More Sparring Notes to Myself

* Opponent does front foot roundhouse. Watch for the chamber (i.e., lift of the leg far back and pivot of foot), move forward to block, and then punch/kick when he's vulnerable.

* Opponent does front foot side kick. Take the kick on your side, but move in quickly and check that he doesn't have time to chamber again and kick.

* When doing double front foot side kick, try to chamber knee all the way to initial position on second kick.

* Double roundhouse kicks. On first kick, opponents instinct is to move head back, off balance, but then return balance by becoming upright. Try to use the second roundhouse at this point.

* When opponent performs a turning kick or punch, turn with them, e.g. counter reverse punch with spin stomp kick. Or counter back foot roundhouse with a back kick.

I forgot to say that these are notes to help me remember the drills our teacher made us practice, I didn't just have revelations about all this!

To Watch for While Sparring

Today we practiced the following while sparring (or as much as I can remember).

Is opponent on front foot or back? He's on front if rear leg is under backside. If he's on front leg, he can do front leg kicks. Otherwise not.

Move away from front foot side kicks. But after the kick, move close enough quickly so that opponent doesn't have enough time to chamber kick and hit again.

Block roundhouse kicks and move inside to punch since his front is exposed.

Counter front foot quarter kicks with a front foot side kick.

Try countering reverse punch with spin stomp kick.

Whon Hyo

I have started learning my next form Whon Hyo. I think this is my favorite yet. Its more complex than the others I've learnt so far, Chonji, Dan Gun and Do San. It might be I feel that just because its new.

This is the first pattern with side kicks. In the front foot side kick, from the fighting stance, say with the left foot forward, you pivot on your right foot while turning to the right, and chambering the left knee by bending and pointing it downward towards the floor. The back foot side kick is from the front stance. Say you have your right leg at the back. The first step is to lift your right leg high while bending the knee, towards your torso/shoulder. This is the chamber. Next, you pull your torso back while extending the leg in a kick. At the instant of the kick, the standing foot pivots, and you end up in the side kick position.

We used to practice the back foot side kick a lot when we were just beginning, but in class now, we mostly practice the front foot, just because we rarely start in the front stance. So my back foot side kick is a bit rusty, but its not a very easy kick either. So I'm glad to see its in the form, and I'll be getting some practice at it.

I saw a video of a person doing Whon Hyo here. We use more exaggerated low stances and a lot more pivoting motion of the hips while blocking. Power from the hips is one of the things that my teacher emphasises a lot, the other being really deep stances, the idea being that the deeper you are, the more stable, and the harder it is for someone to push you over.

Exercise => Mental Strength

Something a friend, TT, said to me:

In yoga, the poses are not an end in themselves. Their purpose is to prepare the mind-body for the rigors of meditation.

More Thoughts on Testing (Or, Its Not Just Me!)

It seems our school's way of doing tests is different from what I've heard about elsewhere. When we test, *most* people don't pass the the first try, especially all the way up to brown belt. On our last test for a green stripe, only one person out of about 10 or 12 passed right away. I'm not sure whether black belt candidates also go through testing and retesting, or whether they are expected to be more perfect.

Anyway, I don't know whether our system is good or bad. On the one hand it seems that we test *very* frequently, at least in the lower belts. We get good feedback about what we need to improve, and retesting and improving one's technique continues over the course of the next few weeks or sometimes months. So its certainly good practice for perfecting your technique, which is hard to do in a huge group during class. On the other hand, during testing, there is always this rise and excitement about testing, and then the fall of disappointment on not passing. I would think it kind of bums you out, time after time.

Test

I have mixed feelings about this test. In January, I'd made it one of my goals to pass my next test on the first try. That didn't happen, but I can tell that I have made a lot of improvement, and its no longer as much a matter of chance that I do well. I feel that I've got more power and better stances while doing my forms, which was lacking last time. And the kicks that I know the right techniques for, I can do well, its just a matter of saying the important points to myself in my head. So on the whole, my feeling is kind of bittersweet.

The white belts tested first. There were about 12 of them. I tested with a group of 7 other yellow belts. The start of the test threw me off a bit. First, my teacher called out our names, and of course completely stumbled on mine. It made me feel kind of bad and alien, I have to say. Yes, its long and unfamiliar looking but its not *that* hard.

We lined up in front of the judges, who sit in a row. I saw my judge take a look and something on my sheet, which had my name and rank, and laugh a bit. He then pointed out something to the person on his left, and smiled and then to the person on the right, and smile a bit again. Weird. I caught my judges eye and looked a but puzzled about what it was. I thought he was pointing out that I'd written my rank as 'yellow belt with green stripe'. Why was that funny? Were they laughing at me or my inexperience? Was I not supposed to write green stripe? Should I just have written yellow belt? I kept asking myself this crap and feeling slightly embarrassed. Finally, the test started. First, a sequence of different punches. Then spin stomp kick (huh!, I wasn't expecting that), sliding side kick, sliding roundhouse, hook kick, spin hook kick and finally a sequence of kicks -- double side kick, back kick, reverse punch.

We then performed out highest form Do San and the lowest, Chon Ji twice each. For sparring, we got paired off and my pair was last, since I was shortest. So I got a bit of time to catch my breath. My sparring match started out well, I managed to roundhouse kick my opponent, and got 2 points (I think for the very first time in a match). After that, I didn't do as well. My opponent would stand and wait a bit, not making the first move. Tired of this, I'd make the first move, and he would quickly move in and punch or kick. This happened a couple of times, and that was the end of that.

The last part of the test was breaking a single board with a back kick (this was our groups very first board break ever). My kick was feeling decent, but I didn't manage to break the board. After my second try, which hit one of the board holders fingers, my teacher said to me, "Well, you're done for today, and so is he." All the other 7 people broke it. So I'll be doing that again while retesting.

Finally, the results of my test were that I have to retest:

* hand combinations, since my hook punches are too wide
* spin stomp kick (! there it is again, it seems this is my nemesis)
* hook kick (my lift is good, but I need to flip it out better)
* spin hook kick (make it faster)
* Do San (Need to lock knees on punches, knifehands at the end shouldn't come over head. Backfists need a little work. Speed and power fine (yay!)).

The comments I received for free sparring were: Be more aggressive with your kicks. Try something other than roundhouse.

Reading over this, I realize I make it sound like everything was negative. I did get some comments on what was good:

* sliding side kick: very nice, could slide a little more
* sliding roundhouse: good, release foot a little sooner

...and that's all folks.


After the yellow belt test, a few blue belts and a brown belt tested for stripes. Then two blue belts tested for their brown belt.

After this we had our sparring seminar, which consisted of everyone who wanted to spar fighting against one of the three people on the team which had come to visit. One of the differences in their style was a lot more punching.

The testing ended with one brown belt testing for his black belt. He was first tested on all the forms. Next, he had to kick with various kicks onto a kick shield which our teacher held from one end of the room to the other and back. Then he sparred with one of the visiting black belts. It was quite vicious, and he had cuts on his face after it. Then more sparring with various people from our school. Next, he broke 4 boards with (I think it was) a side kick. Then broke 2 boards with a flying side kick over a table. Then a test where about 5 pairs of people held boards at various angles, and he had to break them with any kick he liked, all in 15 seconds.

And that incident with the smiling judge? I think I realized what it was. On my sheet with my test comments, 'yellow with green stripe' was crossed out and replaced with '2nd green', which I guess is the term they use in my school for the same thing. So I had gotten flustered over nothing.

Test Heebee Jeebees

My knee has been sore and painful since the last class, and some muscle on the inside thigh or the underneath of my rear of the same leg has been feeling pulled for a week now. I am about 80:20 in favor of the hypothesis that its nervousness about the test.

Testing, Stripes, Belts etc.

I finished all my improvements last class, and got a green stripe taped to my yellow belt today. I'll test for a green belt on March 3rd. We'll be tested on only four kicks:

- sliding side kick
- sliding roundhouse
- hook kick
- spin hook kick

so hopefully I'll devote a good bit of practice to each. In sliding kicks, you slide ahead with your support foot while kicking to get a bit of extra distance. I'm best at sliding roundhouse and hook kick. My sliding side kick is passable, but my spinning hook kick is rather miserable at the moment.

I tried back kicks for the first time while sparring today, but I must have been slow, because I got bopped in the face for my efforts. I've tended to stick with roundhouse, side kick and hook kick during sparring so far.

Falling Asleep in Class?

How, you say, can one fall asleep in a fast paced class which seems to keep you interested so that you don't even feel the hour fly by?

For almost every class since the beginning of the semester, we have followed the following pattern. We start out with a quick warmup and stretching. Then its on to practicing combinations and kicks and being told how each might be useful while sparring. We then have about 15 minutes of free sparring where every person spars roughly half of the class, in parallel. This is achieved by lining up in two rows, and each person sparring the opposite person for a few minutes, before we're given the call to "switch!" and then moving down the line. Sometimes, in the middle of this, we'll be called to "form a ring!" and then two people are called to freespar in a match. After freesparring, we practice our forms. Time permitting, we end with situps or leg raises.

As I mentioned, things happen really quickly. Though we've followed this routine, there is enough variety that I've never been bored by it. A couple of classes ago, perhaps due to our dismal showing in forms, Dr. S. decided to do nothing but forms the whole class. So not a few were surprised when after warmup, we were suddenly all asked to launch into our highest form. I noticed some people completely blanked out, just because its not the usual order we do it in. And these people are usually good at their forms and I see them practicing after class and so on.

So that's how you can fall asleep in class.

Channeling

Yesterday during class, I was channeling Anatoli Boukreev. Boukreev was an exceptional mountaineer who saved several lives in extreme conditions while climbing Everest in 1996 when bad whether and a series of unfortunate circumstances caused many deaths. Strangely, just about a year later, Boukreev himself was killed in an avalanche while climbing another mountain in Nepal, Annapurna. In his posthumously published diaries Above the Clouds, translated from Russian, you get a sense that he was a remarkable athlete and human being. He was physically and mentally superior and would climb tall peaks without supplemental oxygen. His preferred mode of ascent was a rapid climb, usually in under a day, which often amazed other seasoned climbers.

What I liked most was that he was not at all egoistical about his capabilities or triumphs. It's clear that it is his love for the mountains and the experience of the climb, the feeling of oneness with the mountain which drives him to climb these peaks one after another, not the quest to 'conquer' the mountain. He dislikes the increasing trend of 'clients' on guided expeditions who with little or not enough training for climbing peaks like Everest attempt to do so by literally paying their way there. Sherpas carry their heavy loads, oxygen, and clear the trails for them. They expect that by shelling out enough money, they can hire the expertise of the guide gained through years of experience to rescue them in difficult circumstances. Near the end of his life (he dies at about the age of 40), after the tragic events of 1996, he contemplates why people put themselves in great danger to try to summit Everest without the proper experience:

What is it that pushes a person to climb? Clients on our expeditions pay great sums of money to endure the hardships of camp life...Of course, inside each one of us is the ambition to reach the summit, to realize that you are stronger than obstacles, that it is within your power to do something uncommon and indeed impossible for most people. But one must be prepared to *face* these obstacles.
It would be far better if ambition compelled people to train, to commit to preparation that went from simple to complex, hardening the spirit. The individual should derive pleasure from the process of physical and mental development. The payment for ambition should be made in preparation, in training and improving oneself, not in the loss of a life.

His story really focussed me in class, and I found some hidden reserves of willpower to perform my best.

Shredded

When I first started, I used to tape up my toes (with tape left over from the jammed toe incident) to avoid this, but the last few months I've decided not to be a wimp, and to toughen up my feet!

Last Night I Decided

to shake off my gloomy thoughts and go down to the local chain bookstore at 10 in the night. I'd gone wanting to find books like Mark and Delia Owens' Cry of the Kalahari, which I had found very engaging, but the store didn't have much of a 'nature/ nature ecology' section, which was what that book was classified under.

Randomly, I found myself in the martial arts section. I ended up going home with Joe Hyams' Zen in the Martial Arts and finished it by midnight. I liked the story of the karate instructor who speeds the healing of his badly fractured hand by visualizing little construction workers working on his hand as he went to bed every night. I liked the small reminders scattered throughout the book like

'The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.'-Bruce Lee.

which gave me the resolve (I hope) to practice without unnecessary straining. And I liked the reminder about the distinction between having patience -- having the capacity to endure setbacks calmly -- and giving yourself time -- working towards a goal without setting a limit on how long it will take. These are things that we all 'know' but its good to remind oneself and to think about them.

Maybe Not

Lest my last post give the idea that I can now do flawless wheel kicks, I'll disabuse you of any such notion. I can't. I think I've just begun to learn that I needed to let my torso 'lie down' during the last portion to the kick, making it easier for the leg to spin levelly.

I had such a frustrating time yesterday retesting on the wheel kick. So, for the last few days, I've been retesting on all the techniques which needed improvement from my last test, and yesterday I ventured to do wheel kick. Result: I've passed wheel kick on one leg. I still find it very hard to keep my leg level all the way. I hate the initial jerking motion you have to give yourself to start spinning. There must be some more efficient way to do it, it feels so forced. And I'm not able to do the initial lift of the leg for long enough. A very helpful brown belt was helping me retest. I chose him because he's very good, and gives good advice. Also, he doesn't just easily pass you on the retest. By the end of it, I was almost in tears from the strain in my side of doing it over and over again. I also feel I am still doing something wrong if it is such a strain. But what?

I'm rather depressed today also because during the last few classes my side stitch has been bothering me again. Its quite bad when I walk uphill. It started in November and has been there on and off. Kidney stones were ruled out, and I scare myself thinking that its something like a ruptured liver from sparring. It would be nice if I could get some kind of scan done to set my mind at ease. But that is easier said than done. In November, they told me to come back again if it bothered me, and I hate this back and forth we have to do. I told them it could have come from an injury during sparring, so why can't they just take some kind of scan? It would really set my mind at ease. My focus has been really bad as I worry about this during class a lot. Its entirely possible that I just strained my diaphragm (or my side or something), and the stress of not knowing what it is (not to mention the stress of job-hunting) is at the bottom of perpetuating it. I am going to go and cry.

Look Ma, I Can Wheel Kick

Today we were practicing a combination where you spin stomp kick and then do a wheel kick. And something just clicked and for the first time, so that I felt myself doing a wheel kick the right way! It was as if a channel had opened directly from my brain to my leg and information was flowing freely along it -- it really felt like that. I think what I finally got was how to separate the motion of my upper body and my leg so they are at 180 degrees during the 'wheel' portion of the kick. Actually, I couldn't make out what I was doing differently to achieve this, so it seems a bit magical at this point. I have to think of a better way to explain, perhaps in pictures. Anyway, finally some kind of missing piece was put in place. I hope I don't lose it!

What's fascinating to me is how there is a kind of subconscious learning going on all the time, perhaps from watching others, perhaps from doing it wrongly and it feeling wrong. Then at some point, there is a threshold where the subconscious learning becomes enough to translate into action.

Combinations to Practice

1. Reverse punch with right hand -- pivot body before starting punch, then hook with left -- keep elbow on level with hand.

2. Side kick -- remember to have knee pointing down, then cock leg back so knee is pointing down, and kick again.

3. (??not-sure-of-name??) front kick -- cock leg close to body and then a high front kick moving foot from up to down (the idea being to surprise your opponent by bringing the kick down from above).

4. Reverse punch with right, front kick with right, then step across side kick -- remember to have legs cross before kick.

5. Side kick (left leg) then back kick (right leg).

--

6. Quarter front kick with right (right foot lands ahead), jab with left, roundhouse with right leg.

7. Front kick (right leg from behind) then back kick (left leg).

8. Knife hand (scythe motion) with right hand from behind -- keeping feet almost fixed, twist until torso faces left while doing this, then backfist with right, then hook with left.

9. Front stomp kick -- cock left thigh up, move leg high and in an outward circle, jab with right hand, then roundhouse with left leg.

When sparring:
Remember to counterattack when opponent's attack fails, since they are vulnerable at this time, instead of both just waiting to try again, as if by agreement!

Turning Kicks

I don't know if its because of the long break or something else, but I am having a lot of trouble with my spinning type kicks like tornado kicks or wheel kicks. I seem to have developed a mental block as well. Every time I do it in class, I find myself thinking...I'm acrobatically challenged, you need to be young and flexible to do this...and feeling that I'll have to resign myself to doing them terribly. Rather frustrating, as I'm not sure how to improve.

Recovery from Sprained Knee and Jammed Toe

I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but always put it off because I wasn't actively thinking of my injuries anymore. This is mainly for all the people who wind up here searching for injured knee or toe. Older posts (1, 2, 3) mention how I got hurt and what I was doing about it. But this post is about the recovery.

I strained/sprained(?) my knee some weeks into starting Taekwondo. For about three weeks it felt 'out of joint' (whatever that means), it hurt and twinged while walking on it, and would get worse when I went to class. I combined trying to rest and journalling about my anxieties at that time regarding my knee and other things going on in life. The pain gradually started subsiding after three weeks and I missed only 1 or 2 classes because of it, because I used to force myself to go, really. Two things: at the time it was getting better, I jammed my toe and promptly the residual knee pain disappeared as I was totally focussed on and terribly worried about my toe. Second, looking back, the recovery was speeded up when I stopped obsessing about when I'd be able to participate properly in class. I'm also glad I tried to go to class and do what I could. This wasn't without anxiety: the worry of making it worse, the worry of telling my teacher that I couldn't participate fully. In hindsight, I think being active helped.

At this point I jammed my toe while one-step sparring one night. It subsided in two to three weeks. Close to two weeks after the incident, I had to travel to San Francisco, and spent an afternoon walking around Chinatown, without any ill effects. After this, recovery was almost immediate. Going to class was certainly worry inducing. I was most afraid of it being smooshed by someone again, or delaying the recovery. Again, though it didn't seem so easy then, in hindsight, it helped to keep going to class. As time progressed, I noticed that my toe felt less and less worse after a class. This definitely increased my confidence about it getting better.

Oh...and though I rested and iced and elevated initially, I didn't continue after a few days, and I did no other physical therapy than trying to keep going to class, and trying to keep up my daily routine.

New Year

Best wishes for the new year! Especially to all of you whom I've come to know through your writings over the last few months. I've enjoyed reading your views on training in martial arts. I've learned much and been inspired many times, so thank you. I read about people who continue to train in the face of sickness, people who live away from home and pursue training in the country of their art, people who trained in martial arts despite initial fears of being too old, and teachers who train generations of students in martial arts without thought of recompense. Remarkable!

Have a happy and healthy year.

Learning Alone

Practicing alone is hard! The novelty has worn off from repeating the same things on my own, and my mind tends to get distracted very easily. After today's session I was thinking about why I feel motivated to keep practicing when classes are on but not on my own. I mean ideally, I want to think that such strong motivation is there in my personality, but I know its not.

One thing about going to class is that I get to be in the society of other people. Other than this immersion into closeness with other people, I don't have to many other social interactions. I don't have any friends outside of work. I've always been too judgemental and harsh to have developed any long-lasting friendships. But I do want to be with other people. So strangely, I am getting this from taekwondo class. The even stranger thing is, in class I am totally quiet, always in a corner, and I never speak to anyone unless spoken to and I will probably never be friends with anybody from class. Still, going to class fulfils this need of mine, and maybe this is partly what keeps me motivated to practice.

About practicing alone, I always wonder about my teacher. How does he learn new things now. I realize one doesn't have to go to a class to learn new things in martial arts, but what drives you from inside to learn without guidance?

Goals

* Stretching: I ditched the stretching routine I wrote about in an earlier post long ago. Instead, I've been doing dynamic stretching before class, and static stretching after class, as Kurz advises. I think its worked well for me. My goal now is to stretch every morning in addition.

* Forms: I've managed to practice my forms 5 times each everyday during my break. I want to take it up to 20 times each everyday. The only thing I'm worried about is without someone to point out my mistakes, I might just be doing things wrong many times over.

* Testing: I want to pass my next test the first time round. This is going to be the toughest...its not that the tests are impossible, but I need to be able to make it to all classes and practice a lot at home. Unfortunately, I'm travelling a lot next semester. But I will try for this goal as hard as I can.