State of My Arts

It has been a bit of a busy last month and a half.  We moved in the early part of May, from a 4 bedroom house into an even larger house.  So, packing and unpacking and getting things arranged for the house have taken some time.   We now have a nice, big 10 kW solar array installed on our back roof generating a significant portion of our elecricity.  And somehow there’s still a lot more to be done, as I’m sitting here typing this in the office and there are 4 boxes of stuff staring balefully at me.  The moving interrupted my training a bit.  So did yet another bout with poison ivy this week that caused my right eye to swell halfway shut. 

When I get busy, the first thing to get dropped is BJJ.  It was getting to the point where I was questioning whether I should continue taking BJJ, or if I should just drop it.  I do really enjoy it, but I have been stalling out in my progress, a result of averaging fewer than two classes per week.  I was invited last month to test for my purple belt, which I declined — I barely feel qualified to be a blue belt.  The invitation was extended purely on the duration of my training, not on my ability, I’m sure.  I started just over four years ago, though I’ve been unable to train for a number of months in that span due to a variety of injuries.  But the BJJ schedule has recently changed so I can take intermediate classes on Mondays and Tuesdays in addition to 2 hours of open mat time on Thursdays.

Last night was a gup promotion exam with eight students testing for ranks between yellow belt and black stripe red belt.  As a group they did well, though as always there are many areas of improvement.  Testing nights usually inspire me as an instructor, though it is usually because I see so many things I know I need to spend more time teaching rather than because the level of TKD is necessarily inspiring.  Last night was no different.  I think punching combinations and focus on kick placement will be an emphasis next week.

BJJ, TKD, Training

This weekend is another one of our parent school’s Hapkido seminars.  It’d be easier if it weren’t 3,000 miles away, though.  So we’re flying out of Philly tomorrow at 6 AM, which means getting up at 3 AM.  Then, due to a quirk of plane ticket economics, we’re connecting in San Francisco before we fly out to Portland.  We were last out there the end of Novemeber last year.  It’ll be a very long day, though I should have a couple of hours of down time before the evening session starts.  Two more sessions on Saturday, then we’re flying back on Sunday.

And on Tuesday, my wife and I are closing on a new house.  It is close to our current house, and consequently close to the dojang.  Much nicer and roomier, and just fits us much better than the current house.  We’re looking forward to moving in.  And I’m using the whole packing/organizing thing as an excuse for why I haven’t posted recently.

My back is in much better shape after numerous chiropractor visits, and I’ve been training regularly.  This week I’ve been fighting a cold, so not as much training.  BJJ is the first thing that falls off my schedule when I’m feeling a bit under the weather.  At the dojang, there have been a couple of promotion exams recently, including a junior black belt promotion.  I ran a plyometric-type of class last Saturday, and I felt that for days.

My weight ballooned a bit over the last couple of months, but it is back down to around 200 now, though I still want to drop that a bit further.  I’ve added a 15 minute workout in the early morning during the week: 5 minutes on the bike at a fairly heavy resistance level, followed by 10 minutes of lifting, ab work, stretching, or whatever else I feel I need that day.  That’s been working fairly well for me.

So, that’s my recent martial arts life in a nutshell.  Moving and such will keep me fairly busy over the next couple of weeks, but hopefully I’ll sneak in a couple of posts between now and then.

BJJ, Hapkido, Health, TKD, Training

I’m not usually much for reading biographies, but a really interesting series of blog posts came across my Google Reader recently.  The blog site is called Body Recomposition, written by Lyle McDonald.  He’s a fitness professional, who writes a bunch of things that are usually way more serious into the science of exercise and peak fitness than I can normally grok.  But there are sometimes interesting tidbits that I can hopefully apply.

It turns out that he has been a near-Olympic class speed skater.  This series is a fairly fascinating foray into the seamy underbelly of speed skating.  I just wanted to type “seamy underbelly”, though it turns out that not everything is quite copacetic there.  But the really interesting part to me is the psychology of someone pursuing a goal through significant obstacles.  He spent five and a half years pursuing the goal, and never made the Olympic team.  But he considers his pursuit a success.  He figured from the start that he could live with failure, but he couldn’t live with never giving it a try.

The first installment in the series can be found at: No Regrets Part 1.

Fitness, Training

My wife thinks I’m nuts.  There are several reasons for this, most of which I won’t go into here.  But one of the primary reasons that she thinks I’m crazy is that I like to do martial arts in the first place.  She can’t figure out why I’d choose to do an activity where I might get injured.

Considering that I have been injured a number of times, from my separated shoulder to broken toes to cracking skin, broken noses, and dislocated ribs, getting hurt hasn’t been a rare occurence.  And that’s aside from the wrenched backs, sore hamstrings, bruises, and abrasions, and the other normal results of training.  And on top of even that, working out hard at anything is difficult and tiring and painful even (especially?) when you’re doing things right.

I was thinking about this following class tonight.  The beginner class struck a nerve.  Most of the time I’ll do the complete warmup with the class, pushups and cardio and whatever else.  So I’m doing the cardio part of the warmup: jumping jacks, then feet front and back with arms doing the jumping jack movements, then legs front and back doing reverse punches.  Over half the class stopped to take a break as I was just getting going.  Then pushups were lousy.  There was a general lack of effort and just quitting rather than pushing to their personal limit.  Believe me, they were nowhere near their limit.

So I was thinking about the black belts I train with.  All of them are a bit nuts.  We have 3 black belts who have had their hips replaced, and trained before and after surgery.  Everybody trains through nicks and bumps and thinks nothing of it.  It is just a part of what we are.  And what we are is kind of crazy.  Frankly, the best martial artists I’ve encountered have been even more nuts than I am.

So I think that anyone who seriously pursues martial arts needs to be a bit nuts.  If you aren’t a bit nuts, you will quit, and most likely within the first year.

Here’s to being crazy!

Teaching, Training

My wife and I have just recently decided that we’re looking to buy a new house.  Wherever we buy, it will have an exercise room, though, sadly, it won’t have a dojang with 12′+ ceilings.  Heh.

That excuses my lack of posting for the last week or so, and will help explain why my posting will sporadic in the future.  Putting the current house on the market is going to take a lot of work.  But I really have no excuse for not posting for a few weeks prior to that.

Training is proceeding apace, and I do have some things in my mind that I’d like to post.  The process of getting it from my head to the computer is the problem.  Kind of a PEBKAC thing going on here.

Training

I’ve been out of commission for a while now.  My last full martial arts class was last Wednesday, 11 days ago.  Nine days ago, I went to Friday night’s Hapkido class.  I wasn’t feeling great at the start of class, and got progressively woozier until I decided I kind of had to leave and go home.

Spent the weekend with possibly a mild fever, an increasingly sore throat, and a great deal of lassitude.  The work week was much the same — I worked from home on Monday and Tuesday, went to work on Wednesday (a mistake, which I mitigated by leaving after less than half a day), stayed home on Thursday, then went in on Friday.  Congestion has replaced the sore throat as my primary complaint, but it is also one that screws with the inner ear such that doing martial arts would not be a good idea.

Unfortunately my hunger didn’t go away this week and the combination of eating and not exercising has left me kind of squishy.  With this week being Thanksgiving, I’ll put on some more weight and get more out of shape.  Oh, well.

Training

Now that I’ve hit 3rd dan in TKD, I’m reflecting a bit on where I’m headed.

In TKD…

I’m continuing to teach, that’s a given.  My training will continue as it has been.  I’ve been emphasizing low, centered movement, but I’m still working on improving that.  I also had the chance to watch part of a video from my black belt exam where I was sparring.  To my own eye, I looked slow and fairly immobile.  Some techniques were good, but my movement was only middling.  I need to work on quickness and slipping techniques.  My body type isn’t really built for that (6′ 195, large thighs), but I think I need to improve in quickness and balance.  Added core strength would be a plus.

In Hapkido…

Okay, this one is really easy.  2nd dan test in 2 weeks.  Many of the same principles I mentioned in the TKD section also apply here.  I need to transition from entries into techniques more fluidly.  We’ve been doing a lot of countering drills, feeling the balance and shifting to a different technique when the opponent’s energy changes.  It is great stuff, but I still find it difficult to quickly recognize the balance and positioning, and then figure out my best more from there.

In BJJ…

Finally going to start it back up!  It has been 10 months.  I’ve missed grappling, so I am looking forward to going back.  Here, quite simply, I need need to work on not injuring myself.  I’m going to try to work on technique and fluid movement without relying on muscling my opponent around.  Easier said then done… once the blood starts flowing in a grappling match, my competitive instincts take over.

In Kali…

Well, something has to slip.  I stopped it leading up to my promotion exam, and I didn’t miss it.  I think that means I’m not ready to be a student.

In Fitness…

P90x has been great.  However, for 2/3 times per week, I’m not sure it is the best use of my time.  The number of reps in the workouts is high, but maybe I’d get better results by splitting those reps across more days.  I think I’ll do the Plyo workout periodically.  Maybe I’ll try out kettleballs sooner or later.  If the weather cooperates, I might going jogging more often.  I went for around 2.5 miles on Sunday, and it was almost fun.

BJJ, Fitness, Hapkido, TKD, Training

Saturday was the “Super Circuit Saturday” class I had mentioned.  It’s one of the few ways to have fun while working out.  There was a decent showing, and everyone seemed to be working hard.

Sunday was a P90X lifting routine and the P90X Ab Ripper routine.  That was plenty.

Today was a test prep class.  Lots of basic kicks and punches with a stationary partner to use for target practice.  We always try to control distance and hit the dobok but not the person.  Then we did some Ho Shin Sul (self defense), followed by one-step sparring, followed by poomse.  I’m feeling pretty good about things, though I did have a couple of errors in my forms.  I’ll try to clean those up a bit more in the next couple of days.

I’m also working on a couple of essays that I’ll need to turn in before the test.  And that’s about it.  Tomorrow is a teaching night, and I probably won’t do anything other than review my forms.  On Wednesday, I’ll go to the Hapkido class and then help teach the intermediates (I’ve offloaded the primary instructor duties for that night to one of the other instructors).  I probably won’t stay for the TKD class, but I’ll leave that open.  Thursday will be a rest day, then Friday’s the day itself.  Should be fun.

TKD, Training

I already mentioned Monday.

• Tuesday: Taught the beginner class (big emphasis on basics: stances, blocks, punches).  Then I stayed for cardio kickboxing.  It was kind of fun.  Some movements I just couldn’t follow, but for the most part I didn’t look too silly.  Except for my pasty white legs.  Very reflective.
• Wednesday: Hapkido class (wrist grabs, punch defense).  Then I ran the intermediate class — sparring night.  Got the gear on early, and spent a large portion of the class doing movement/counter drills with techniques landing on the hogu (chest protector).  Then during the advanced TKD class we also did some similar drills, and I had a chance to work on my advanced forms again.
• Thursday: A one-hour massage.  Aah.  That felt really good.
• Friday: Hapkido class.  Lots of work on entries — I really need to improve on continuing my movement from entry through takedown/locks.  I’m entering okay, but then I don’t have an immediate plan and I’m spending too much time trying to feel balance and deciding what I’m doing from there.

Some more notes: On Wednesday, I joined in some of the sparring drills for fun.  But at one point when doing a back kick my feet shot out from under me.  I fell okay — more of a front fall than anything.  But I still tweaked my left wrist a bit.  Didn’t actually realize that I hurt it a bit until the following morning.

Tomorrow is “Super Circuit Saturday”.  We like alliteration — we’ve also got our Monkey in the Middle (aka Simian in the Center).  Anyhow, this is kind of a free-form circuit workout.  We’ll have the music going and a whole bunch of stations set up, from kicking bags to medicine balls to mats to jump ropes to weights, and so on.  It is always fun.  Back in March, I ripped my dobok pants doing squats during one of these classes.  Heh.  I’ll actually be running the class, so I’ll need to do some of the setup, and I’ll be keeping the stopwatch and bellowing out the order to change stations.  We usually do about a minute per station, and we’ll be doing that for about an hour.  Then I’ll probably have the class do a few lower-energy things, like breathing exercises.

Test day is one week from today.

TKD, Teaching, Training

Yesterday, I mentioned that there were a couple things I wanted to work on.  Well, tonight we covered some of them.  I got more work on Pyong Won, and we spent 15 or so minutes on bong forms.  We also did some of the 360 kicks that I wanted to do.  Not quite enough reps to satisfy me, but it was still good work.

I might go to the cardio kickboxing class tomorrow night for a little change-of-pace with my cardio.  We’ll see when tomorrow rolls around if I’d rather do that or Plyo.

TKD, Training