hour late, but was on task and was fairly focused. But at the very end we had sparring. What a night it was. First, our new teenage girls showed that were tough as nails. Their session started off with a profound smack in the face that sounded like a gun shot. Whoa! Then came Beard and Nilon. It was epic. Nilon tried to bring the fight to Beard - literally trying his half-ass made up Judo moves on a guy with a Blackbelt in Judo; who's had it for over 20 years. I could see this going bad quick, but Teacher never made a move to stop it. Normally he he curbs anything that isn't right out of our book.

Nilon tried some grabs with leg sweeps that only got him punched and eventually knocked down. Beard swiftly got behind him and got his legs all locked up and then choked him out. Teacher finally called that and class was down.

Nilon was silent for the rest of the time and absolutely hermit like in the changing room as Beard and I talked about my adrenaline shaking hands.

I couldn't stand it so I left as soon as I could so I wouldn't burst out laughing.

On another topic I'm feeling a little more like a brown belt. I'm educating with some more comfort and I know in the sparring I look a hell of a lot better than the others. I got a spinning heel kick in on Teacher tonight, but I'm sore as all get out.

Douchebag Analysis

By the calendar it appears that a month has gone by since my last attendance to beatings. After a rich diet of beer and finishing other peoples meals for a month beatings was going to be hard. Thankfully everyone else appeared be doing about the same after the holidays.

Things haven't changed much with the group. Still a plethora of teenage girls with some of our original gang. Teacher is out of a lot of instruction due to a rotator cuff problem - even punching is painful.

Nilon is there of course. I was mentally prepared to see him so it was no surprise when he showed up late and joined the warmups, which I was leading, fouls the count by either shouting extremely loudly or off by a few beats and then precedes to do his own thing during stretching. Nilon is devotee to long distance running, but never figured out how to stretch. He is about the most inflexible person I've ever met and refuses to put time or effort into the process. So he gripes and ends up doing whatever. Although it's not limited to the stretching - if anything can't keep his attention for more than a minute he's off and doing something else. And I thought my ADD was bad.

I'd like to say that I've gotten used to his unintentional douchebaggery after a few years, but that would be a lie. The typical even that drives me nuts is that we have a standard drill (one step sparring) and he immediately starts doing whatever he wants. Teacher normally stops him and refocuses him, but it doesn't last very long. So it always with some trepidation when I get partnered with him. Last night he proved to be gentle and kept telling to relax! What a change. I bet it only lasts a week.

I was nicely tired after the exercise and my legs didn't end up shaking too bad. This morning I'm not a bundle of knots so I count that a good start.

Shaky Legs

I'm not sure I want to count the weeks that have passed since I've last been to beatings. But here I was back and it didn't seem like anytime had passed since I'd been there last. Except for all the new faces. We had six teen age girls! What the heck? Teacher asked me to lead the warm-ups and we broke into lines to do punching and blocking practice. Fairly standard, but I was wheezing already. We were then put into pairs and I got one of the new girls that had a gi from a previous school. Didn't mind hitting there I guess. More bruises for me.

After awhile practicing the shudo strikes we went to wrist locks and my partner had to stop for a second because her legs were shaking. She had gone horseback riding previous to class. No calories and frazzled body.

As I walked up the steps to my house I noticed my legs shaking as well. Months of inactivity have made me the human version of veal.

Life by the hour

I'm in school at night and I work a 40 a week job. My life has come down to a measurement of hours. I tell myself that I can do this or that based on it lasting a hour. So if I go to the gym - only one hour; if I work in the garage - only one hour. This has made me very compartmentalized, but I get a lot done very efficiently.

So it was with some trepidation that I went back to beatings tonight with the one hour rule in mind. Teacher wanted to talk quite a bit to catch up, but we got going and since I was the only person it turned into a 40 minute private lesson.

Part of my trepidation was my fear that I'd forgotten everything. I was surprised when we went into one and two-step exercises and then right to integrating locks and blocks. I actually remembered most of the stuff and could execute it fairly well! Color me shocked.

Training/Boredom Update

Teacher is back in town, but no beatings until November. So out of boredom I'm continuing to work out in the morning whenever I can develop the momentum. It's just so damn cold out that I have to break it up with something different on off days. So today was burpees and some pushups in the kitchen.

- 30+ pushups
- 10+ burpees
- 5 burpees
- 15 burpees
- gasping and retching

I think I'll go back outside tomorrow. Cold is better than burpees.

Downtime training record and a "Incident"

Since I'm not in classes for a bit and feeling better after a bit of illness it was time to jump back into the morning workout routine. As usual Bob at Striking Thoughts has added some motivation to my workout. In his most recent video he had something called "burpees." So I've added those into the workout and things have dropped back to the beginner mode. So where I was able to do three five-minute sessions, I can only do two. Here's today's accomplishments:

15 pushups
5 burpees
5 minutes of the knee/switch-foot drill
5-7 burpees
30+ pushups
5 minutes of drill
30ish pushups
5ish burpees.

Needless to say I was completely gassed. I'll remind you that I was in a 37 degree room doing this and I was completely soaked. It took a good part of an hour to cool down.
---

So I'm at my friends birthday party this weekend. She's quite fit and knew that I attempted to be a gymnast in High school. She proudly showed a set of rings she'd bolted into her ceiling in her training room. I asked immediately if I could try them out. No problem she said. I pulled myself into an inverted pike (feet straight up, head down, and then lowered my legs into a "L"). This was followed by a crack, a bunch of disorientation and me sitting on the floor holding one of the rings. Both H and I sat looking at each other in disbelief. Apparently the load wasn't rated for 200lbs. Oops. Folks from the party ran around the corner not sure what they were going to see - me laying on my back holding one of the rings while H stood near by with a glass of Scotch in her hand. Nice.

Last class

With Teacher going off to parts unknown I felt obligated to go to the last available class. I thought he was just going for two weeks, but I find out that it's off till November!

Nilon was there, but he does appear ready to go. Little Sister was there and was handing out pain as usual. She loves the heel palm strike and managed to clack my jaws a few times. So painful. You'd think I'd learn to keep my mouth shut or move my head back.

Teacher Slim made a showing and showed me some creative locks to throws. My shoulder has never hurt more. I'm glad for the break.

Time flying

I've started school at night so I haven't been able to sit down and write at all. Just a quick couple of notes:

Teacher is going on a 2 week vacation. A rare thing indeed. This will help me catch up on studies.

Nilon reports that he is moving away. As soon as he said this I started feeling down because no one is going to challenge me like he did. It was good and bad. Now that I said that I'm sure he won't be going.

I tried to continue my morning workout and got up to three five minute rounds, but the cold temperature and just plain exhaustion has made me fight a cold and keep me in the bed whenever I get a chance.

Right Hook to Plateau

I've made jokes to my friends about being beaten up by children and can usually back it up with some horrible injury, but last night was a classic.

As anticipated the first hour was attended by just Little Sister and myself. Teacher still looks like death warmed over (fighting a cold). We got a new gal, Angel, who is roughly my height and weight. She'll be a good addition if she stays.

So Little and I are paired to work on one-step exercises. These have been expanded somewhat by Teacher so we can work on combos. So I would do two punches and Little would respond with a combo of punches and kicks. Right away she rams her knee in my side which drops me quickly and then does a redneck punch to the jaw. All I heard was, "bing!" I blame her for the rest of the night's poor performance.

I couldn't do anything without using too much muscle and over-thinking everything. Definitely not an aha! kind of night until Beard showed up at the 2nd half. He asked if I wanted to work on anything in particular and I said kotegashi. Each time we work it I learn something new, but last night everything he said was valuable and made perfect sense. I realized that for the first time I was able to learn a huge amount - I might not be able to put it into play - but it all made sense. Unlike the once in awhile insights. Have I grown?

Footprints in the Gut

I was trying to settle into a restive sleep last night and, as I like to do most evenings, catalog my aches and pains - especially after a vigorous class. Unfortunately for me the amount of heat I put off makes me a very attractive sleeping spot for our cats. Over the years I've become used to their weight on my chest and legs, but last night I noticed something a bit more painful that usual. The inevitable ache of a serious bruise on my abdomen which the heavier of our two cats felt was the perfect spot to roost. Thankfully she thought better of it after about of half hour of my twitching around.

The bruise came from a kick we don't practice that often - the thrust kick. Explained to us as a way to move people away without serious injury. However we proceeded to do just that. Moving from a front snap to a thrust required a retooling of strength and accuracy we didn't appear to have. So there was a lot of oofs and whoofs when the wrong footing or placement occurred.

The class seems to be going through a dry period again. We were saying goodbye to Lux and Beard will start back to his Judo class Thursday. Little Sister only comes for the first hour. So the new class structure will be Little Sister in the first hour and Beard for the 2nd. Hopefully someone new will come. I guess I shouldn't complain about the personalized lessons...

Segue

I was helping my wife prepare her classroom for the new school year last night so I didn't get to beatings. So I've included a video of me on the receiving side of Kotegashi as we do it. Not very smooth, but I find it effective.

I've also, finally, started a drill in the morning that Bob at Striking Thoughts suggested. Taking a wavemaster, doing knee strikes for five minutes intervals with push ups interspersed. In fear that I would go into arrest I started with 2 minutes on the timer and then three. Tomorrow I'll try three three minutes rounds. So far I'm better than I thought, but the wavemaster has a tendency to move away so I'm either chasing it down or pulling it back. I'm hoping to shake off those extra pounds from wine country.

Overcome

I actually counted four or more times that I tried to find an excuse not to go to class last night. I was hoping that my wife was too tired from work and wanted me around to barbecue. I got the barbecue correct, but I was ushered off to beatings while she went back to school.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon for me, and I imagine others, that it literally takes wild horses to get to class, but once there I feel completely at home and totally refreshed and invigorated at the end of class.

Arms of Steel was visiting between semesters so his little sister stayed for both hours of the class. I mention this only because we did a little light sparring and AOS was pretty rusty with the sparring portion, but his sister who probably only ways 100 pounds, literally punched and kicked me with near her full force. I was thinking to myself, "who let this cat out of the bag?" and "Am I allowed to do the same to her?" I was completely discrete and punched and kicked appropriately, but most of it was rendered ineffectual because she kept getting inside my range, so I couldn't set up a good kick or punch. I hate kids.

We ended class with something I think we stole from Aikido classes. Multiple attackers and we could only use aikido to move people around. Awesome fun, but my fat was slowing me down.

Post Vacation

It seems like I'm typing that title out more often than I thought possible, but I live a good life so I have the strength of ten and bleed my vacation time to the very edge.

I went down to California to hang out with my wife and help her pack up and come back home (she was in school), but while I was down there I got to visit Uchi Deshi. I got to catch the 2nd half of his class and we were able to hang out and get to know each other.

As an aside I would like to mention that I was in amazement that I was able to meet someone through the internet, travel halfway across the world and meet them and find out that not only could we tolerate each other, but actually enjoy each others company.

The dojo he attends is easily the most impressive place I've ever been to. Two stories high and had a mat area that easily 50 by 50. Incredible. Plus the location on the beach makes it a stellar environment in which to learn the gentle art.

Tonight it's back to class and I'm already out of shape.

Weight of the belt

Teacher asks me last night, "so how does that belt feel?"

My first thought was "heavy."

When I put it on it doesn't feel right. I'm sure most of that is I'm so used to seeing the green belt that this seems out of place. The other part is that whenever I get to say Brown Belt in relation to myself I have dichotomous moment in which I say to myself, "that doesn't sound right," and "wow, I actually know something." I starting to think that a large part of the path is to come to believe in oneself and the skills you have. Colin mentioned something along the line about having the skill of a Black belt and coming to terms with the other portions of the path. I can feel myself getting comfortable with the role slowly. I can feel others giving me more respect - perhaps I'm accepting it more...

I noticed last night that everyone has heavy bruises on their arms. No one is complaining so that's nice. We still look like a bunch of abused husbands.

Bumps and Bruises

Oh how I ache. I'm used to seeing these types of pictures on Striking Thoughts because Bob does TKD. Those bruises are just from knife hand blocks.

Brown Day 1

I think I felt different. Kinda like, "Am I good enough for this?" and "Oh hell yeah, I went through the gauntlet!" The gang was giving me a lot of respect though, which was nice.

The brown belt against my red gi looked gross. Oh well, at least the little kids won't be calling me Santa Claus anymore.

Class had six last night and we worked very hard. I'm still drained from Tuesday so class felt very difficult, but I swear everyone was working harder than usual. Lots of knife hand blocks and spinning back kicks. Got some great pointers that I was able to immediately work on.

Still tired, still sore today. Not much to write about..

New Brown!!!

I thought it lasted an hour, but I was told it was only 40 minutes.

I thought I was going to puke about halfway, but I didn't.

I thought I was going to remember some strategy, but I couldn't remember how to spell Tang Soo Do.

Teacher called me earlier in the day and told me the basic format of the test, but I can honestly say that it didn't prepare me for what was coming up. We had a standard class for the first hour which I found exhausting anyway. My notorious bad breathing (breath holding) exhibiting itself right away. We broke for a fairly long time (20 minutes) which I didn't realize I should have been appreciating a bit more, then it was test time. Teacher, Teacher Slim and Teacher G sat in chairs at the head of the room. Teacher ran me through every kick, block and strike, sometimes mixing them with movement or not and then I did our first kata/hyung, Kecho hyung Ill Boo and our seventh, Pyung Ahn Sa Dan. Might I add that I was incredible.

Teacher then passed the exam to Teacher G. This was the unknown element. I've only seen Teacher G about three times in the last five years and his background is incredibly hard style. He ran me through multiple exercises with pads and movement and then threw in push-ups and back up again. I was pretty much going to puke and keep thinking to myself, "Can I do this?" or "This is got to end soon" unfortunately it didn't. He kept going to point where I was going to drop. It was precisely the feeling I had on a cardiac stress test, but there I could stop. Here I could not.

Next was Teacher Slim. With a silly grin he asked me to spell Tang Soo Do. Mentally, I was, "no problem, and I love you for giving me a break," but we I tried to speak there wasn't enough blood or O2 in my brain to carry it off. I gather it was t-a-n long pause s-o really long pause d-o. He couldn't stop giggling I couldn't figure out what I'd missed.

Teacher was the final portion of the of evening's festivities. Sparring. I wasn't even really sure if we were going to spar since I was so exhausted, but that's what happened. First it was Nilon, the man that loves to scrap. In his credit I will say that he didn't try any of his normal "invent a move" crap and stuck to the program. Second was Lux. During the first hour we had been doing minimal impact work, so this was a big change and I thought he did really great for a new guy. Then Beard. I knew he wasn't going to pull any punches when he palm heeled my cheek. Well I honestly didn't mind at that point and gave as good as I got. My last bout was with Teacher who came onto me quickly, but the irony was that I was ready for that. I laid into him as hard as I could manage and the worse thing that came from that was him popping my ear with a flat hand. Ouch = ringing.

They had me bow, gave me a belt and then we went down the street for a beer. I had to drive down the block because I could barely walk.

My favorite line from the evening was from Teacher, "I told you to fight them, not beat them!"

Test Prep Interlude

I met with New Guy yesterday for a test tune up. He's got a great eye for detail. We went over my kata and refined as much as we could. We also discussed kumite strategy. I feel a lot better. I think just talking about it with an informed party reduced a lot of my anxiety.

I asked about his background. He has five Brown Belts! He's been studying since his early teens and never got to stay in one place long enough to get his black belt. Dang.

Test Prep

The test is in two weeks.

I totally wasn't feeling any anxiety about it until I started writing about it. Thankfully Teacher appears to be constructing class to address my weak points in order to prepare me. We worked on a deceptively simple/complex forward chained attack. If I didn't come out of the kick properly balanced then the rest of the chain fell apart due to bad distancing.

We worked on Pyung Ahn Sa Dan, which is the kata he wants me to perform. Super critical eye time. He pointed out a few things that cleaned up some moves, but I found even more that needs to be addressed in the next week. Yikes. I tried it this morning and I totally fell apart. I need to warm up more maybe...

The last part of class was dedicated to Rondori and he partnered me with New, new guy. I may have mentioned before that his presence is about the most awesome thing to happen in class for a long time. He brings in a vitality and energy that is incredibly refreshing.

At the end of class I mentioned to Teacher that NNG likes working with kids! He had heard that and I think he was quite enthusiastic about it as well. Finally we have someone who loves teaching and loves teaching kids.

Holy crap update! I just got off the phone with Teacher. He wants to move the test up to next Tuesday so Teacher Slim can watch/particpate. Where's my 02!!!

Snap

That was a break.

You know when it happens, but you deny it because in only hurts for a few seconds.

We were practicing roundhouses with focus mitts as the target. Teacher was holding it at whatever distance he saw fit and it was a bit too close for me so my foot went under the mitt and my pinky toe did not. Crack.

I feel like I'm walking with a eggplant in my shoe.

The news - we got a new guy whom I'll call NNG (new new guy) until a name surfaces for him. He's got a Brown Belt in Kenwa-kai karate. I'd forgotten how nice it was to have someone to do stuff with who actually knows what to do. Insanely pleasurable.

At the end of class Teacher says that testing will occur in the next couple of weeks - gulp. That actually sounded specific.

Ah hah

When I got my green belt, Teacher pulled me aside and said that all the "ah-hah" moments I'd been experiencing were going to become less and less frequent. Sure enough the plateau of experience vs. refinement set in and over the last year or so things have slowed down significantly enough to allow me to focus on improving all the small things.

Last night I got a new version of the "ah-hah." We were do a move that looks simple and is very effective, but the execution took two hours to learn. As usual anything with taking someone's balance and keeping your own is something I find very challenging. Last night was no exception, but Teacher was able to break down everything I wasn't doing and give me a metaphor or some correction to constantly refine the work. But the end of the night it was if I had 20 little ah-hahs. Nice feeling to see and feel such quick progress.

The move was to block a straight punch, move in a bit and get the blocking arm to grab the punching arm elbow. While Uki is still in forward movement continue to pull them off balance and give them an uppercut to the floating ribs. We then did three variations of follow up, but they all a foot movement, elbow lock and a shoulder guide. One throws the person. One drives them to the floor and one retains the locked arm and requires us to shoot our feet out and ride the person down to the floor. Hard work! Sore knees! Excitement!

I also added a few pictures to the slideshow of last weeks show off for my Dad.

Bruise Randori

On Tuesday I could only attend half the class as my parents were coming in that evening so I came early to the kids class to help out/participate. After enduring that for awhile (you have to really take the long view on their progress) the class finished and I was doing jumping jacks when Nilon came in and, I swear to you, only did two stretches before he came up me all bug-eyed.

He was ready to go and I figured it would be a nice warm up, so on to Randori. However, this wasn't our regular slow, light impact kind. His first two strikes were pretty powerful and after that I knew I had to be careful as well as pay sharp attention. Nilon is hyper-aggressive and almost half my age so his advantages lay in his ability to produce a continuous attack and excellent fitness. His weakness is a lack of skill and virtually no kicking. I've never seen anyone so allergic to stretching their legs, but it's to my benefit in this case.

So we started and I have to say in all fairness it was really fun. As much as it can be painful it reminds me of how much I have learned and how I might do in a real-life situation. A kind of verification and feedback on how I've progressed in my own eyes. Well, I got cocky right off and didn't bother to protect my head and caught a spinning back fist across the chops. Again I was thankful that he doesn't look first or aim because if that caught me across the eye or brow I would have been out like a light. Thankfully, it didn't do anything, but he actually was concerned about his shot.

I shook my head and it was back on. Since I'm about 5 or 6 inches taller I have a nice reach, but he doesn't mind moving in and using elbows. I backed out and circled and used my legs for some head kicks. Round house to the noggin - point to me. I figured I'd do that for a bit and set up a pattern, but I was too slow. He moved in on a midsection roundhouse and used both arms elbow down to stop my kick. I think we all know this is a horrible block because he had to take all the shock in the shoulders in an upward motion, but I really came out bad because it felt like I had slammed leg into two pointy bits of metal. A little bit later Nilon stopped the action on his own!

Although I felt like I had taken the worst of it, he was dripping sweat from every pore. I guess he felt he got what he needed and was done. I turned to Teacher and asked how long we'd been at it. I asked this because I can never guess how long the action is - it could be 30 seconds or five minutes - when I'm in the mix I can never tell. 3 minutes he replied. Not bad. I wasn't huffing and puffing, but the elbows on the leg were starting to make my leg puff up.

We ended up doing Katas for the next hour to continue to knock the rust off and I could really feel that leg groaning. I took the ibuprofen when I got home. It's still sensitive two days later. Ouch.