The saga of a new red belt
I mentioned several weeks ago that I worked with one of the red belt candidates during the promotion exam. He was very tense and rigid. This is common when he is training — all of his muscles are continuously engaged. His kiyap tends to be an explosive release of pent-up air, rather than a quick contracting of the abdominal muscles. I’ve worked with him on several occasions on relaxing during techniques, and while he works at improving these things, they do not come naturally to him.
Things came somewhat to a head during his promotion exam. He has high standards for himself, and takes his training seriously. But the dark side of that occurs when he doesn’t live up to his own expectations. And when that happens, he has a lot of negative self-talk. He was even verbalizing some of that under his breath when I was his uke for wrist grabs. I told him to relax, breathe, and slow down. All of those suggestions were probably as welcome as a tornado in a trailer park.
He was promoted at the conclusion of the exam, obviously frustrated and disappointed by his performance. At the end of the exam, the black belt panel gets a chance to offer some critques and suggestions of things to work on in the future. The comments by the other instructors involved the same concepts I have mentioned.
Two days after the exam, I got an email from him saying that he was going to suspend his martial arts training due to some personal (family and work-related) issues that he needed to work through. He felt that his martial arts training wasn’t helping him in those areas. He was also frustrated at his inability to get his basics straightened out. After sitting on the email for a day or two, I wrote him back. The gist of my email was that if he needed the time for personal issues, that obviously came first. But as far as training, I didn’t want him to stop due to frustration. All of his technique issues (short-arming punches and punches, slow turning kicks, poor balance at times, clenched kiyap) are due to the same lack of relaxation. I also suggested that if TKD wasn’t meeting his needs, that perhaps he might try Hapkido at the dojang, or possibly yoga elsewhere. I received a “Thanks” email in reply, but no other communication from him. I knew that at least one other instructor had spoken with him about his discontinuing his training, so there were other voices in his ear.
But, much to my surprise (and pleasure), he came to this past Saturday’s TKD class. He was in a much better frame of mind. He has decided to start taking Hapkido, which should definitely help him move more fluidly. He is going to scale back the TKD to just Saturday morning, which is usually a high-energy class. Hopefully he’ll be able to begin to apply some of the principles he’ll be learning in Hapkido during the Saturday class.
Yesterday was his first Hapkido class. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him afterwards (since I was busy teaching a class), so hopefully it went well for him. It was a tough class for a new student to jump into, as it turned out, since we were working a lot on a counter to kotegaeshi (wrist turnout), which is tough when you don’t know how to do a kotegaeshi in the first place. We’ll see how he does with his new martial arts focus.