back to your regularly scheduled programming

Holidays are fun. Especially when you take a bunch of time off. I did wear out my welcome at home though. I'm not the best house mate in the world and it's exacerbated by being around so much. I'm not sure what's going to happen when I eventually retire and I'm there to drive my wife crazy non-stop.

The week of Christmas was time off from TKD as well. My dojang is closed that week expecting no one to show and give the instructors time off for their vacation as well.

We went back last night for the first time. They've revamped the in-class schedule as well as the overall schedule of classes. We do warmups (stretching, push ups, sit ups, other arm and core muscle exercises) right away and then get into the skill learning. Toward the last half of the class, that is when we got to the aerobic side of things where we are doing repetitive kicks and really doing a work out. It was different because it just kept building and building. I was actually surprised by the fact that I wasn't so out of shape from the week and half off as I thought I would be. We started the aerobic part of it by doing sit ups combined with punching our partner's mitt covered hands. Sit ups kill me after a bit of time but I was amazingly non-winded and able to keep pace by the end of it. Maybe all this exercise is doing me some good after all.

I've also noticed a step up in the overall formality in the class. The instructors are getting us to be very precise in our movements and also in the rituals of the class. You must walk backwards toward the back of the room when getting equipment. They don't want the big crowd around the tubs of escrima sticks so they released us by rows to get them. Constructive comments on the exact timing of our blocking set maneuvers. Little items like that but in the big picture, they all add up to a more precise and better trained TKD student.