Monday: Snowed out. So instead I rode the exercise bike for 37 minutes, did some ab work, crunches, and kicks with ankle weights.
Tuesday Beginner TKD: I taught the beginner adult class, with an emphasis on kicking combinations. I worked with the green belts primarily on arc kicks, working on the speed of flipping the hip. Also worked a 1-1-3 combination, sliding off to at an angle on the side of the techniques. Then replaced the initial jab with a jabbing front leg front snap kick followed by the 1-3 (jab, hook).
Tuesday Kali: This week I actually participated. We did a double stick drill Heaven Six for a while with a couple variations (reversing one of the grips into an Earth grip); a single stick drill called Dangerous Play, which is a partner exercise on deflecting attacks from the six and seven angles; and a single knife drill called Palasut. Kind of weird how we mix English and Filipino terminology (though I do know that a heaven grip is sak-sak and an earth grip is pakal).
Wednesday Intermediate TKD: The theme today was close range fighting. I warmed them up quickly with some one-step sparring without a partner, then got them going with the Palasut drill. We introduce Kali and Hapkido into the TKD classes, so it makes for a nice change of pace. We had an extraordinary number of black belts around tonight, so every student got an individual instructor. I gave the instructors the mandate of working close quarters, but the types of drills were up to them: some did Ho Shin Sul (self-defense) against chokes and grabs; others worked knees and elbows; one worked some Wing Chun-style trapping drills. So it was a nice melange, variations on a theme. We finished up as a group working Sticky Hands, another Wing Chun-derived drill.
Wednesday Advanced TKD: Quick warmup, then into poomsae. My shoulder was sore, so my forms weren’t particularly good. We went through the Tae Guk forms, and the master instructor crossed us up by having us kick twice any time a kick appeared in the form. The black belts then moved on to black belt forms (Koryo, Keumgang, Taebek). After that, we pulled out the mats and worked one-step sparrings for a while. Finally, we finished up with some judo-type standing sensitivity/off-balancing drills — though it turned into a light takedown session with the guys I worked with. I worked with a couple of lightweights to avoid hurting my shoulder, and that was fun. Then we did the same thing from our knees. I was working with a 150-pound guy my age, so I had fun submitting him. He was still having fun, even though I caught him in a couple arm bars, a couple of triangles, and a couple of anaconda chokes. Believe it or not, I was careful with my shoulder.
The shoulder was sore today after having done the Kali exercises Tuesday night. It is feeling pretty good (though tired) right now.
As a bonus, the following is a fairly short video of the Palasut drill I mentioned several times. There are a couple of differences between how they do it and how we do it, but this gives a pretty good idea of it.
Today marks exactly six weeks since my shoulder surgery. And, based on the original estimate, I can stop wearing my sling today. In point of fact, I haven’t worn the sling for nearly a week. It feels great. If someone didn’t know I had an injury, they probably wouldn’t notice it observing me go about daily life.
I see the doctor again on Thursday, and it will be interesting to hear what we tells me to do. The original estimate was 6 weeks in a sling, the following 6 weeks regaining range of motion, and then 3 additional months of strengthening exercises before resuming contact sports.
Obviously, I’m pushing that particular envelope. I did a few pushups from my knees yesterday. I can throw some punches, though not with full force. Two days ago I hit Kali sticks with my left hand. And today I shoveled the walkway and used a rolling snow pushing contraption to clear the driveway.
Range of motion is also good. There is a little tightness around the incision, but I can reach my arm straight up and then backwards. External rotation is good. I can grab my hands together behind my back. In fact, for someone who has dislocated his shoulder a number of times, it is probably too flexible for the amount of strength in my shoulder.
So, I’m hoping that the doctor will tell me that everything is healing ahead of schedule, and will clear me for some light/medium strengthening exercises. We’ll see.
My TKD and Hapkido instructor is an 8th dan Grand Master in TKD, and a 5th dan in Hapkido. He’s an amazing martial artist, and has an amazing amount of energy and personal dynamism.
Unfortunately, he’s also been battling leukemia for the last 17 months. He’s been in and out of the hospital a number of times over that time span for chemo treatments. Last year, it was hoped that they knocked the leukemia into remission, but the blood tests eventually proved otherwise.
Today he went into the hospital for a bone marrow transplant. His donor is a 9/10 match — apparently he’s got an unusual type for one of the markers, so there weren’t any perfect matches. He’ll be in the hospital for at least a month in a clean room, and afterwards he’ll have to be very careful about avoiding germs, so we’re not sure when he’ll be back.
While we always prefer to have the Grand Master around, we do have an impressive cadre of instructors, and I number myself in those ranks, albeit much lower. Leading a number of the Hapkido classes is a 7th dan Hapkido practitioner (along with dan ranks in TKD, Judo, and Aikido) who trained under my instructor’s instructor out in Oregon for 30 years, until he met and eventually married one of the female black belts from our school and moved out East. We also have an excellent 3rd dan Hapkidoist who is an excellent teacher running some of the other classes.
For TKD, we have two 5th dan TKD instructors; one 4th dan; several 3rd dans. And so on. In TKD, a 1st dan is considered a “master of the basics’, and really kind of signals the transition into advanced training. At 4th dan, a TKD black belt is considered a Master, which is pretty much the earliest that one could run one’s own school.
So the fact that we have quite a number of upper belts means that training goes on at a high level. But we’ll all be looking forward to his return and we’ll be keeping him in our thoughts.
This past week I was able to rejoin some of the advanced TKD classes.
Monday: Class focused on Hapkido-type drills, and I took part in ones that weren’t troubling for my shoulder. I did a few very low soft rolls on my good side, but I didn’t want to take any falls.
Tuesday: In teaching the beginner adult class, I focused on one-step sparrings.
Wednesday: In teaching the intermediate adult class, the focus was on poomsae. In the advanced class, the focus was again on poomsae; due to the way the class broke down, I worked with three pre-teen red belts on Tae Geuk Pal Jang, the last of the student forms.
Saturday: This week, the Saturday class was a Kali class. I actually did some two-stick hitting, though I was very careful of my bad arm. Not a particularly intense cardio-type of class, but it was fun to be working sticks again.
In addition to the classes, I used the exercise bike (I think) four times this week, for between 35 and 40 minutes at a time. Things are going pretty well.